From Reformation to Reformation

THESIS XXVII: Hitherto the commanding principium: the executing principium follows, which is the power of God, whereby God is able to...

THESIS XIX: In the Scripture there are various names for the divine will, which nevertheless indicate concepts, diverse to us, of...

THESIS XVIII: The principium commanding action is the will, whereby God wills Himself of Himself, and beyond Himself all things because...

THESIS XIV: Hitherto the divine properties of the first class: Of the second class are those that are applicable to God in such a way...

THESIS XI: Immutability is a property of God, which excludes from God all possibility of mutation: 1. with respect to existence; 2. ...

THESIS VI: The Properties of the divine nature, or essence, are GOD’S essential attributes, whereby the truth and majesty of the divine...

THESIS I: Hitherto the προλεγόμενα/Prolegomena of Christian Theology: now follows the explication of the body of Theology itself by...

Thesis I: The knowledge of God is defined. Thesis II: God is described. Explanation: 1. The description of God is confirmed. 2. The...

Johannes Crellius Hence also the Affections and Passions of the Soul are not to be attributed to God; as it is done by the Socinians, among whom Crellius, libro de Deo ejusque Attributis, chapter XXIX-XXXI, everywhere ascribes Affections to God, which in chapter XXIX, opera, tome 4, page 98a, he describes as being “the Passions of the divine Will, especially the more vehement; or the acts of this sort, whereby the will is brought more vehemently to its object, or flees from a

But this Immutability of God pertains, α. to God’s Existence, Eternally, in accordance with § 31, 32. β. To His Essence, forever the same, according Psalm 102:27, and so not subject to the possibility of Annihilation, which the Necessity of His Existence implies, concerning which in § 21. Neither does the Essence of God suffer any Mutation, either, 1. By Creation, which, as far as God is concerned, is not some accidental property of God, but His active Essence was already fro

From Simplicity flows Immutability, which, as it was organized by our AUTHOR, is proven, 1. From Sacred Scripture, among other passages, James 1:17, where to God is denied, not only παραλλαγὴ/ variableness, but even any τροπῆς ἀποσκίασμα, shadow of turning/ change. The very Sun in the eclipse of its Light suffers, if not change, at least shadowing: but not so the Father of Lights, in whom there is not even the slightest appearance of change. For an illustration of this text f

β. On the other hand, God’s Simplicity excludes all Composition that God might enter into with the Creature. For, if, 1. God’s Simplicity prevents all Composition, then it also prevents Composition with Creatures. By which, 2. the Immutable God would have endured actual Mutation. By which also, 3. God, who is distinguished from all other things by His Independence, would be made Dependent: since in the coming together of multiple things to constitute a composite, properly so

The Simplicty of God excludes: α. On the one hand, all Partial Communication of the Divine Essence, whether with all Creatures, or with man; just as the Manicheans are related to have held that all Creatures were propaged from God’s Essence as a vine, and that the Soul of Man in particular is a particle of the diven Essence: consult AUGUSTINE, de Hæresibus, chapter XLVI, page 967a, b, and DANÆUS on the same place, page 970a; EPIPHANIUS, Hæresi LXVI, chapter IX, page 626. Thus

But, as the Socinians and Vorstius here pursue their finite and corporeal conception of God, and study to overthrow in this way the Essential identity of the divine Persons: so the Remonstrants, so that they might flatter the Socinians, in their Apologia, chapter II, page 41b, pronounce that the whole Question or disputation concerning the Simplicity of God is Metaphysical, concerning which there is not so much as one Jot in Scripture. They say that the most acute geniuses pa

That God is thus Simple and without any Composition, we hold, 1. against the Socinians, who depict to us a Composite God, when they assert that it is false that the divine Attributes are God Himself, with Slichtingius:[1] while the Eternity and faculties, by which God does whatever He wills, together with the acts of God, they maintain to be a means, or a third thing between God and His creatures, according to Adam Goslawski:[2] and they say that the Attributes do not destroy

Moreover, in this Single Essence there is no Real Composition, either of the Nature and Attributes, or of the Attributes among themselves. Real Composition, says our AUTHOR, while admitting in § 18 the Difference of the Reason Reasoned, whereby the Attributes are distinguished from the Essence according to the reckoning of the Objects and Effects, and according to our Manner of Conception, is also held to admit such a Composition of the Reason Reasoned according to our Manner

We are obliged, at last, to charge the Socinians, who set themselves above all other Christians as Unitarians, because they multiply Gods; since they call Jesus Christ True God, but nevertheless made by the Father, and altogether distinct from Him in Essence; but indeed a ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον, mere man, who was not before he was born of the Virgin Mary; and, nevertheless, they thing that divine honors, of Adoration, for example, are also to be bestowed upon Him: compare SPANHEIM’S

This error of the Manicheans in the Third Century and thereafter was more well known than the others, that there are two eternal and opposite Principia, one of the good, the other of evil: in the assertion of which heresy a superabounding herd of Gnostics followed, who already in the Second Century were conversant with this opinion: see SPANHEIM’S Historiam Ecclesiasticam, Century III, chapter VII, § 5, columns 751-753; BUDDEUS’ Isagogen ad Theologiam universam, book II, chap

Neither is the Trinity any hindrance, β. to this Unity of Persons in One divine Essence. For the Trinity does not assert a divine Nature common to multiple Essences distinct in number; but this Trinity of Persons sweetly agrees and is conjoined with Unity of Essence, 1 John 5:7; see below, Chapter V, § 18: some also refer to this Deuteronomy 6:4; see Chapter V, § 19. Nor does it hinder, that three Persons among men also assert three men and three Essences diverse in number; i

Now, this Unity is not only Specific, just as many things that are actually plural are sometimes said to be One, to the extent that they are apt to come together in the conception of the same species. Thus with respect to species there is only one human nature, of which we are all partakers; while we nevertheless possess a human essence diverse from the singular number: but in God Numeric Unity obtains, in accordance with which His Being is so singular that it admits absolute