For of the promises gives by the oracle to Abraham concerning those who were to come after him that "they shall be as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand of the sea," the friends of God are meant, on the one hand shining like the heavenly lights, such as were those of old, the prophets and our Saviour's apostles, to whom He bore witness saying : "Ye are the light of the world" ; but, on the other, the earth-born who lie upon the ground are compared to the sand of the shore. The prophetic word speaks rightly in the above, first where the whole multitude of Israel's sons, fallen from (74) their true and magnificent virtue to the ground, is compared to the sand of the sea, and then when it says only the remnant shall be saved. But I have now dealt sufficiently with the question of the remnant. And he says that this will come to pass, when "the Lord cutting short and completing his word shall accomplish it through the whole world" : clearly pointing to the Gospel preaching, by which, the whole Mosaic circle of symbols and signs and bodily (b) ordinances being taken away, the complete word of the Gospel given to all men has confirmed the truth of the prophecy.