33. The reason why the idea of three Gods has principally arisen from the Athanasian Creed, where a Trinity of Persons is taught, is, because the word Person begets such an idea, which is further implanted in the mind by the following words in the same Creed: "There is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit"; and afterwards:
The Father is God and Lord, the Son is God and Lord, and the Holy Spirit is God and Lord"; but more especially by these: "For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say there be three Gods or three Lords"; the result of which words is this, that by the Christian verity we are bound to confess and acknowledge three Gods and three Lords, but by the Catholic religion we are not allowed to say, or to name three Gods and Lords; consequently we may have an idea of three Gods and Lords, but not an oral confession of them. Nevertheless, that the doctrine of the Trinity in the Athanasian Creed is agreeable to the truth, if only instead of a Trinity of Persons there be substituted a Trinity of Person, which Trinity is in God the Saviour Jesus Christ, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Lord, published at Amsterdam, in the year 1763 (n. 55-61.)