5. In some bodily sicknesses, when the mischief is, as |229 they say, deep-seated, the physician with the aid of certain drugs draws and forces the matter to the surface, producing severe inflammation and swelling, causing more pains than those which a patient had before he put himself under treatment----as is the practice in cases of Hydrophobia and similar diseases. So God also, I think, deals with secret, deep-seated mischief in the soul. The physician might say in one of his cases, "I will set up inflammation round about the injury, and will force certain parts to swell, so as to produce a bad abscess"; and when he speaks thus, one hearer will not blame a scientific expert but will even praise him for, as it were, threatening to produce these effects, while another hearer will blame him, and will allege that a man who makes a cure depend on inflammations and abscesses must be a quack; so it is, I think, when God says, "I will harden the heart of Pharaoh." And seeing that these things are written, he that heareth them as the oracles of God, observing the dignity of the Speaker, accepts them, and every one who seeketh, findeth a way of showing even herein the goodness of God; for the people were through the numerous miracles more openly assured of safety; and, secondly, there was goodness as regards the Egyptians, as many as, amazed at what took place, intended to follow the Hebrews: for "a mixed multitude," says the historian, "of the Egyptians went out with them"; and there was perhaps a deeper and more secret purpose of benefiting Pharaoh himself, when he shall no longer conceal the poison nor check the malady, but draw it forth to the light, and perhaps by his conduct put a stop to it: so that having gone through all the stages of the eruption of the wickedness within him, he may find the tree which bore the evil fruit less vigorous, perhaps at last withering away, when he is overwhelmed in the sea: not, as one might suppose, to perish altogether, but that he may cast away and be relieved of the burden of his sins, and, it |230 may be, descend to Hades in peace, or in less warfare of the soul.