True Christian Religion (Chadwick) n. 6

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6. (i) THE WHOLE OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURE AND ALL THE DOCTRINES EXTRACTED FROM IT BY CHURCHES THROUGHOUT CHRISTENDOM TEACH THAT THERE IS A GOD AND HE IS ONE.

The reason why the whole of the Sacred Scripture teaches the existence of God is that its inmost meaning is concerned with nothing but God, that is, the Divine proceeding from God. For Scripture was dictated by God, and nothing can proceed from God except what He Himself is, and this we call the Divine. This resides in the inmost meaning of Scripture. However, in its lower forms which are derived from the Divine, the Holy Scripture is adapted to the grasp of angels and men. In these forms it is likewise Divine, but in a different guise; in this case the Divine is called Celestial, Spiritual and Natural. These are merely the veils of God, since God Himself, as He exists in the inmost meaning of the Word, cannot be looked on by any created being. For when Moses begged to see the glory of Jehovah, God told him that no one can see God and live. It is the same with the inmost meaning of the Word, in which God is in His Being and Essence.

[2] Still the Divine, which is inmostly contained in it and is protected by such veils as adapt it to the grasp of angels and men, shines out like light passing through crystalline structures, but the light appears to differ according to the state of mind which a person has acquired from God or from himself. For everyone who has acquired his state of mind from God, the Sacred Scripture is like a mirror, in which he sees God, everyone in his own fashion. This mirror is composed of the truths which he learns from the Word and absorbs by living his life in accordance with them. A first conclusion from this is that the Sacred Scripture is the fulness of God.

[3] This teaches not only the existence of God, but also that He is one. This is evident from the fact that the truths, which, as I have said, compose that mirror, are held together in a single bond and prevent a person from thinking about God except as one. That is why every person, whose reason has absorbed some holiness from the Word, knows, as if of himself, that God is one, and regards talking about several gods as a kind of madness. Angels cannot open their mouths to say 'Gods', because the aura of heaven in which they live offers resistance. The Sacred Scripture teaches that God is one not only universally, as I asserted, but in many particular passages, such as the following.

Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah. Deut. 6:4; similarly Mark 12:29.

Surely God is among you, and there is no God beside Me. Isa. 45:14, 15. Am I not Jehovah, and there is no other God beside me? Isa. 45:21.

I am Jehovah your God, and you are not to acknowledge any God beside Me. Hosea 13:4.

Thus spoke Jehovah, the King of Israel, I am the First and the Last, and there is no God beside Me. Isa. 44:6. On that day Jehovah will be King over all the earth; on that day Jehovah will be one, and His name one. Zech. 14:9.


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