concile man to God. For in our dreadful fall into sin and
death eternal, there was no way to save us excepting through an
eternal person who had power over sin and death to destroy them, and
to give us righteousness and everlasting life instead. This no angel
or other creature could do; it must needs be done of God himself.
Now, it could not be done by the person of the Father, who was to be
reconciled, but it must be done by a second person, with whom this
counsel was determined and through whom and for whose sake the
reconciliation was to be brought about.

11. Here there are, therefore, two distinct persons, one of whom
becomes reconciled, and the other is sent to reconcile and becomes
man. The former is called the Father, being first in that he did not
have his origin in any other; the latter is called the Son, being
born of the Father from eternity. To this the Scriptures attest, for
they make mention of God's Son; as, for instance, in Psalm 2, 7:
"Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee;" and again,
Galatians 4, 4: "But when the fulness of the time came, God sent
forth his Son," etc. From this it necessarily follows that the Son,
who is spoken of as a person, must be distinct from the person of the
Father.

12. Again, in the same manner, the Spirit of God is specifically and
distinctively mentioned as a person sent or proceeding from God the
Father and the Son: for instance, God says in Joel 2, 28: "I will
pour out my Spirit upon all flesh," etc. Here a spirit is poured out
who is God's, or a divine spirit, and who must be of the same
essence, otherwise he could not say, "my Spirit;" and yet he must be
a person other than he who sent him or who pours out. Again, because
when he was sent he manifested himself, and appeared in his descent
in a visible form, like that of a dove or tongues of fire, he must be
distinct in person from both the Father and the Son.

13. But in this article of faith, in which we say that the Son of God
became man and that he was of the same nature as we ourselves are, in
order that he might redeem us from sin and death and give us eternal
life without any merit or worthiness of our own, we give Jews and
Turks no less occasion for laughter and mockery than when we speak of
the three persons. For this is a more absurd assertion by far, in the
estimation of human reason, which speculates in its Jewish and
Turkish--yea, heathenish--teachings, on this wise: God is an only,
almighty L