# Second Helvetic Confession
## Chapter 7 - Of the Creation of All Things; of Angels, the Devil, and Man
This good and almighty God created all things, both visible and invisible, by his eternal Word, and preserves the same also by his eternal Spirit: as David witnesses, saying, ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth’ ([Psalm 33:6](/get-passage/Psalm+33:6)); and, as the Scripture says, ‘All things that the Lord created were very good’ ([Genesis 1:31](/get-passage/Genesis+1:31)), and made for the use and profit of man.

Now, we say, that all those things do proceed from one beginning: and therefore we detest the Manichees and the Marcionites, who did wickedly imagine two substances and natures, the one of good, the other of evil; and also two beginnings and two gods, one contrary to the other—a good and an evil.

Among all the creatures, the angels and men are most excellent. Touching angels, the Holy Scripture says, ‘Who maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire’ ([Psalm 104:4](/get-passage/Psalm+104:4)); also, ‘Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?’ ([Hebrews 1:14](/get-passage/Hebrews+1:14)).

And the Lord Jesus himself testifies of the devil, saying, ‘He that hath been a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of lies’ ([John 8:44](/get-passage/John+8:44)).

We teach, therefore, that some angels persisted in obedience, and were appointed unto the faithful service of God and men; and that others fell of their own accord, and ran headlong into destruction, and so became enemies to all good, and to all the faithful, etc.

Now, touching man, the Spirit says that in the beginning he was ‘created according to the image and likeness of God’ ([Genesis 1:27](/get-passage/Genesis+1:27)); that God placed him in paradise, and made all things subject unto him; which David doth most nobly set forth in the 8th Psalm. Moreover, God gave unto him a wife, and blessed them.

We say, also, that man doth consist of two, and those divers substances in one person; of a soul immortal (as that which being separated from his body doth neither sleep nor die), and a body mortal, which, notwithstanding, at the last judgment shall be raised again from the dead, that from henceforth the whole man may continue forever in life or in death.

We condemn all those who mock at, or by subtle disputations call into doubt, the immortality of the soul, or say that the soul sleeps, or that it is a part of God. To be short, we condemn all opinions of all men whatsoever who think otherwise of the creation of angels, devils, and men than is delivered unto us by the Scriptures in the Apostolic Church of Christ.
