ungrateful as not frequently to exclaim, " He that is mighty hath done great things to me." [1]
When, however, in this article we call the Father " Almighty," let no person be led into the error of excluding, therefore, from its participation the Son and the Holy Ghost. As we say the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God, so, in like manner, we confess that the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty, and, yet, there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. The Father, in particular, we call Almighty, because he is the source of all origin; as we also attribute wisdom to the Son, because the eternal word of the Father; and goodness to the Holy Ghost, because the love of both. These, however, and such appellations, maybe given indiscriminately to the three Persons, according to the rule of Catholic faith.
" CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH"] The necessity of having previously imparted to the faithful a knowledge of the potence of God, will appear from what we are now about to explain with regard to the creation of the world. For when already convinced of the omnipotence of the Creator, we more readily believe the wondrous production of so stupendous a work. For God formed not the world from materials of any sort, but created it from nothing, and that not by constraint or necessity, but spontaneously, and of his own free will. Nor was he impelled to create by any other cause than a desire to communicate to creatures the riches of his bounty; for essentially happy in himself, he stands not in need of any thing: as David expresses it: "I said to the Lord, thou art my God, for of my goods thou hast no need." [2] But as, influenced by his own goodness, " he hath done all things whatsoever he would," [3] so in the work of the creation he followed no external form or model; but contemplating and, as it were, imitating the universal model contained in the divine intelligence, the supreme Architect, with ii finite wisdom and power, attributes peculiar to the Divinity, created all things in the beginning: " he spoke and they were made, he commanded and they were created." [4] The words " heaven" and " earth" include all things which the heavens and the earth contain; for, besides the heavens, which the Prophet called " the work of his fingers," [5] he also gave to the sun its brilliancy, and to the moon and stars their beauty: and that they may be " for signs and for seasons, for days and for years," [6] he so ordered the celestial bodies in a certain and uniform course, that nothing varies more their continual revolution, yet nothing more fixed than that variety.
Moreover, he created from nothing spiritual nature, and angels innumerable to serve and minister to him: and these he replenished and adorned with the admirable gifts of his grace and power. That the devil and his associates, the rebel angels, were gifted at their creation with grace, clearly follows from these
