A09339:1319
A Golden Chain
A golden chain: or The description of theology containing the order of the causes of salvation and damnation, according to Gods word. A view whereof is to be seen in the table annexed. Hereunto is adjoined the order which M. Theodore Beza used in comforting afflicted consciences.A golden chaine: or The description of theologie containing the order of the causes of saluation and damnation, according to Gods word. A view whereof is to be seene in the table annexed. Hereunto is adioyned the order which M. Theodore Beza vsed in comforting afflicted consciences.
Cambridge: printed by John Legat, 1600Cambridge: printed by Iohn Legat, 1600
AN EXPOSITION OF THE CREED. I believe in God. &c.AN EXPOSITION OF THE CREED. I beleeue in God. &c.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And for the further clearing of this point, we must yet further mark and remember two things: namely, the union and the distinction of the persons. The union is, whereby three persons are one not simply, but one in nature, that is, coessential or consubstantial; having all one godhead. For the Father is God, the son is god, and the holy ghost is god: now there are not three distinct Gods, but one God, because there is one God and no more in nature; considering that the thing which is infinite is but one and is not subject to multiplication: and the Father is this one God, as also the Son and the holy Ghost. And as these three persons are one in nature, so whatsoever agrees to God simply considered, agrees to them all three. They are all coequal and coeternal: all most wise, just, merciful, omnipotent, by one and the same wisdom, justice, mercy, power. And because they have all one godhead, therefore they are not only one with another, but also each in other, the Father, in the Son, and the Son in the Father, and the holy Ghost in them both. And we must not imagine that these three are one God, as though the Father had one part of the Godhead, the Son another part, and the holy Ghost a third. For that is most false, because the infinite and the most simple godhead is not subject to composition or division: but every person is whole god, subsisting not in a part, but in the whole godhead: and the whole entire godhead is communicate• from the father to the sonne• & from both father and son to the holy Ghost. But some may yet say, that this doctrine seems to be impossible; because three creatures, as for example, Peter, Paul, Timothy being three persons and so remaining, cannot have one and the same nature, that is, the same body & the same soul. Answ. Three or moe men may have the same nature bin kind, but the truth is, they cannot possibly have a nature which shall be one and the same cin number, in them all three. For a man is a substance created and finite, and the bodies of men are quantities, and therefore divisible and separable one from another. Hereupon it comes, that the persons of men are not only distinguished by proprieties, but also divided and sundered one from another. And though Peter, Paul, Timothy have all one common ⟨p. 203⟩