we cannot
expound the mystery of these divine things by the speculations of
reason and a pretense of great wisdom. To explain this, as well as
all the articles of our faith, we must have a knowledge higher than
any to which the understanding of man can attain. That knowledge of
God which the heathen can perceive by reason or deduce from rational
premises is but a small part of the knowledge that we should possess.
The heathen Aristotle in his best book concludes from a passage in
the wisest pagan poet, Homer: There can be no good government in
which there is more than one lord; it results as where more than one
master or mistress attempts to direct the household servants. So must
there be but one lord and regent in every government. This is all
rightly true. God has implanted such light and understanding in human
nature for the purpose of giving a conception and an illustration of
his divine office, the only Lord and Maker of all creatures. But,
even knowing this, we have not yet searched out or fathomed the
exalted, eternal, divine Godhead essence. For even though I have
learned that there is an only divine majesty, who governs all things,
I do not thereby know the inner workings of this divine essence
himself; this no one can tell me, except, as we have said, in so far
as God himself reveals it in his Word.

9. Now we Christians have the Scriptures, which we know to be the
Word of God. The Jews also have them, from whose fathers they have
descended to us. From these, and from no other source, we have
obtained all that is known of God and divine works, from the
beginning of the world. Even among the Turks and the heathen, all
their knowledge of God--excepting what is manifestly fable and
fiction--came from the Scriptures. And our knowledge is confirmed and
proven by great miracles, even to the present day. These Scriptures
declare, concerning this article, that there is no God or divine
being save this one alone. They not only manifest him to us from
without, but they lead us into his inner essence, and show us that in
him there are three persons; not three Gods or three different kinds
of divinity, but the same undivided, divine essence.

10. Such a revelation is radiantly shed forth from the greatest of
God's works, the declaration of his divine counsel and will. In that
counsel and will it was decreed from all eternity, and, accordingly,
was proclaimed in his promises, that his Son should become man and
die to re