"For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, ... when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which till then, lay confused in their minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly."
"The course which God followed towards his Church from the very first, was to supplement these common proofs [in Creation] by the addition of his Word, as a surer and more direct means of discovering himself....
"It was necessary, in passing from death unto life, that they should know God, not only as a Creator, but as a Redeemer also; and both kinds of knowledge they certainly did obtain from the Word. In point of order, however, the knowledge first given was that which made them acquainted with the God by whom the world was made and is governed. To this first knowledge was afterwards added the more intimate knowledge which alone quickens dead souls, and by which God is known, not only as the Creator of the world, and the sole author and disposer of all events, but also as a Redeemer, in the person of the Mediator [Christ]."
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian
Religion, Ch. 6 (1536).
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