Jesus condemned by the Jews and the Gentiles.
The Jews and the Gentiles figured by the two sons.
Aug. de Civit. xx. 29.
The figures of the Gospel for the state of the sick soul are sick bodies, but because one body cannot be sufficiently sick to express it well, several are needed. Thus there are the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the paralytic, the dead Lazarus, the possessed; all this together is in the sick soul.
Isaiah, li. The Red Sea an image of the Redemption.
"Ut sciatis quod filius hominis habet potestatem remittendi peccata, tibi dico: Surge."
God, willing to show that he was able to form a people holy with an invisible holiness, and to fill them with an eternal glory, made visible things. As nature is an image of grace, he has done in the excellences of nature what he would accomplish in those of grace, in order that men might judge that he could make the invisible since he made the visible so well.
Thus he saved this people from the deluge, he has raised them up from Abraham, redeemed them from their enemies, and caused them to enter into rest.
The object of God was not to save them from the deluge, and raise up a whole people to Abraham, only in order to bring them into a fat land.