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7. From this, however, being led to prefer the Catholic doctrine,
I felt that it was with more moderation and honesty that it commanded
things to be believed that were not demonstrated (whether it was that
they could be demonstrated, but not to any one, or could not be
demonstrated at all), than was the method of the Manichaeans, where
our credulity was mocked by audacious promise of knowledge, and then so
many most fabulous and absurd things were forced upon belief because
they were not capable of demonstration.t After that, O Lord,
Thou, by little and little, with most gentle and most merciful hand,
drawing and calming my heart, didst persuade taking into consideration
what a multiplicity of things which I had never seen, nor was present
when they were enacted, like so many of the! things in secular
history, and so many accounts of places and cities which I had not
seen; so many of friends, so many of physicians, so many now of these
men, now of those, which unless we should believe, we should do
nothing at all in this life; lastly, with how unalterable an assurance
I believed of what parents I was born, which it would have been
impossible for me to know otherwise than by hearsay, taking into
consideration all this, Thou persuadest me that not they who believed
Thy books (which, with so great authority, Thou hast established
among nearly all nations), but those who believed them not were to be
blamed; and that those men were not to be listened unto who should say
to me, "How dost thou know that those Scriptures were imparted unto
mankind by the Spirit of the one true and most true God?"
For it was the same thing that was most of all to be believed, since
no wranglings of blasphemous questions, whereof I had read so many
amongst the self-contradicting philosophers, could once wring the
belief from me that Thou art, whatsoever Thou wert, though what
I knew not, or that the government of human affairs belongs to
Thee.
8. Thus much I believed, at one time more strongly than another,
yet did I ever believe both that Thou weft, and hadst a care of us,
although I was ignorant both what was to be thought of Thy substance,
and what way led, or led back to Thee. Seeing, then, that we were
too weak by unaided reason to find out the truth, and for this cause
needed the authority of the holy writings, I had now begun to believe
that Thou wouldest by no means have given such excellency of authority
to those Scriptures throughout all lands, had it not been Thy will
thereby to be believed in, and thereby sought. For now those things
which heretofore appeared incongruous to me in the Scripture, and used
to offend me, having heard divers of them ex-'pounded reasonably, I
referred to the depth of the mysteries, and its authority seemed to me
all the more venerable and worthy of religious belief, in that, while
it was visible for all to read it, it reserved the majesty of its
secrets within its profound significance, stooping to all in the great
plainness of its language and lowliness of its style, yet exercising
the application of such as are not light of heart;' that it might
receive all into its common bosom, and through narrow passages waft
over some few towards Thee, yet many more than if it did not stand
upon such a height of authority, nor allured multitudes within its
bosom by its holy humility. These things I meditated upon, and Thou
wert with me; I sighed, and Thou heardest me; I vacillated, and
Thou didst guide me; I roamed through the broad way of the world,
and Thou didst not desert me.
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