4.9 KiB
Second Helvetic Confession
Chapter 5 - Of the Adoration, Worship, and Invocation of God Through the Only Mediator Jesus Christ
We teach to adore and worship the true God alone. This honor we impart to none, according to the commandment of the Lord, ‘Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou worship,’ or ‘him only shalt thou serve’ (Matthew 4:10). Surely all the prophets inveighed earnestly against the people of Israel whensoever they did adore and worship strange gods, and not the only true God.
But we teach that ‘God is to be adored and worshiped,’ as himself has taught us to worship him—to wit, ‘in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:24); not with any superstition, but with sincerity, according to his word, lest at any time he also say unto us, ‘Who hath required these things at your hands?’ (Isaiah 1:12; Jeremiah 6:20). For Paul also says, ‘God is not worshiped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing,’ etc. (Acts 17:25).
We, in all dangers and casualties of life, call on him alone, and that by the mediation of the only Mediator, and our Intercessor, Jesus Christ. For it is expressly commanded us, ‘Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me’ (Psalm 50:15). Moreover, the Lord has made a most large promise, saying, ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask of my Father, he shall give it you’ (John 16:23); and again, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28). And seeing it is written, ‘How shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed?’ (Romans 10:14), and we do believe in God alone; therefore we call upon him only, and that through Christ. For ‘there is one God,’ says the apostle, ‘and one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus’ (1 Timothy 2:5). Again, ‘If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,’ etc. (1 John 2:1).
Therefore we do neither adore, worship, nor pray unto the saints in heaven, or to other gods; neither do we acknowledge them for our intercessors or mediators before the Father in heaven. For God and the mediator Christ do suffice us; neither do we impart unto others the honor due to God alone and to his Son, because he has plainly said, ‘I will not give my glory to another’ (Isaiah 41:8); and because Peter has said, ‘There is no other name given unto men, whereby they must be saved, but the name of Christ’ (Acts 4:12). Those, doubtless, who rest in him by faith do not seek any thing without Christ.
Yet, for all that, we do neither despise the saints nor think basely of them; for we acknowledge them to be the lively members of Christ, the friends of God, who have gloriously overcome the flesh and the world. We therefore love them as brethren, and honor them also; yet not with any worship, but with an honorable opinion of them, and with just praises of them. We also do imitate the saints, for we desire, with the most earnest affections and prayers, to be followers of their faith and virtues; to be partakers, also, with them of everlasting salvation; to dwell together with them everlastingly with God, and to rejoice with them in Christ. And in this point we approve that saying of St. Augustine, in his book De Vera Religione, ‘Let not the worship of men departed be any religion unto us; for, if they have lived holily, they are not so to be esteemed as that they seek such honors, but they will have us to worship Him by whose illumination they rejoice that we are fellow-servants as touching the reward. They are therefore to be honored for imitation, not to be worshiped for religion’s sake,’ etc.
And we much less believe that the relics of saints are to be adored and worshiped. Those ancient holy men seemed sufficiently to have honored their dead if they had honestly committed their bodies to the earth after the soul was gone up into heaven; and they thought that the most noble relics of their ancestors were their virtues, doctrine, and faith; which as they commended with the praise of the dead, so they did endeavor to express the same so long as they lived upon earth.
Those ancient men did not swear but by the name of the only Jehovah, as it is commanded by the law of God. Therefore, as we are forbidden to ‘swear by the name of strange gods’ (Exodus 23:13; Joshua 23:7), so we do not swear by saints, although we be requested there unto. We therefore in all these things do reject that doctrine which gives too much honor unto the saints in heaven.