35. The distorted mind of heresy is incapable of
knowing and confessing the One true God; the sound faith and reason
necessary for such confession is incompatible with unbelief. We
must confess Father and Son before we can apprehend God as One and
true. When we have known the mysteries of man’s salvation,
accomplished in us through the power of regeneration unto life in the
Father and the Son, then we may
hope to penetrate the mysteries of the Law and the Prophets.
Godless ignorance of the teaching of Evangelists and Apostles cannot
frame the thought of One true God. Out of the teaching of
Evangelists and Apostles we shall present the sound doctrine concerning
Him, in accurate agreement with the faith of true believers. We
shall present Him in such wise that the Only-begotten, Who is of the
substance of the Father, shall be known as indivisible and inseparable
in nature, not in Person. We shall set forth God as One, because
God is from the nature of God. But we shall also establish this
doctrine of the perfect unity of God upon the words of the Prophets,
and make them the foundations of the Gospel structure, proving that
there is One God, with one Divine nature, by the fact that God the
Only-begotten is never classed apart as a second God. For
throughout this book of our treatise we have followed the same course
as in its predecessor; the same methods which proved there that the Son
is God, have proved here that He is true God. I trust that our
explanation of each passage has been so convincing that we have now
manifested Him as true God as effectually as we formerly demonstrated
His Godhead. The remainder of the book shall be devoted to the
proof that He, Who is now recognised as true God, must not be regarded
as a second God. Our disproof of the notion of a second God will
further establish the unity; and this truth shall be displayed as not
inconsistent with the personal existence of the Son, while yet it
maintains the unity of nature in God and God.