Into the labyrinths, indeed, of metaphysical speculation he distinctly declined to follow his opponents.  They, as well as he, acknowledged, or professed to acknowledge, the force of the testimony from Scripture and the fathers.  He is ready to join issue on this point, ’Is the Catholic doctrine true?’ but for resolving this question he holds that we must have recourse to Scripture and antiquity.  ’Whoever debates this question should forbear every topic derived from the nature of things, because such arguments belong only to the other question, whether the doctrine be possible, and in all reason possibility should be presupposed in all our disputes from Scripture and the fathers.’  He consistently maintains that our knowledge of the nature of God is far too limited to allow us to dogmatise from our own reason on such a subject.  ’You can never fix any certain principles of individuation, therefore you can never assure me that three real persons are not one numerical or individual essence.  You know not precisely what it is that makes one being, one essence, one substance.’  There are other difficulties in the nature of the Godhead quite as great as any which the doctrine of the Trinity involves.  ’The Omnipresence, the Incarnation, Self-existence, are all mysteries, and eternity itself is the greatest mystery of all.  There is nothing peculiar to the Trinity that is near so perplexing as eternity.’  And then he finely adds:  ’I know no remedy for these things but a humble mind.  If we demur to a doctrine because we cannot fully and adequately comprehend it, is not this too familiar from a creature towards his Creator, and articling more strictly with Almighty God than becomes us?’

Is the Trinity a mysterious doctrine?  ’The tremendous Deity is all over mysterious, in His nature and in His attributes, in His works and in His ways.  If not, He would not be divine.  If we reject the most certain truths about the Deity, only because they are incomprehensible, when everything about Him must be so of course, the result will be Atheism; for there are mysteries in the works of nature as well as in the Word of God.’

If it be retorted, Why then introduce terms and ideas which by your own admission can only be imperfectly understood?  Why not leave such mysteries in the obscurity in which they are shrouded, and not condemn those who are unable to accept without understanding them?  The reply is, ’It is you and not we who are responsible for the discussion and definition of these mysteries.  The faith of the Church was at first, and might be still, a plain, simple, easy thing, did not its adversaries endeavour to perplex and puzzle it with philosophical niceties.  Early Christians did not trouble their heads with nice speculations about the modus of the Three in One.’  ’All this discourse about being and person is foreign and not pertinent, because if both these terms were thrown out, our doctrine would stand just