ARTICLES OF FAITH AND DOCTRINE

ARTICLE I. – OF GOD.

Our churches unanimously hold and teach, agreeably to the Decree of the Council of Nice, that there is only one Divine Essence, which is called, and truly is, God; but that there are three persons in this one Divine Essence, equally powerful, equally eternal, – God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, – who are one Divine Essence, eternal, incorporeal, indivisible, infinite in power, wisdom, and goodness, the Creator and Preserver of all things visible and invisible. And the word person is not intended to express a part or quality of another, but that which subsists of itself, precisely as the Fathers have employed this term on this subject.

Every heresy opposed to this Article is therefore condemned: as that of the Manichaeans, who assume two principles, the one good, the other evil. Likewise the heresies of the Valentinians, Arians, Eunomians, Mahometans, and the like; also that of the ancient and modern Samosatenians, who admit but one person, and sophistically explain away these two, – the WORD and the Holy Spirit, – asserting, that they must not be viewed as distinct persons, but that the WORD signifies the oral word or voice, and that the Holy Ghost is the principle of motion in things.