633. That a belief in three Divine persons has been accepted since that time, and has also been confirmed and preached by all bishops, hierarchs, church rulers, and presbyters up to the present time, is known in the Christian world; and because a mental persuasion of the existence of three Gods has emanated therefrom, men have been unable to devise any other faith than one that could be applied to these three in their order; namely, this, that God the Father must be approached and be implored to impute His Son's righteousness, or to be merciful on account of His Son's passion on the cross, and to send the Holy Spirit to work out the mediate and final effects of salvation. [2] This faith is the offspring born from those two creeds; but when its swaddling clothes are stripped off, there comes to view not one but three, at first joined together, as it were, in an embrace, but afterward separated, for it is declared that their essence unites them, but their properties - which are creation, redemption, and operation (that is, imputation, imputed righteousness and the making it effectual) separate them. And for this reason, although out of three Gods they have made one, yet they have not made one Person out of three, from a fear that the idea of three Gods might be obliterated; for then, as stated in the creed, each Person singly can still be believed to be God; while if the three Persons were in consequence to become one, the whole house, built upon these three as its columns, would tumble into a heap. [3] That council introduced the doctrine of three Divine persons from eternity because they had not properly searched the Word, and could therefore find no other defense against the Arians. Afterwards they combined those three Persons, each one of whom is God by Himself, into one God, from a fear of being accused of a belief in three Gods and reproached for it by every reasonable religious person on the three continents. They taught a belief that applied to the three Gods in their order, because no other faith could issue from that principle; to which is to be added, that if one of the three were passed by, the third would not be sent, and thus every operation of Divine grace would be fruitless.