I should have desired verily, had I then
been Moses (for we all come from the same lump, and what is man,
saving that Thou art mindful of him?), I would then, had I been then
what he was, and been enjoined by Thee to write the book of Genesis,
have desired such a power of expression and such a style to be given
me, that neither they who cannot yet understand how God created, might
reject the sayings, as beyond their capacity; and they who had
attained thereto, might find what true opinion soever they had by
thought arrived at, not passed over in those few words of that Thy
servant: and should another man by the light of truth have
discovered another, neither should that fail of being discoverable
in those same words.
For as a fountain within a narrow compass, is more plentiful, and
supplies a tide for more streams over larger spaces, than any one of
those streams, which, after a wide interval, is derived from the
same fountain; so the relation of that dispenser of Thine, which was
to benefit many who were to discourse thereon, does out of a narrow
scantling of language, overflow into streams of clearest truth, whence
every man may draw out for himself such truth as he can upon these
subjects, one, one truth, another, another, by larger
circumlocutions of discourse.
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