When man was created, he was endowed withal with gifts above his own nature, by means of which that nature was perfected. As some potent stimulant which is not nourishment, a scent or a draught, rouses, invigorates, concentrates our animal powers, gives keenness to our perceptions, and intensity to our efforts, so, or rather in some far higher sense, and in more diversified ways, did the supernatural grace of God give a meaning, and an aim, and a sufficiency, and a consistency, and a certainty, to the many faculties of that compound of soul and body, which constitutes man. And when man fell, he lost this divine, unmerited gift, and, instead of soaring heavenwards, fell down feeble to the earth, in a state of exhaustion and collapse. And, again, when God, for Christ’s sake, is about to restore any one to His favour, His first act of mercy is to impart to him a portion of this grace; the first-fruits of that sovereign, energetic power, which forms and harmonises his whole nature, and enables it to fulfil its own end, while it fulfils one higher than its own.
Now, one of the defects which man incurred on the fall was ignorance, or spiritual blindness; and one of the gifts received on his restoration is a perception of things spiritual; so that, before he is brought under the grace of Christ, he can but inquire, reason, argue, and conclude, about religious truth; but afterwards he sees it. “Blessed art Thou, Simon, Son of Jona,” said our Lord to St. Peter, when he confessed the Incarnation, “for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father, which is in heaven.” Again: “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hath revealed them unto little ones … No one knoweth the Father, save the Son, and no one knoweth the Son but the Father, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him.” In like manner St. Paul says, “The animal” or natural “man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God;” and elsewhere, “No one can say the Lord Jesus, but in the Holy Ghost”. And St. John, “Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things”. The Prophets had promised the same gift before Christ came;—“I will make all thy sons taught of the Lord,” says Isaias, “and the multitude of peace upon thy sons;” “No more,” says Jeremias, “shall man teach his neighbour, and man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know Me from the least of them even to the greatest of them”.
Now here you may say, my brethren, “What is the meaning of this? are we men, or are we not? have we lost part of our nature by the fall, or have we not? is not the Reason a part of man’s nature? does not the Reason see, as the eye does? cannot we, by the natural power of our Reason, understand all kinds of truths, about this earth, about human society, about the realms of space, about matter, about the soul? why should religion be an exception? Why, then, cannot we understand by our natural reason about Almighty God and heaven?—if we can inquire into one thing, we can inquire into another; if we can imagine one thing, we can imagine another; how then is it that we cannot arrive at the truths of religion without the supernatural aid of grace?” This is a question which may give rise to some profitable reflections, and I shall now attempt to answer it.
You ask, what it is you need, besides eyes, in order to see the truths of revelation: I will tell you at once; you need light. Not the keenest eyes can see in the dark. Now, though your mind be the eye, the grace of God is the light; and you will as easily exercise your eyes in this sensible world without the sun, as you will be able to exercise your mind in the spiritual world without a parallel gift from without. Now, you are born under a privation of this blessed spiritual light; and, while it remains, you will not, cannot, really see God. I do not say you will have no thought at all about God, nor be able to talk about Him. True, but you will not be able to do more than reason about Him. Your thoughts and your words will not get beyond a mere reasoning. I grant then what you claim; you claim to be able by your mental powers to reason about God; doubtless you can, but to infer a thing is not to see it in respect to the physical world, nor is it in the spiritual.
Consider the case of a man without eyes talking about forms and colours, and you will understand what I mean. A blind man may pick up a good deal of information of various kinds, and be very conversant with the objects of sight, though he does not see. He may be able to talk about them fluently, and may be fond of doing so; he may even talk of seeing as if he really saw, till he almost seems to pretend to the faculty of sight. He speaks of heights and distances and directions, and the dispositions of places, and shapes, and appearances, as naturally as other men; and he is not duly aware of his own extreme privation; and, if you ask how this comes about, it is partly because he hears what other men say about these things, and he is able to imitate them, and partly because he cannot help reasoning upon the things he hears, and drawing conclusions from them; and thus he comes to think he knows what he does not know at all.