These are heretics who might pass for other than Christians. However, they acknowledge Jesus as Saviour and Mediator; but they dare to maintain that nothing is more contrary to right reason than what is taught among Christians concerning the Trinity of persons in one only divine essence, of whom the second is begotten by the first, and the third proceeds from the other two; that this unintelligible doctrine is not to be found in any part of Scripture; that no passage can be produced which authorizes it; or to which, without in any wise departing from the spirit of the text, a sense cannot be given more clear, more natural, or more conformable to common notions, and to primitive and immutable truths; that to maintain, as the orthodox do, that in the divine essence there are several distinct persons, and that the Eternal is not the only true God, but that the Son and the Holy Ghost must be joined with Him, is to introduce into the Church of Christ an error the most gross and dangerous, since it is openly to favor polytheism; that it implies a contradiction, to say that there is but one God, and that, nevertheless, there are three _persons_, each of which is truly God; that this distinction, of _one_ in _essence_, and _three_ in _person_, was never in Scripture; that it is manifestly false, since it is certain that there are no fewer essences than persons, nor persons than essences; that the three persons of the Trinity are either three different substances, or accidents of the divine essence, or that essence itself without distinction; that, in the first place, you make three Gods; that, in the second, God is composed of accidents; you adore accidents, and metamorphose accidents into persons; that, in the third, you unfoundedly and to no purpose divide an indivisible subject, and distinguish into _three_ that which within itself has no distinction; that if it be said that the three personalities are neither different substances in the divine essence, nor accidents of that essence, it will be difficult to persuade ourselves that they are anything at all; that it must not be believed that the most rigid and decided Trinitarians have themselves any clear idea of the way in which the three _hypostases_ subsist in God, without dividing His substance, and consequently without multiplying it; that St. Augustine himself, after advancing on this subject a thousand reasonings alike dark and false, was forced to confess that nothing intelligible could be said about the matter; they then repeat the passage by this father, which is, indeed, a very singular one: "When," says he, "it is asked what are _the three_, the language of man fails and terms are wanting to express them." "_Three persons_, has, however, been said--not for the purpose of expressing anything, but in order to say something and not remain mute." _"Dictum est tres personæ, non ut aliquid diceretur, sed ne taceretur"._--De Trinit. lib. v. cap. 9; that modern theologians have