In what manner God spake to Adam, and Eve, and Cain, and Noah, is not expressed; nor how he spake to Abraham, till such time as he came out of his own country to Sichem in the land of Canaan; and then (_Gen._ xii. 7) God is said to have _appeared_ to him. So there is one way, whereby God made his presence manifest; that is, by an _apparition_, or _vision_. And again, (_Gen._ xv. 1) _the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision_; that is to say, somewhat, as a sign of God’s presence, appeared as God’s messenger, to speak to him. Again, the Lord appeared to Abraham (_Gen._ xviii. 1) by an apparition of three angels; and to Abimelech (Gen. xx. 3) in a dream: to Lot (_Gen._ xix. 1) by an apparition of two angels: and to Agar (_Gen._ xxi. 17) by the apparition of one angel: and to Abraham again (_Gen._ xxii. 11) by the apparition of a voice from heaven: and (_Gen._ xxvi. 24) to Isaac in the night, that is, in his sleep, or by dream: and to Jacob (_Gen._ xxviii. 12) in a dream; that is to say, as are the words of the text, _Jacob dreamed that he saw a ladder, &c._: and (_Gen._ xxxii. 1) in a vision of angels: and to Moses (_Exod._ iii. 2) in the apparition of a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. And after the time of Moses, where the manner how God spake immediately to man in the Old Testament is expressed, he spake always by a vision, or by a dream; as to Gideon, Samuel, Eliah, Elisha, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the rest of the prophets; and often in the New Testament, as to Joseph, to St. Peter, to St. Paul, and to St. John the Evangelist in the Apocalypse.