rsaries oppose that; and I think I have even
observed that Gisbertus Voetius, a famous theologian of Utrecht, [87]
doubted the alleged impossibility of plurality of locations.

21. Furthermore, although the two Protestant parties agree that one must
distinguish these two necessities which I have just indicated, namely
metaphysical necessity and physical necessity, and that the first excludes
exceptions even in the case of Mysteries, they are not yet sufficiently
agreed upon the rules of interpretation, which serve to determine in what
cases it is permitted to desert the letter of Scripture when one is not
certain that it is contrary to strictly universal truths. It is agreed that
there are cases where one must reject a literal interpretation that is not
absolutely impossible, when it is otherwise unsuitable. For instance, all
commentators agree that when our Lord said that Herod was a fox he meant it
metaphorically; and one must accept that, unless one imagine with some
fanatics that for the time the words of our Lord lasted Herod was actually
changed into a fox. But it is not the same with the texts on which
Mysteries are founded, where the theologians of the Augsburg Confession
deem that one must keep to the literal sense. Since, moreover, this
discussion belongs to the art of interpretation and not to that which is
the proper sphere of logic, we will not here enter thereon, especially as
it has nothing in common with the disputes that have arisen recently upon
the conformity of faith with reason.

22. Theologians of all parties, I believe (fanatics alone excepted), agree
at least that no article of faith must imply contradiction or contravene
proofs as exact as those of mathematics, where the opposite of the
conclusion can be reduced _ad absurdum_, that is, to contradiction. St.
Athanasius with good reason made sport of the preposterous ideas of some
writers of his time, who maintained that God had suffered without any
suffering. _'Passus est impassibiliter. O ludicram doctrinam aedificantem
simul et demolientem!'_ It follows thence that certain writers have been
too ready to grant that the Holy Trinity is contrary to that great
principle which states that two things which are the same as a third are
also the same as each other: that is to say, if A is the same as B, and if
C is the same as B, then A and C must also be the same as each other. For
this principle is a direct consequence of that of contradiction, a