The Second Helvetic Confession
CHAPTER V
Of The Adoration, Worship and Invocation
of God Through
The Only Mediator Jesus Christ
GOD ALONE IS TO BE ADORED AND WORSHIPPED. We teach that
the true God alone is to be adored and worshipped. This honor we impart to none
other, according to the commandment of the Lord, “You shall worship the
Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (Math. 4:10). Indeed, all the
prophets severely inveighed against the people of Israel whenever they adored
and worshipped strange gods, and not the only true God. But we teach that God
is to be adored and worshipped as he himself has taught us to worship, namely,
“in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23 f.), not with any superstition,
but with sincerity, according to his Word; lest at anytime he should say to us:
“Who has required these things from your hands?” (Isa. 1:12; Jer.
6:20). For Paul also says: “God is not served by human hands, as though he
needed anything,” etc. (Acts 17:25).
GOD ALONE IS TO BE INVOKED THROUGH THE MEDIATION OF CHRIST
ALONE. In all crises and trials of our life we call upon him alone, and that by
the mediation of our only mediator and intercessor, Jesus Christ. For we have
been explicitly commanded: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will
deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Ps. 1:15). Moreover, we have a
most generous promise from the Lord Who said: “If you ask anything of the
Father, he will give it to you” (John 16:23), and: “Come to me, all
who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest: (Matt 11:28). And
since it is written: “How are men to call upon him in whom they have not
believed?” (Rom. 10:14), and since we do believe in God alone, we assuredly
call upon him alone, and we do so through Christ. For as the apostle says, “There
is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus?
(I Tim. 2:5), and, “If any one does sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,” etc. (I John 2:1).
THE SAINTS ARE NOT TO BE ADORED, WORSHIPPED OR INVOKED.
For this reason we do not adore, worship, or pray to the saints in heaven, or to
other gods, and we do not acknowledge them as our intercessors or mediators
before the Father in heaven. For God and Christ the Mediator are sufficient for
us; neither do we give to others the honor that is due to God alone and to his
Son, because he has expressly said: “My glory I give to no other: (Isa.
42:8), and because Peter has said: “There is no other name under heaven
given among men by which we must be saved,” except the name of Christ (Acts
4:12). In him, those who give their assent by faith do not seek anything
outside Christ.
THE DUE HONOR TO BE RENDERED TO THE SAINTS. At the same
time we do not despise the saints or think basely of them. For we acknowledge
them to be living members of Christ and friends of God who have gloriously
overcome the flesh and the world. Hence we love them as brothers, and also
honor them; yet not with any kind of worship but by an honorable opinion of them
and just praises of them. We also imitate them. For with ardent longings and
supplications we earnestly desire to be imitators of their faith and virtues, to
share eternal salvation with them, to dwell eternally with them in the presence
of God, and to rejoice with them in Christ. And in this respect we approve of
the opinion of St. Augustine in De Vera Religione: “Let not our
religion be the cult of men who have died. For if they have lived holy lives,
they are not to be thought of as seeking such honors; on the contrary, they want
us to worship him by whose illumination they rejoice that we are fellow-servants
of his merits. They are therefore to be honored by the way of imitation, but
not to be adored in a religious manner,” etc.
RELICS OF THE SAINTS. Much less do we believe that the
relics of the saints are to be adored and reverenced. Those ancient saints
seemed to have sufficiently honored their dead when they decently committed
their remains to the earth after the spirit had ascended on high. And they
thought that the most noble relics of their ancestors were their virtues, their
doctrine, and their faith. Moreover, as they commend these “relics”
when praising the dead, so they strive to copy them during their life on earth.
SWEARING BY GOD’S NAME ALONE. These ancient men did not
swear except by the name of the only God, Yahweh, as prescribed by the divine
law. Therefore, as it is forbidden to swear by the names of strange gods (Ex.
23:;13; Deut. 10:20), so we do not perform oaths to the saints that are demanded
of us. We therefore reject in all these matters a doctrine that ascribes much
too much to the saints in heaven.
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