anything in their words that is plainly dictated by reason; rather, it is now evident that they have forced the prophets’ expressions—such as the terms “the Son,” “the Holy Spirit,” and others—into senses for which those words were never used, while forsaking the meanings that actually occur in the prophets’ own discourse. This is among the most flagrant examples of altering their speech from its proper context and replacing the meanings of God’s words. How can the phrase “Holy Spirit” be carried over to a meaning the prophets never employed or intended, while its well-known, regularly used meaning is set aside?

Is this not exactly the practice of those who distort the prophets’ words and fabricate lies against them? In truth, the outward sense of the passage is that they baptize people “in the name of the Father”—which, in their language, means the Lord—“and of the Son,” which, in their language, means the nurturer, here referring to the Messiah, and “of the Holy Spirit,” meaning the Holy Spirit with which God supported the Messiah through the angel, revelation, and the like. This, in fact, is how a number of their leading scholars have interpreted the verse.