But if a certain king reigns over men, but he himself is ruled by vile passions and sins: love of money and anger, deceit and unrighteousness, pride and rage, and most evil of all unbelief and blasphemy, such a king is not God's servant, but of devils, and not a king, but a tormentor. Our Lord Jesus Christ calls such a king, for his wickedness, not a king, but a fox: "Go," He says, "speak to this fox" (Luke 13:32). And the prophet says: "A haughty king will perish, because his ways are dark." And the three youths not only did not obey the command of King Nebuchadnezzar, but also called him a lawless enemy, a hateful apostate, and the worst king in all the earth (Dan. 3:32). And do not listen to a king or a prince who inclines you to wickedness or deceit, even if he torments you or threatens you with death. This is taught to us by the prophets, apostles, and all the martyrs who were killed by impious kings, but did not obey their command.

This is how it is proper to serve kings and princes. And enough about that.

Let us speak further about how now, in the New Testament, we should worship the Lord God and serve Him alone.

First of all, a true Christian must know, from the Holy Scriptures, what God is and how one should think about God now, and then he will truly know how to worship the Lord God and serve Him alone. Not like the Jews, who confess God in one Person and in one Hypostasis of the Father, and reject the Son and the Holy Spirit, and not like the Greeks, who worship many gods, but one should confess and venerate three Persons and three Hypostases, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the One God.

When you hear that the Father begat the Son, and that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, do not think that God the Father was created as we are, and do not think that He begat the Son who was created, as we give birth, and that the Holy Spirit disperses through the air like our breath: the mystery of the Holy Trinity is ineffable and ineffable, and incomprehensible either to the angelic or to the human mind. An intelligible God is not God: for if we cannot comprehend or describe an angel or our created soul, how much more is it fitting for the Creator of all things to be incomprehensible! And all who tried to comprehend God tried to measure the abyss with handfuls; and the deeper they descended, the more they deviated into the heresies of the enemy, because this mystery is ineffable and unspeakable. Do not say, "How?" because it is greater than any "so." Do not ask, "In what way?" because the Image of God is greater than any image.

What we learn from the Holy Scriptures about God does not correspond to the measure of the Divine nature, but corresponds to the weakness of those who hear. And now, since time is in a hurry, we will speak of Him briefly, according to our weakness, in the words of Holy Scripture, which says thus: God is eternal, He is and will be. Eternal means that it has neither beginning nor end. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, in three Persons, in three Hypostases, holy in three Persons, eternal in three Persons, the Creator in three Persons, the King in three Persons, the Lord in three Persons, in three Persons the One Nature, the three-sun, the three-light, the three-light, the One God in three Hypostases, the One Being in three Hypostases, the One Essence in three Persons.

When you hear about three Persons, three Hypostases, do not think that these are three Gods – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but preach the One God – the Holy Trinity.

It should be added that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not common names, but each Person has its own Name. The Father is not called the Son, and the Son is not called the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not called either the Father or the Son. God is always called the Trinity; although He has three Hypostases and three Persons, He is one Being, one Essence, one Godhead, one Wisdom, one power and one will. And there was not one Hypostasis before the time, and the other after: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are inseparable; The faces of God are not separated from each other by years, nor by disposition, nor by will, nor by intention, nor by action, nor by passion — none of the things that we see in people. Therefore God is one: not three Gods, but one in three Hypostases, that is, Persons. And nothing of the Divine Trinity was earlier or later than the other, there was neither growing nor decreasing, nothing began or ended.

And the first great true light is God the Father, unbegotten, incorruptible, invisible, incorporeal, indescribable, ineffable, incomprehensible, the Creator of Heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And the Son is light, as He Himself said: "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12). The true light is from the true Light, the true God is from the true God, the likeness and image of God, the active Word, the Wisdom that contains all, the Hypostasis and power that creates all creation, the One through Whom all things came into existence, and all that the Father has belongs to the Son, as He Himself said: "All that the Father has is Mine" (John 16:15), and "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:14). 9.) — and: "I am in the Father, and the Father in Me" (John 14:10), — for He was born of the Father before all ages, ineffable, ineffable, incomprehensible, without passion, without combination, without confusion, incorporeal, out of time, like rays from the sun, like a flame from a fire, like a channel from a river. And not like those who are born, who can no longer be in those who begat them, but as a ray that proceeds from the sun and abides in the sun, enlightening the world and not parting from the sun; and as flame and light, proceeding from fire, giving men sensual light, and abiding in the fire; and like a channel branching off from the river, watering people and not parting from the river. The Word, eternally abiding in the Father and from the Father and with the Father, inseparable, inseparable, unchanging.

Having spoken briefly about the Divine Nature of Christ, let us say a little about His human Nature, which He assumed for the sake of our salvation. For being God, He became, for our sake, also a perfect Man, He became in the last days, He was born of the Holy Virgin Mother of God Mary, the great, pre-eternal, beginningless, invisible, incomprehensible and indescribable, knowing the hearts of all people. There are, therefore, two of His births. The first is from the Father, pre-eternal, timeless, incorporeal: He shone like the light from the sun. The second is from the Holy Virgin Mary, seedless from the Holy Spirit. Therefore He is known in two natures, the Divine and the human. And He has one Hypostasis, for He is one, the Son of God and the Son of the Virgin. He is both God and Man, in two natures: for He is of one essence with the Father in Divinity and of one essence with the Mother in humanity. And there are two actions in it – Divine and human, and two wills, that is, desires. Thus, having the Divine will, He, as God, created the Divine by it, raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, and working many other unspeakable signs and wonders. But He also had a human will, or desire; for He took on human flesh and spiritual actions and passions, in order to show the true incarnation, and not a vision, sweeping aside the evil passions that defile our lives as unworthy of the Most-Pure Divinity. He suffered, having two Natures: for in the Flesh He hung on the Cross, in the Flesh He suffered, in the Flesh He died, while His Divinity remained impassible.

And He appeared to the disciples in the already incorruptible and deified Flesh, after the resurrection, and ascended to heaven with the Flesh, and sat down at the right hand of the Father in the deified Flesh, and not in corruptible decay, as we do. And He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom has no end.

But the Light and the Holy Spirit, the true and life-giving God, is perfect and of one essence with the Father and the Son, omnipotent, omnipotent, sanctifies all, dominates, possesses, reigns, dominates, has no beginning, invisible, incomprehensible, unexplored, ineffable, Who created with the Father and the Son a rational and sensual creature, proceeding from the Father, — but not from the Son, as the Latin heretics assert in their wisdom.

Who testifies that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and not from the Son? — The Truth Itself, our Lord Jesus Christ. For He said: "When the Comforter comes, Whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, Who proceeds from the Father" (John 15:26. And again He says, "If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth" (John 14:15-17). And again, "These things have I said to you while I was with you. But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things" (John 14:25-26).

You see, He nowhere says, "The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from Me"! And what is truer than this testimony? Answer us to this! And if Christ is the Word of God and is called God's Wisdom and Truth, and knows everything as God, then who can say that He spoke falsely? Only the one who does not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is the true God. But if anyone calls Him the true God, he confesses that what He says is true.