8. But that we may the more readily assent to what has been said, we must make use of similar passages from the New Testament. The Saviour says, "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what will I, if it is already kindled." If the fire which He came to cast upon the earth had not been a saving fire, at all events a saving fire for men, the Son of the good God would not have said this. And then there is the case of Peter, who, when with the sword of his mouth he slew Ananias and Sapphira, because they sinned by lying, not to men but to the Lord, had in view not only the edification of such as seeing what was done would show more reverence towards the Faith of Christ, but also the welfare of the offenders visited with death. He wished them to depart from the body purified by their sudden and unexpected death; for they had some right on their side, inasmuch as they gave even the half of their possessions for the wants of the needy. And Paul also, though he pronounces the sentence of blindness on the companion of Sergius Paulus the Proconsul, endeavours through suffering to turn him from sin to godliness, for he says to him, "O full of all guile, and all villainy, thou son of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season." What "season" would it be, except such time as, having been punished and tormented for his sins, he would repent and become worthy of both ways seeing the sun?----with his bodily eyes, that the Divine power might be proclaimed in the restoration of his sight, |233 and with the eyes of the soul, when, as a believer he would delight in godliness. Demas, too, and Hermogenes, whom Paul delivered to Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme, experienced something like what we have spoken of. And the man at Corinth that had his father's wife was himself, also, delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. No wonder, then, if the treatment of Pharaoh, so that he was hardened and finally involved in such chastisements, is to be traced to the goodness of God. For the present let the foregoing, which we put down as it came into our head, suffice for the words, "And the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart." If any one with due regard to God's glory should discover better arguments, and such as have no tincture of impiety, and can support them with the evidence of the Divine Scriptures, we will gladly avail ourselves of them.