Dubious or Spurious Writings, A Sectional Confession of Faith

A Sectional Confession of Faith

• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.1 — I. Most hostile and alien to the Apostolic Confession are those who speak of the Son as assumed to Himself by the Father out of nothing, and from an emanational origin; and those who hold the same sentiments with…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.2 — II. But the Church’s Confession, and the Creed that brings salvation to the world, is that which deals with the incarnation of the Word, and bears that He gave Himself over to the flesh of man which He acquired of…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.3 — III. If, then, there are any here, too, who falsify the holy faith, either by attributing to the divinity as its own what belongs to the humanity—progressions, and passions, and a glory coming with accession—or by…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.4 — IV. One therefore is God the Father, one the Word, one the Spirit, the life, the sanctification of all. And neither is there another God as Father, nor is there another Son as Word of God, nor is there another Spirit…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.5 — V. Again, when one speaks of the Holy Spirit as an object made holy, he will no longer be able to apprehend all things as being sanctified in (the) Spirit. For he who has sanctified one, sanctifies all things. That…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.6 — VI. Moreover, the capital element of our salvation is the incarnation of the Word. We believe, therefore, that it was without any change in the Divinity that the incarnation of the Word took place with a view to the…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.7 — VII. But some treat the Holy Trinity in an awful manner, when they confidently assert that there are not three persons, and introduce (the idea of) a person devoid of subsistence. Wherefore we clear ourselves of…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.8 — Now the person in each declares the independent being and subsistence. But divinity is the property of the Father; and whenever the divinity of these three is spoken of as one, testimony is borne that the property of…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.9 — IX. The same position we hold respecting the Spirit, who has that unity with the Son which the Son has with the Father. Wherefore let the hypostasis of the Father be discriminated by the appellation of God; but let…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.10 — X. And again, if the impious say, How will there not be three Gods and three Persons, on the supposition that they have one and the same divinity?—we shall reply: Just because God is the Cause and Father of the Son;…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.11 — XI. And again, writing to those same Romans, he says: “But I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.12 — XII. Again, in the Epistle to the Corinthians he says: “For my speech and my preaching was not in the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.13 — Seest thou that all through Scripture the Spirit is preached, and yet nowhere named a creature? And what can the impious have to say if the Lord sends forth His disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, and of…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.14 — XIV. But if they say, How can there be three Persons, and how but one Divinity?—we shall make this reply: That there are indeed three persons, inasmuch as there is one person of God the Father, and one of the Lord…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.15 — XV. We therefore acknowledge one true God, the one First Cause, and one Son, very God of very God, possessing of nature the Father’s divinity,—that is to say, being the same in substance with the Father; and one Holy…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.16 — XVI. And since some have given us trouble by attempting to subvert our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and by affirming of Him that He was not God incarnated, but a man linked with God; for this reason we present our…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.17 — We believe therefore in one God, that is, in one First Cause, the God of the law and of the Gospel, the just and good; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, true God, that is, Image of the true God, Maker of all things seen…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.18 — We acknowledge that the Son and the Spirit are consubstantial with the Father, and that the substance of the Trinity is one,—that is, that there is one divinity according to nature, the Father remaining unbegotten,…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.19 — XIX. One is the Son, both before the incarnation and after the incarnation. The same (Son) is both man and God, both these together as though one; and the God the Word is not one person, and the man Jesus another…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.20 — XX. And that the holy Trinity is to be worshipped without either separation or alienation, is taught us by Paul, who says in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.21 — XXI. And again Paul says: “That mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.” And again he says:…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.22 — And again, speaking also of the children of Israel as baptized in the cloud and in the sea, he says: “And they all drank of the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.23 — Seest thou that the Spirit is inseparable from the divinity? And no one with pious apprehensions could fancy that He is a creature. Moreover, in the Epistle to the Hebrews he writes again thus: “How shall we escape,…vatican.va
• Dubious or Spurious Writings A Sectional.24 — A Fragment of the Same Declaration of Faith, Accompanied by Glosses.—From Gregory Thaumaturgus, as They Say, in His Sectional Confession of Faith. To maintain two natures in the one Christ, makes a Tetrad of the…vatican.va