CHAPTER III.—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’ (Deut. vi. 4). ‘I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no strange gods before my face’ (Exod. xx. 2, 3). ‘I am the Lord, and there is none other; beside me there is no God. Am I not the Lord, and there is none other beside me alone? a just God, and a Saviour; there is none beside me’ (Isa. xlv. 5, 21). ‘I the Lord, Jehovah, the merciful God, gracious and long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,’ etc. (Exod. xxxiv. 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.[1]
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 i. 35). Also, in the baptism of Christ, a voice was heard from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved
- ↑ Lest any man should slander us, as though we did make the persons all existing together, but not all of the same essence, or else did make a God of divers natures joined together in one, you must understand this joining together so as that all the persons (though distinct one from the other in properties) be yet but one and the same whole Godhead, or so that all and every of the persons have the whole and absolute Godhead.
