_The Confession of Faith:
             Which Was Submitted to His Imperial Majesty Charles V
                  At the Diet of Augsburg in the Year 1530_.
                        by Philip Melanchthon, 1497-1560
                   Translated by F. Bente and  W. H. T. Dau
                                 Published in:
                   _Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books
                         of the Ev. Lutheran Church_.
           (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), pp. 37-95.


        Article I: Of God. 
         
        Our Churches, with common consent, do teach that the decree of 
        the Council of Nicaea concerning the Unity of the Divine Essence 
        and concerning the Three Persons, is true and to be believed 
        without any doubting; that is to say, there is one Divine Essence 
        which is called and which is God: eternal, without body, without 
        parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the Maker and 
        Preserver of all things, visible and invisible; and yet there are 
        three Persons, of the same essence and power, who also are 
        coeternal, the Father the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And the term 
        "person" they use as the Fathers have used it, to signify, not 
        a part or quality in another, but that which subsists of itself.  
         
        They condemn all heresies which have sprung up against this 
        article, as the Manichaeans, who assumed two principles, one Good 
        and the other Evil- also the Valentinians, Arians, Eunomians, 
        Mohammedans, and all such. They condemn also the Samosatenes, old 
        and new, who, contending that there is but one Person, 
        sophistically and impiously argue that the Word and the Holy 
        Ghost are not distinct Persons, but that "Word" signifies a 
        spoken word, and "Spirit" signifies motion created in things.  
        

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