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42. Thus, when one shall say, "He [Moses] meant as I do,"
and another, "Nay, but as I do," I suppose that I am speaking
more religiously when I say, "Why not rather as both, if both be
true?" And if there be a third truth, or fourth, and if any one
seek any truth altogether different in those words, why may not he be
believed to have seen all these, through whom one God hath tempered
the Holy Scriptures to the senses of many, about to see therein
things true but different? I certainly, and I fearlessly
declare it from my heart, were I to write anything to have the
highest authority, should prefer so to write, that whatever of truth
any one might apprehend concerning these matters, my words should
re-echo, rather than that I should set down one true opinion so
clearly on this as that I should exclude the rest, that which was
false in which could not offend me. Therefore am I unwilling, O my
God, to be so headstrong as not to believe that from Thee this man
[Moses] hath received so much. He, surely, when he wrote those
words, perceived and thought whatever of truth we have been able to
discover, yea, and whatever we have not been able, nor yet are able,
though still it may be found in them.
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