Section 446
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 415 glad. Be strengthened, ye languid hands, and ye relaxed knees. Be consoled, ye weak hearted in your minds, be strong and fear not. Behold our God has repaid judgment, and he will repay. He will come and save us. For he says, water has burst forth in the desert, and a pool in a thirsty land. And the dry land shall become a pool, and a well of water shall be in the thirsty land.' These things, uttered in ancient oracles, have been re corded in the sacred books. But, now, these things, themselves, are no longer addressed to us in mere reports, but in facts. " This desert, this dry and thirsty land ;" this widow and deserted one, whose gates they cut down with axes, as wood in the forest, breaking them down with the ax and the hatchet, whose books they destroyed, and whose divine sanctuary they burned with fire, whilst they profaned the habitation of his name unto the ground, and all that passed by plucked off her grapes, breaking down her hedges; she, whom the wild boar of the forest has rooted up, and the savage wild beast has devoured, now, by the marvellous power of Christ, as he himself would have it, has blossomed as the lily. But, even then, she was chastened at his nod, as by a provident father : ' For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.' Then, after being chastened in measure, as far as was necessary, she was commanded to rejoice of anew ; and she now blossoms as the lily, and exhales her divine odour among all men. For it is said, ' Water gushed forth in the desert the fountain of divine regeneration of the salutary laver. And now she, which a little before was desolate, is changed into pools, and a well of living water has gushed out upon a thirsty land.' The arms formerly languid have become truly strong, and these works are .the great and expressive displays of invigorated hands. Those knees, also, that were formerly debilitated and-relaxed, now recovering their former firmness, are walking in a straight course on their way, and hastening on to their proper fold of the al -gracious pastor. And are there, also, some that were alarmed and overawed by the threats of the tyrants, not even these have been overlooked as incurable by the Saviour's word, but he, thoroughly healing likewise them, raises them to receive conso