was and is Jehovah Himself. Now sum up the
reasons and consider whether there is any other God of the universe than
the Lord alone, in whom is the Divine itself, Source of all, called the
Father; the Divine Human, called the Son; and the proceeding Divine,
called the Holy Spirit; and thus that God is one in person and essence,
and that this God is the Lord.

[6] You may persist and remark that the Lord Himself spoke of three in
Matthew:

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (28:19).

But it is plain from the preceding verse and the one following that the
Lord said this in order to make it known that the Divine Trinity was in
Him, now glorified. For in the preceding verse He said that all power in
heaven and on earth was given Him, and in the following verse that He
would be with men to the end of the age, speaking of Himself alone and
not of three.

[7] Now, why did divine providence permit Christians to worship the one
God under three persons, that is, worship three Gods, and not know until
now that God is one in essence and person, in whom is the Trinity and
that this God is the Lord? Man and not the Lord was the cause. The Lord
had taught it plainly in His Word, as is clear from all the passages
cited in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Lord,_ and has also
taught it in the doctrine of all the churches, in which it is said that
His Divine and His Human are not two but one Person united like soul and
body.

[8] The first reason why men divided the Divine and the Human and made
the Divine equal to the Divine of Jehovah the Father and the Human equal
to the human of another man, was that the church after its rise fell away
into Babylonianism. This took to itself the Lord's divine power, and in
order that it should be called human and not divine power made the Lord's
human like that of another man. When later the church was reformed and
faith alone was received as the one means of salvation--faith that God the
Father has mercy for the sake of the Son--the Lord's Human could be viewed
in no other way. For no one can approach the Lord and acknowledge Him at
heart as God of heaven and earth unless he lives by His precepts. In the
spiritual world, where everyone is bound to speak as he thinks, no one
can so much as mention the name Jesus if he has not lived as a Christian
in the world; this is by divine providence lest His name be profaned.