26. When I had listened to this, the angels perceived that I was thinking about the generally held ideas of the Christian church concerning a Trinity of Persons in One God, and the oneness of these Persons in a Divine Trinity; as well as about the birth of the Son of God from eternity. Then they said: 'What is this that you are thinking? Surely these ideas are derived from natural enlightenment, which is at variance with our spiritual enlightenment? So if you do not rid yourself of the ideas you are thinking, we shall close heaven to you and go away.'
But I replied: 'Please penetrate further into my thinking, and you may find there agreement.' They did so, and saw that by three Persons I understood the three attributes which proceed from God, Creation, Redemption and Regeneration, and that these are the attributes of the one God: that by the birth of the Son of God from eternity I understood His birth foreseen from eternity, and provided for in time; to think that there is any Son of God born from eternity is not superior, but contrary to the natural and rational faculties, but rather the Son born of God by the Virgin Mary in time is the single and only-begotten Son of God; to believe otherwise is a huge mistake. [2] I then told them that my natural thought about the Persons of the Trinity and their Oneness, as well as about the birth of the Son of God from eternity, was taken from the Church's doctrine of faith, which bears the name of Athanasius.
'Good,' said the angels, and asked me to say at their dictation that if anyone does not approach the God of heaven and earth Himself, he cannot enter heaven, because it is that one God who makes heaven to be heaven, and that same God is Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah the Lord, the Creator from eternity, the Redeemer in time, and the Regenerator for eternity to come. Thus He is at once Father, Son and Holy Spirit; this is the Gospel to be preached.
After this the heavenly light which I had seen before returned to above the opening, and by stages came down from there filling the interiors of my mind and illuminating my ideas about the Trinity and the Oneness of God. Then I saw that the ideas I had originally formed on these subjects, which were purely natural, were separated, as chaff is separated from the wheat by the movement of a winnowing fan, and carried away as by a wind to the north of heaven, until they were lost to view.