ne knoweth save the Spirit of God. From
without, I may see what you do, but what your intentions are and what
you think, I cannot see. Again, neither can you know what I think
except I enable you to understand it by word or sign. Much less can
we know what God, in his own inner and secret essence is, until the
Holy Spirit, who searcheth and knoweth all things, yea, the deep
things of God--as Paul says above--reveals it to us: as he does in
the declaration of this article, in which he teaches us the existence
in the divine majesty of the one undivided essence, but in such
manner that there is, first, the person which is called the Father;
and of him exists the second person called the Son, born from
eternity; and proceeding from both these is the third, namely, the
Holy Spirit. These three persons are not distinct from each other, as
individual brothers or sisters are, but they have being in one and
the same eternal, undivided and indivisible essence.

6. This, I say, is not discovered or attained to by human reason. It
is revealed from heaven above. Therefore, only Christians can
intelligently speak of what the Godhead essentially is, and of his
outward manifestation to his creatures, and his will toward men
concerning their salvation. For all this is imparted to them by the
Holy Spirit, who reveals and proclaims it through the Word.

7. Those who have no such revelation, and who judge according to
their own wisdom, such as the Jews, Turks and heathen, must consider
the Christian's declaration the greatest error and rankest heresy;
they must say that we Christians are mad and foolish in imagining
that there are three Gods, when, according to all reason--yea, even
according to the Word of God--there can be but one God. It would not
be reasonable, they will say, that there should be more than one
householder over the same house, more than one lord or sovereign over
the same government; much less reasonably should more than one God
reign over heaven and earth. They imagine that thus with their wisdom
they have completely overthrown our faith and exposed it to the
derision and scorn of all the world. As if we were all blockheads and
egregious fools and could not see their logic as well as they! But,
thank God, we have understanding equal to theirs, and can argue as
convincingly, or more so, than they with their Alkoran and Talmud,
that there is but the one God.

8. Further, we know, from the testimony of Holy Writ, that