The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others | Page 5

miraculously born to Abraham in his old age, who is afterwards offered to God as a type of the Redeemer, and saved from death by a fresh supernatural manifestation of the Divine will. The chosen race become captive in Egypt, as a figure of man's bondage to sin; a series of awful miracles, wrought by the instrumentality of Moses himself, a type of Jesus Christ, delivers them from their slavery, terminating with the institution of the Passover, when the paschal lamb is eaten, and they are saved by its blood, as mankind is saved by the blood of the Lamb of God. The ransomed people miraculously pass through the Red Sea, foreshadowing the Christian's regeneration by baptism; as they wander afterwards in the desert, manna descends from heaven to feed them, and water gushes from the rock to quench their thirst, and to prefigure that sacred food and those streams of grace which are to be the salvation of all men. Almost every interruption of the laws of nature bespeaks the advent of the Redeemer, and does homage to Him as the Lord of earth and heaven.
At length a code of laws is given to the chosen race, to separate them completely from the rest of men, and a promise of perpetual temporal prosperity is granted to them by God as the reward of their obedience, and as a figure of the eternal blessedness of the just. From that time with, as before, occasional exceptions, the supernatural events which befall them wear a new aspect. Their peculiarly typical import is exchanged for one more precisely in conformity with the leading principle of the new dispensation. The rites and ceremonies of the new Law prefigure the Sacrifice and Redemption of the Messias; but the miracles of the next fifteen hundred years are for the most part directed to uphold that rule of present reward and punishment, which was the characteristic feature of the Jewish theocracy. The earth opens to punish the disobedience of Core and his companions. Fiery serpents smite the murmuring crowd with instant death; while the promised Saviour is prefigured, not by a miracle, but by the erection of a brazen serpent by the hands of Moses. The walls of Jericho fall prostrate before the trumpets of the victorious Israelites; one man, Achan, unlawfully conceals some of the spoil, and an immediate supernatural panic, struck into his countrymen, betrays the committal of the sin. Miraculous water fills the fleece of Gideon, to encourage him to fight for his country's deliverance. An angel foretells the birth of Samson to set his people free, when they are again in bondage. Samson himself is endowed with supernatural strength; exhausted with the slaughter of his foes, he prays for water to quench his thirst, and a stream bursts forth from the ass's jawbone with which he had just slain the Philistines. Bound in chains, blinded, and made a jest by the idolaters, his prayer for a return of his strength is heard by God, and he destroys a multitude in his last moments.
And thus, through all the history of the Kings and the Prophets, the power of God is repeatedly put forth to alter the laws of nature for the purpose of enforcing the great rule of the Mosaic law. The disobedience of the Jews might, if God had so pleased, have been invariably punished by the instrumentality of the ordinary course of events, shaped by the secret hand of Divine Providence so as to execute His will, just as now we find that certain sins inevitably bring on their own temporal punishment by the operation of the laws of nature. And so, in the vast majority of instances in which the Jews were rewarded and punished, we find that the Divine promises and threats were fulfilled by the occurrence of events in the natural order of things. But yet frequently miracles confirmed and aided the work of chastisement and blessing; and of the numerous wonders which were wrought from the giving of the law to the coming of Christ, we find that nearly all bore this peculiar character. For many centuries also a constant miraculous guidance was granted to the people in the "Urim and Thummim," by which they were enabled, when they chose to remain faithful, to escape all national calamities and enjoy the fullest blessings of the promised land.
Under the Christian dispensation, again, a new character is imprinted upon the supernatural history of the Church, which is, in fact, the impression of the Cross of Christ. While the characteristics of the Patriarchal and Jewish miracles are not wholly obliterated, an element, which if not entirely new, is new in the intensity of its operation, is introduced into the miraculous life of the children of Christ, which life is really the