Confessions

^5. What, therefore, could there be wanting unto Your good, which You Yourself art, although these things had either never been, or had remained formless—the which You made not out of any want, but out of the plenitude of Your goodness, restraining them and converting them to form not as though Your joy were perfected by them? For to You, being perfect, their imperfection is displeasing, and therefore were they perfected by You, and were pleasing unto You; but not as if You were imperfect, and were to be perfected in their perfection. For Your good Spirit was borne over the waters, not borne up by them as if He rested upon them. For those in whom Your good Spirit is said to rest, He causes to rest in Himself. But Your incorruptible and unchangeable will, which in itself is all-sufficient for itself, was borne over that life which You had made, to which to live is not all one with living happily, since, flowing in its own darkness, it lives also; for which it remains to be converted unto Him by whom it was made, and to live more and more by “the fountain of life,” and in His light to “see light,” and to be perfected, and enlightened, and made happy.