Son’ (Matt. iii. 17). The Holy Spirit also appeared in the likeness of a dove (John i. 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’ (Matt. xxviii. 19). In like manner, elsewhere in the Gospel he said, ‘The Father will send the Holy Spirit in my name’ (John xiv. 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 xv. 26). In short, we receive the Apostles’ Creed, because it delivers unto us the true faith.
We therefore condemn the Jews and 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 properties 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.
CHAPTER IV.—OF IDOLS; OR OF IMAGES OF GOD, OF CHRIST, AND OF SAINTS.
And because God is an invisible Spirit, and an incomprehensible Essence, he can not, therefore, by any art or image be expressed. For which cause we fear not, with the Scripture, to term the images of God mere lies.
We do not therefore reject not only the idols of the Gentiles, but also the images of Christians. For although Christ took upon him man’s nature, yet he did not therefore take it that he might set forth a pattern for carvers and painters. He denied that he came ‘to destroy the law and the prophets’ (Matt. v. 17), but images are forbidden in the law and the prophets (Deut. iv. 15; Isa. xliv. 9). He denied that his bodily presence would profit the Church, but promised that he would by his Spirit be present with us forever (John xvi. 7; 2 Cor. v. 5).
Who would, then, believe that the shadow or picture of his body doth
