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| Chapter II. The Emperor is exhorted to display zeal in the Faith. Christ's perfect Godhead is shown from the unity of will and working which He has with the Father. The attributes of Divinity are shown to be proper to Christ, Whose various titles prove His essential unity, with distinction of Person. In no other way can the unity of God be maintained.
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Chapter II.
The Emperor is exhorted to display zeal in the Faith.
Christ’s perfect Godhead is shown from the unity of will and
working which He has with the Father. The attributes of Divinity
are shown to be proper to Christ, Whose various titles prove His
essential unity, with distinction of Person. In no other way can
the unity of God be maintained.
12. “Not
every one that saith unto Me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven,”1689
saith the
Scripture. Faith, therefore, august Sovereign, must not be a mere
matter of performance, for it is written, “The zeal of thine
house hath devoured me.”1690
| 1690 Ps.
lxix. 9. Cf. S. John ii. 17. | Let us then
with faithful spirit and devout mind call upon Jesus our Lord, let us
believe that He is God, to the end that whatever we ask of the Father,
we may obtain in His name.1691
For the
Father’s will is, that He be entreated through the Son, the
Son’s that the Father be entreated.1692
| 1692 S. John xvi. 23, 24, and xiv. 13; S. Matt. vii.
7, 8; S. Mark xi. 24. |
13. The grace of His submission makes for
agreement [with our teaching], and the acts of His power are not at
variance therewith. For whatsoever things the Father doeth, the
same also doeth the Son, in like manner.1693
The Son both doeth the same
things, and doeth them in like manner, but it is the Father’s
will that He be entreated in the matter of what He Himself proposeth to
do, that you may understand, not that He cannot do it otherwise, but
that there is one power displayed. Truly, then, is the Son of God
to be adored and worshipped, Who by the power of His Godhead hath laid
the foundations of the world, and by His submission informed our
affections.1694
14. Therefore we ought to believe that God
is good, eternal, perfect, almighty, and true, such as we find Him in
the Law and the Prophets, and the rest of the holy Scriptures,1695
| 1695 Vide, e.g.,
Dan.9.9-Dan.9.10 Bible:Luke.1.37">Ps. xxv. 8; Jer. x.
10; James i. 17, 18; Dan. ix. 9, 10; S. Luke i. 37. | for otherwise there is no God. For
He Who is God cannot but be good, seeing that fulness of goodness is of
the nature of God:1696
nor can
God, Who made time, be in time; nor, again, can God be imperfect, for a
lesser being is plainly imperfect, seeing that it lacks somewhat
whereby it could be made equal to a greater. This, then, is the
teaching of our faith—that God is not evil, that with God nothing
is impossible, that God exists not in time, that God is beneath no
being. If I am in error, let my adversaries prove it.1697
| 1697 See James i. 13; S. Luke xviii. 27; Ps. xc.
2–4; lxxxix. 6. |
15. Seeing, then, that Christ is God, He is, by
consequence, good and almighty and eternal and perfect and true; for
these attributes belong to the essential nature of the Godhead.
Let our adversaries, therefore, deny the Divine Nature in
Christ,—otherwise they cannot refuse to God what is proper to the
Divine Nature.
16. Further, that none may fall into error,
let a man attend to those signs vouchsafed us by holy Scripture,
whereby we may know the Son. He is called the Word, the Son, the
Power of God, the Wisdom of God.1698
| 1698 Bible:Matt.28.18 Bible:1Cor.1.24 Bible:Col.2.3">S. John i. 1, 14; xx. 31;
Rom. i. 4; S. Matt. xxviii. 18; 1 Cor. i. 24; Col. ii. 3. |
The Word, because He is without blemish;
the Power, because He is perfect; the Son, because He is begotten of
the Father; the Wisdom, because He is one with the Father, one in
eternity, one in Divinity. Not that the Father is one Person with
the Son; between Father and Son is the plain distinction that comes of
generation;1699
| 1699 Begetter and
begotten must be personally distinct. | so that Christ
is God of God, Everlasting of Everlasting, Fulness of Fulness.1700
17. Now these are not mere names, but signs of
power manifesting itself in works, for while there is fulness of
Godhead in the Father, there is also fulness of Godhead in the Son, not
diverse, but one. The Godhead is nothing confused, for it is an
unity: nothing manifold, for in it there is no difference.
18. Moreover, if in all them that believed
there was, as it is written, one soul and one heart:1701
if every one that cleaveth to the
Lord is one spirit,1702
as the Apostle
hath said: if a man and his wife are one flesh:1703
if all we mortal men are, so far as
regards our general nature, of one substance: if this is what the
Scripture saith of created men, that, being many, they are
one,1704
who can in no way be compared to Divine
Persons, how much more are the Father and the Son one in Divinity, with
Whom there is no difference either of substance or of will!
19. For how else shall we say that God is
One? Divinity maketh plurality, but unity of power debarreth
quantity of number, seeing that unity is not number, but itself is the
principle of all numbers. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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