1. At length, with the Holy Ghost speeding our way, we are approaching the safe, calm harbour of a firm faith. We are in the position of men, long tossed about by sea and wind, to whom it very often happens, that while great heaped-up waves delay them for a time around the coasts near the ports, at last that very surge of the vast and dreadful billows drives them on into a trusty, well-known anchorage. And this, I hope, will befall us, as we struggle in this twelfth book against the storm of heresy; so that while we venture out trusty bark therein upon the wave of this grievous impiety, this very wave may bring us to the haven of rest for which we long. For while all are driven about by the uncertain wind of doctrine, there is panic here and danger there, and then again there often is even shipwreck, because it is maintained on prophetic authority that God Only-begotten is a creature—so that to Him there belongs not birth but creation, because it has been said in the character of Wisdom, The Lord created Me as the beginning of His ways798    Prov. viii. 22.. This is the greatest billow in the storm they raise, this is the big wave of the whirling tempest: yet when we have faced it, and it has broken without damage to our ship, it will speed us forward even to the all-safe harbour of the shore for which we long.

1. Ipsa haereticorum objecta ducunt ad veritatem. --- Tendimus tandem, jam sancto Spiritu prosequente, ad tutum securae fidei tranquillumque portum. Atque ita ut multo mari ventoque jactatis 0434C accidere saepissime solet, ut cum eos circa oras portuum impediti et graves fluctus nonnumquam morentur, ad ultimum in notam sibi fidamque stationem ipse ille ingentis terribilisque undae aestus impellat. Quod nobis, ut spero, duodecimo hoc adversum haereticam tempestatem nitentibus libro continget: ut cum in eo gravissimae impietatis fluctui communitam puppim damus, ipse ille nos fluctus ad optatae quietis sinum devehat. Omnibus enim incerto doctrinae vento circumactis, hinc metus, hinc periculum, hinc etiam saepe naufragium est, quia unigenitus Deus sub prophetica auctoritate creatura esse defenditur: ut in eo non sit nativitas, sed creatio, quia ex persona Sapientiae dictum est, Dominus creavit me initium viarum suarum (Prov. VIII, 22). Hic hiemis eorum 0434D maximus fluctus est, haec tortuosi turbinis gravis unda est: quae excepta a nobis, et securo navigio infracta, usque ad ipsum nos tutissimum portum optati littoris prosequitur.