2. Of this, then, ye have now
received, have meditated, and having meditated have held, that ye
should say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.” God is
Almighty, and yet, though Almighty, He cannot die, cannot be
deceived, cannot lie; and, as the Apostle says, “cannot deny
Himself.”1765
How many
things that He cannot do, and yet is
Almighty! yea therefore is
Almighty, because He cannot do these things. For if He could
die,
He were not
Almighty; if to
lie, if to be
deceived, if to do
unjustly, were possible for Him, He were not
Almighty: because if
this were in Him, He should not be worthy to be
Almighty. To our
Almighty Father, it is quite
impossible to
sin. He does whatsoever
He will: that is Omnipotence. He does whatsoever He rightly will,
whatsoever He justly will: but whatsoever is
evil to do, He wills
not. There is no resisting one who is
Almighty, that He should not
do what He will. It was He Who made
heaven and
earth, the
sea, and
all that in them is,
invisible and visible.
Invisible such as are
in
heaven,
thrones,
dominions,
principalities, powers,
archangels,
angels: all, if we shall
live aright, our fellow-
citizens. He made
in
heaven the things visible; the sun, the
moon, the
stars. With
its
terrestrial animals He
adorned the
earth, filled the
air with
things that
fly, the
land with them that
walk and
creep, the
sea
with them that
swim: all He filled with their own proper creatures.
He made also man after His own image and likeness, in the
mind: for
in that is the image of
God. This is the reason why the
mind cannot
be comprehended even by itself, because in it is the image of
God.
To this end were we made, that over the other creatures we should
bear rule: but through
sin in the first man we fell, and are all
come into an inheritance of
death. We were brought low, became
mortal, were filled with
fears, with errors: this by
desert of
sin:
with which
desert and guilt is every man
born.
1766
This is the reason why, as ye have
seen to-day, as ye know, even little
children undergo exsufflation,
exorcism; to drive away from them the
power of the
devil their
enemy, which
deceived man that it might possess
mankind. It is not
then the creature of
God that in
infants undergoes exorcism or
exsufflation: but he under whom are all that are
born with
sin; for
he is the first
1767
of
sinners. And for this cause by reason of one who fell and
brought all into death, there was sent One without sin, Who should
bring unto life, by delivering them from sin, all that believe on
Him.
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