GUILLAUME POSTEL

of mind as well as body to be attained, just as it was truly done even in the midst of darkness and vices: so it was necessary that God should have proposed the sacred Edicts, by which human fragility is exercised both in the flight from vice and in the attainment of virtue, such that they were in the greatest obscurity at first. Finally, as the Ages gradually progress in unfolding them, and in understanding them under the guidance of the spirit of God, they would become so clear and accessible to man that not a single apex a reference to the tiny Hebrew letter strokes would remain in the Language of the first Man for which a supreme reason could not be given.

3. Therefore, since according to the saying of the prophet Solomon it is the glory of God to conceal a Word, just as God is hidden; and since it is the future glory of Kings—that is, of men who reign in the universe according to the Will of God through the victory over themselves—to conjecture and explain that divine, or supernatural, and natural Word: it is absolutely necessary to reach the highest knowledge of both Natural and Supernatural things, which now begins to be revealed in the examination of sacred Eloquence.

4. It is most certain that, since God created all comprehensible things so that He might be known, loved, and praised through them for all eternity, the infinite Giver, it is necessary that all Created things should arrive most clearly to the level of our understanding: for otherwise they would have been created in vain. But since this is absolutely necessary in Natural things, it is much more so in Supernatural things and Sacred Scriptures: which, since they were written for the sake of the Wayfarer and not the Possessor those who have already reached the divine goal, and since they would hardly be known to us regarding the shadow of the Majesty hidden within them except according to the knowledge of the first Coming of Christ: it is necessary, I say, that they be accessible to all Men at one time, just as they were written for the sake of all.