the ministry of angels, to His promises for the confirmation of
the faith of the godly._
I should seem tedious were I to recount all the ancient miracles,
which were wrought in attestation of God's promises which He made
to Abraham thousands of years ago, that in his seed all the nations
of the earth should be blessed.[395] For who can but marvel that
Abraham's barren wife should have given birth to a son at an age
when not even a prolific woman could bear children; or, again, that
when Abraham sacrificed, a flame from heaven should have run between
the divided parts;[396] or that the angels in human form, whom he
had hospitably entertained, and who had renewed God's promise of
offspring, should also have predicted the destruction of Sodom by
fire from heaven;[397] and that his nephew Lot should have been
rescued from Sodom by the angels as the fire was just descending,
while his wife, who looked back as she went, and was immediately
turned into salt, stood as a sacred beacon warning us that no one
who is being saved should long for what he is leaving? How striking
also were the wonders done by Moses to rescue God's people from the
yoke of slavery in Egypt, when the magi of the Pharaoh, that is, the
king of Egypt, who tyrannized over this people, were suffered to do
some wonderful things that they might be vanquished all the more
signally! They did these things by the magical arts and incantations
to which the evil spirits or demons are addicted; while Moses, having
as much greater power as he had right on his side, and having the
aid of angels, easily conquered them in the name of the Lord who
made heaven and earth. And, in fact, the magicians failed at the
third plague; whereas Moses, dealing out the miracles delegated to
him, brought ten plagues upon the land, so that the hard hearts
of Pharaoh and the Egyptians yielded, and the people were let go.
But, quickly repenting, and essaying to overtake the departing
Hebrews, who had crossed the sea on dry ground, they were covered
and overwhelmed in the returning waters. What shall I say of those
frequent and stupendous exhibitions of divine power, while the people
were conducted through the wilderness?--of the waters which could not
be drunk, but lost their bitterness, and quenched the thirsty, when
at God's command a piece of wood was cast into them? of the manna
that descended from heaven to appease their hunger, and which begat
worms and putrefied when any one collected more than the appointed
quantity, and yet, though double was gathered on the day before the
Sabbath (it not being lawful to gather it on that day), remained
fresh? of the birds which filled the camp, and turned appetite into
satiety when they longed for flesh, which it seemed impossible to
supply to so vast a population? of the enemies who met them, and
opposed their passage with arms, and were defeated without the loss
of a single Hebrew, when Moses prayed with his hands extended in
the form of a cross? of the seditious persons who arose among God's
people, and separated themselves from the divinely-ordered community,
and were swallowed up alive by the earth, a visible token of an
invisible punishment? of the rock struck with the rod, and pouring
out waters more than enough for all the host? of the deadly serpents'
bites, sent in just punishment of sin, but healed by looking at the
lifted brazen serpent, so that not only were the tormented people
healed, but a symbol of the crucifixion of death set before them in
this destruction of death by death? It was this serpent which was
preserved in memory of this event, and was afterwards worshipped by
the mistaken people as an idol, and was destroyed by the pious and
God-fearing king Hezekiah, much to his credit.