Page:The Decrees of the Vatican Council.djvu/23

Rh almighty, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intelligence, in will and in all perfection, who, as being one, sole, absolutely simple and immutable spiritual substance, is to be declared as really and essentially distinct from the world, of supreme beatitude in and from Himself, and ineffably exalted above all things beside Himself which exist or are conceivable.

This one, only, true, of His own goodness and almighty power, not for the increase of His own happiness, nor to acquire but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel, created out of nothing, from the beginning of time, both the spiritual and corporeal creature, to wit, the angelic and the mundane; and afterwards the human creature, as partaking, in a sense, of both, consisting of spirit and of body. protects and governs by His providence all things which He hath made, "reaching from end to end mightily, and ordering all things sweetly." For "all things are bare and open to His eyes," even those which are yet to be by the free action of creatures.

 

HE same holy Mother Church holds and teaches that, the beginning and end of all things, may be certainly known by the natural light of human reason by means of created things—&quot;for the invisible 