need of a _revelation_.

CHAPTER V.

XXXII. THIS revelation was actually vouchsafed. It pleased the supreme
Being, through His infinite mercy, to manifest His will, and make known
some great and precious truths, which men would have vainly attempted to
discover with the unaided operation of their reason; He chose to
undertake, to a certain extent, the education of mankind. From the
beginning of the world God revealed Himself to the first man; and He
continued afterwards for many ages, as His eternal wisdom deemed proper,
to communicate to such individuals as were the worthiest among mortals
the instructions which were afterwards to work the salvation of all
mankind. Those instructions, which contain truths by far more comforting
and sublime than any results which man could have arrived at through his
own faculties alone, constitute the substance of Revelation; and he who
acknowledges their divine origin, and conforms to them the actions of
his life, is called a professor of the _revealed religion_.

XXXIII. That God has really revealed Himself to some individuals of the
human species is an historical fact, the truth of which is proved, like
all truths of a similar order, by testimony and documents. But
independently of the existing evidence, the possibility of such an act
can be easily conceived by the human understanding, when we consider
that everything is feasible to the omnipotence of the Creator; and
nothing is more consentaneous to His infinite goodness and wisdom, than
the blessed purpose of granting to human frailty an assistance
calculated to lead the noblest of creatures to the attainment of the
exalted end for which he was created. To conceive, also, the precise
modes and forms in which such a revelation is effected or conveyed, it
was given only to those elect who were themselves the recipients, and
who are called Prophets. But we can arrive at the knowledge of the
principal characteristics which constitute prophecy, after we shall have
placed in a clear light the essence and the final object of revelation.

XXXIV. All the revealed doctrines may be reduced to one fundamental
principle, from which they originate, and on which rests the whole
edifice of revelation. This principle may be expressed as
follows:--Besides the general relation of dependence existing
indistinctly between all creatures and their Creator, there is a
relation more intimate and special between God and man--a relation of a