Of what we should now call the miraculous, or supernatural, communion
between God and man in Paradise, we know historically but little. The
records of revelation being for the most part confined to the state of
man as he is, and his actual and future prospects, present but a glimpse
of the conscious communion which was permitted to the first of our race
in their original bliss. It is, however, believed by theologians, that
in Paradise what we should now term miracles did not exist; for this
reason, that what is now extraordinary was then ordinary. God conversed
with man, and man held communion with angels, directly and habitually;
so that in a certain sense man saw God and the world now unseen.
[Footnote: See St. Thomas, Summa, pars prima, quaest. 94. art. 1,2.] For
it is not the mere possession of a body which binds the soul with the
chains of sense; it is the corruption and sinfulness of our present
frames which has converted them into a barrier between the spirit within
and the invisible universe. As Adam came forth all pure and perfect from
the hands of his Creator, a soul dwelling in a body, his whole being
ministered fitly to the purposes of his creation, and with body and soul
together he conversed with his God. It was not till the physical sense
became his instrument of rebellion, that it was dishonoured and made his
prison-house, and laid under a curse which should never be fully removed
until the last great day of the resurrection.

Upon the fall of Adam, a new state was introduced, which lasted
about two thousand five hundred years. During its continuance, the
supernatural intercourse between Almighty God and His degraded creatures
took an entirely different character. What had originally been
continual, and as it were natural, became comparatively rare and
miraculous. Henceforth there _seemed_ to be no God among men, save when
at times the usual laws of the earth and the heavens were suspended
and God spoke in accents which none might refuse to hear. Of these