With such as grant that all these things which Your truth indicates to my mind are true , I desire to confer a little before You, O my God. For let those who deny these things bark and drown their own voices with their clamour as much as they please; I will endeavour to persuade them to be quiet, and to suffer Your word to reach them. But should they be unwilling, and should they repel me, I beseech, O my God , that Thou be not silent to me. Do Thou speak truly in my heart, for Thou only so speakest, and I will send them away blowing upon the dust from without, and raising it up into their own eyes; and will myself enter into my chamber, 15Isaiah 26:20 and sing there unto You songs of love — groaning with groaning unutterable 16Romans 8:26 in my pilgrimage, and remembering Jerusalem, with heart raised up towards it, Jerusalem my country, Jerusalem my mother, and Yourself, the Ruler over it, the Enlightener, the Father , the Guardian, the Husband, the chaste and strong delight, the solid joy , and all good things ineffable, even all at the same time, because the one supreme and true Good. And I will not be turned away until Thou collect all that I am, from this dispersion and deformity, into the peace of that very dear mother, where are the first-fruits of my spirit, whence these things are assured to me, and Thou conform and confirm it for ever, my God , my Mercy. But with reference to those who say not that all these things which are true and false, who honour Your Holy Scripture set forth by holy Moses , placing it, as with us, on the summit of an authority to be followed, and yet who contradict us in some particulars, I thus speak: Be Thou, O our God , judge between my confessions and their contradictions.
TheoFons