So when one says, "Moses meant as I do"; and another, "Nay, but as I
do," I suppose that I speak more reverently, "Why not rather as
both, if both be true?" And if there be a third, or a fourth, yea if
any other seeth any other truth in those words, why may not he be
believed to have seen all these, through whom the One God hath
tempered the holy Scriptures to the senses of many, who should see
therein things true but divers? For I certainly (and fearlessly I
speak it from my heart), that were I to indite any thing to have
supreme authority, I should prefer so to write, that whatever truth
any could apprehend on those matters, might he conveyed in my words,
rather than set down my own meaning so clearly as to exclude the rest,
which not being false, could not offend me. I will not therefore, O my
God, be so rash, as not to believe, that Thou vouchsafedst as much
to that great man. He without doubt, when he wrote those words,
perceived and thought on what truth soever we have been able to
find, yea and whatsoever we have not been able, nor yet are, but which
may be found in them.
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