When I say its offspring more or less legitimate, and speak of Theological science in these guarded terms, it is not that I do not design to say openly all that I think upon the subject. The scientific Theology of Christianity commands often my admiration, always my respect. In their effort to explain the grand facts of the Old and New Testament, its writers have addressed themselves to a glorious task; they have in pursuing it fallen upon and thrown light upon sublime truths; they have engaged for the cause of Christianity in formidable contests; they have lent a moral influence often pregnant of effect to the institutions and authorised teachers of Christ's religion. But their efforts have been even more ambitious than energetic, more compromising than efficacious; they have, even with the words unceasingly in their mouths, shown an ignorance of the limits of human science. The Christian Religion is a miracle, the miraculous work of God; this was the point from which they started, their fundamental datum; forgetting what they have so affirmed, they have sought and they have thought to ensure the triumph of the divine truth by explaining it; they have obscured and changed it by an intermixture of man's work. {148} Man can recognise as realities the facts which are at the same time both Christian dogmas and Christian mysteries. Man can recognise his own subjection to them, but it is not given to man to make of them a science. Bossuet also essayed to fathom the Trinity; in the midst of his explanations and of his comparisons, he stops short and exclaims: "I do not know who can vaunt that he understands that perfectly, or who can satisfy himself as to what the modes of being can add to being, or as to whence arises their distinction in the unity and the identity which they have with the being itself. All this is not very comprehensible; all this, nevertheless, is truth." [Footnote 39] [Footnote 39: Élévations sur les Mystères. Works of Bossuet, vol. ix., p. 49.] Thus after this final effort of his genius, it was in Christian ignorance that the last great doctor of the Church was forced to take refuge. {149}