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Orthodox Doctrine (Summary of Christian Divinity)
Metropolitan Platon of Moscow, tr. Pinkerton, 1814
1. Part 2, Section 1: Of Revelation
Part Second. Of the Faith of the Gospel
Those means which were requisite to reconcile God to man, and to restore our nature, and which never could have been devised by the wisdom of man, are revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures.
What is Revelation?
In Section xviii. of the First Part, we have proved, that man is utterly unable to justify himself before God, and that all the means which his reason devises in order to reconcile God, he finds to be ineffectual. But as it is impossible to conceive, that the most merciful God should have left man in the utmost despair; therefore, judging from his infinite goodness and wisdom, it naturally follows, that he himself should make known to us the means by which we can be reconciled to him, and be restored to that former state of happiness in which we were at first created.
This exalted method of our salvation, God hath actually revealed, which is known in highly favoured Christendom under the name of Revelation; under the name of revelation, I say, because God seeing that mankind were diseased, and groping in darkness, in regard to the way of deliverance, made choice of certain fit persons, (whom we call prophets and apostles,) whose understanding he illuminated by a certain supernatural light, and revealed unto them most wonderful hidden mysteries and prophecies. These mysteries and prophecies, inspired by the Holy Ghost, were, by them, committed to writing, that the truths which God had made known might remain in everlasting remembrance; and these writings we call the Holy Scriptures. In these same writings, St Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, has said, that the apostles preached that “mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God;” and it is further said, that the church is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” Eph. ii. 20.