Book 3 · Section 54

(54) Why does he say, "And from her I will give thee children, and I will bless him, and he shall be over the nations, and kings of the nations shall come forth from him?" (#Ge 17:16). It is scarcely proper to inquire why he has said children in the plural number, when he meant their only and beloved son; for the intention of God's words applies to his offspring, from which nations and kings should arise. This is the literal meaning of the words. But if we look to their more inward sense, when the soul possesses that virtue, small and mortal as it is, which is only particular, she is still barren. But from the time that it acquires a share of the divine and incorruptible virtue, it begins to conceive and to bring forth varieties of nations, namely, of all other holy and sacred persons; for ever one of the everlasting virtues is subject to an immense number of voluntary laws, which bear in themselves a similarity to nations and kingdoms; for virtue and the generations of virtue are royal things, being previously instructed by nature what it is which rejoices in princely power, and has no knowledge of a servile condition.