"Therefore, let such as love sobriety, and will be contented with the measure of faith, briefly attend to what is useful to be known, which is, that, when we profess to believe in one God, the word God denotes a single and simple essence, in which we comprehend three Persons, or hypostases; and that, therefore, whenever the word God is used indefinitely, the Son and Spirit are intended as much as the Father; but when the Son is associated with the Father, that introduces the reciprocal relation of one to the other; and thus we distinguish between the Persons." - John Calvin, The Institutes, 1. 8. 20. Pg. 136
"The nature of God is his most lively and most perfect essence. The perfection of the nature of God is his absolute constitution by the which he is wholly complete within himself. (Exodus 3:14) . . . . (Acts 17:24,25) . . . . The perfection of his nature is either simpleness, or the infiniteness thereof. The simpleness of his nature is that by which he is void of all logical relation. He hath not in him subject or adjunct. (John 5:26) . . . . Conferred with John 14:6 . . . . (1 John 1:7) . . . . Conferred with 1 John 1:5 . . . . Hence it is manifest that to have life and to be life, to be in light and to be light, in God are all one. Neither is God subject to generality or speciality, whole or parts, matter or that which is made of matter, for so there should be in God divera things, and one more perfect than another. Therefore, whatsoever is in God is his essence, and all that he is, he is by essence. The saying of Augustine in his sixth book and fourth chapter of The Trinity, is fit to prove this, 'In God (saith he) to be, and to be just and mighty are all one: but in the mind of man it is not all one to be, and to be mighty or just: for the mind may be destitute of these virtues, and yet a mind.' Hence it is manifest that the nature of God is immutable and spiritual." - William Perkins, The Golden Chain, pg. 2
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