3.7 KiB
Second Helvetic Confession
Chapter 3 - Of God; the Unity and the Trinity
We believe and teach that God is one in essence or nature, subsisting by himself, all-sufficient in himself, invisible, without a body, infinite, eternal, the Creator of all things both visible and invisible, the chief good, living, quickening and preserving all things, almighty and supremely wise, gentle or merciful, just and true.
And we detest the multitude of gods, because it is expressly written, ‘The Lord thy God is one God’ (Deuteronomy 6:4). ‘I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no strange gods before my face’ (Exodus 20:2-3). ‘I am the Lord, and there is none other; beside me there is no God. Am not I the Lord, and there is none other beside me alone? a just God, and a Saviour; there is none beside me’ (Isaiah 45:5,21). ‘I the Lord, Jehovah, the merciful God, gracious and long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,’ etc. (Exodus 34:6).
We nevertheless believe and teach that the same infinite, one, and indivisible God is in person inseparably and without confusion distinguished into the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: so, as the Father has begotten the Son from eternity, the Son is begotten in an unspeakable manner; and the Holy Spirit proceeds from them both, and that from eternity, and is to be worshiped with them both. So that there are not three Gods, but three persons, consubstantial, coeternal, and coequal; distinct, as touching their persons; and, in order, one going before another, yet without any inequality. For, as touching their nature or essence, they are so joined together that they are but one God; and the divine essence is common to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
For the Scripture has delivered unto us a manifest distinction of persons; the angel, among other things, saying thus to the Blessed Virgin, ‘The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; and that holy thing which shall be born shall be called the Son of God’ (Luke 1:35). Also, in the baptism of Christ, a voice was heard from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son’ (Matthew 3:17). The Holy Spirit also appeared in the likeness of a dove (John 1:32). And when the Lord himself commanded to baptize, he commanded to baptize ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 28:19). In like manner, elsewhere in the Gospel he said, ‘The Father will send the Holy Spirit in my name’ (John 14:26). Again he says, ‘When the Comforter shall come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me,’ etc. (John 15:26). In short, we receive the Apostles’ Creed, because it delivers unto us the true faith.
We therefore condemn the Jews and the Mohammedans, and all those who blaspheme that sacred and adorable Trinity. We also condemn all heresies and heretics who teach that the Son and the Holy Spirit are God only in name; also, that there is in the Trinity something created, and that serves and ministers unto another; finally, that there is in it something unequal, greater or less, corporeal or corporeally fashioned, in manners or in will diverse, either confounded or sole by itself: as if the Son and Holy Spirit were the affections and proprieties of one God the Father—as the Monarchists, the Novatians, Praxeas, the Patripassians, Sabellius, Samosatenus, Aëtius, Macedonius, the Anthropomorphites, Arius, and such like, have thought.