The Institution of Christian Religion

Again, that the Holy ghost was the shadow of the godhead, yet afterward he bringeth the godhead of them both to nothing, affirming that after the rate of distribution there is both in the Son and in the Holy Spirit a part of God, even as the same Spirit in us, and also in wood and stones is substantially a portion of God. What he babbleth of the Person of the Mediator, we shall hereafter see in place convenient. But this monstrous forged devise, that a Person is nothing ells but a visible form of the glory of God, needeth no long confutation.¹ For where as John pronounceth, that the Word was GOD before the World was yet create, he maketh it much differing from a conception of Form. But if then also, yea and from farthest Eternity of time, that Word which was God was with the Father, and had his own proper glory with the Father, he could not be an outward or figurative shining: but it necessarily followeth that he was an hypostasis that did inwardly abide in God. And although there be no mention made of the Spirit, but in the History of ⟨image 48⟩the creation of the world: yet he is not there brought in as a shadow, but an essential power of God, when Moses showeth that the very unfashioned lump was sustained in him.² Therefore it then appeared, that the eternal Spirit was always in God, when he preserved and sustained the confused matter of heaven and earth, until beauty and order were added unto it. Surely he could not yet be an image or representation of God as Seruetto dreameth. But in other points he is compelled more openly to disclose his wickedness, in saying that God by his eternal purpose appointing to himself a visible Son, did by this mean show himself visible. For if that be true, there is no other godhead left unto Christ, but so far as he is by the eternal decree of God ordained his Sonne. Moreover he so transformeth those imagined shapes that he sticketh not to feign new accidents in God. But this of all other is most abominable, that he confusedly mingleth as well the Son of God, as the Holy ghost, with all creatures. For he plainly affirmeth, that there be parts and partitions in the Essence of God, of which every portion is God. And namely he saith, that the Spirits of the Faithful are coeternal and consubstantial with God: