over, we must necessarily conclude, that either those places in the writings of Lactantius, which seem to make against the Son's eternity, were corrupted by some Manichean heretic, or else that Lactantius himself was certainly infected with the heresy of Manes. And after all, it must be owned, that even he too hath yet somewhere delivered a sounder opinion concerning the eternity of the Logos. All which particulars our author hath distinctly considered in the last chapter of this third section. The first of these articles he hath illustrated and confirmed, by a very noble passage out of St. Ignatius; as also by several plain and express testimonies of Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Origen; and likewise by many other concurring suffrages of the Fathers, Greek and Latin, of the third century, or thereabouts. The second article he clears up, by a most accurate explication of the opinion of Athenagoras, concerning the Son's eternity and progression; as also of Tatian, and Theophilus Antiochenus, whom he proveth as to the main to have been sound and catholic in this point. The same he hath made out also, concerning St. Hippolytus the martyr: and hath fully represented the sentiment hereupon of the ancient anonymous author, concerning the Trinity, ascribed to Novatian and Tertullian. The third article he hath established and illustrated pretty largely, by testimonies from the catholic Fathers, who flourished after the rise of the Arian controversy; as particularly from the great Eusebius of Cesarea, from Socrates, from Athanasius himself, from an epistle of some Arian presbyters and deacons, extant both in him and in Hilary, from Zeno, Bishop of Verona, besides the epistle of Con

r

stantine the Great, to the Nicomedians, against Eusebius and Theognis, and other considerable materials out of the fore-cited Athanasius. The fourth article being no less solidly and perspicuously proved by him, he concludeth with an epilogue grounded upon a saying of Sisinnius, reported by Socrates, "That the ancients did studiously take heed, not to "attribute any beginning of existence to the Son of "God, because they conceived him to be coeternal "with the Father." For it appears by him, of the six Anti-Nicene writers (Lactantius not being reckoned) that speak in the most suspicious manner, no less than five of them, namely, Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus, Hippolytus, and the author of the ancient book, de Trinitate, have openly professed that the divine Logos was with God the Father from everlasting. And even Tertullian himself, who is the sixth, after a great deal of round-about work, is found to sit down at last in the common opinion, as he calls it, that is, in the catholic or orthodox notion, and there to acquiesce: according as he hath expressly asserted against the Valentinians, who were the forerunners of Arius. No doubt but that there were also many other monuments of antiquity, which were seen and read by Sisinnius, who was known to be a person of great learning in the ecclesiastical writers, as particularly of Quadratus, Aristides, Meltiades, Melito, &c. which now are lost; but might have served not a little to the farther clearing up of this thesis, had their works come down to us. From this determination of the eternal existence of the Logos, or

r Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. 10. s Sozom. Hist. Ecclesiast, lib. vii. cap. 12.

Word, in and with the Father, he proceedeth in the last place to consider his subordination, and dependence upon the Father, whose word he is.

dination to

LVII. Now concerning the subordination of the Son, Notwithstanding as to his original from the Father, Mr. Bull hath laid his subordown and proved these three following theses; viz. 1. the Father. ❝t That decree of the Nicene Council, by which it is "declared, that the Son of God is God of God, [Oos "Ex eo,] is generally approved of by the catholic "doctors, both by them that lived before, and them "that lived after that Council: for they all with one "consent have taught, that the divine nature and perfections do agree to the Father and Son, not collaterally or co-ordinately, but subordinately: that "is, that the Son hath indeed the same divine nature "in common with the Father, but hath it communi"cated from the Father, so as the Father alone hath "that divine nature from himself, or from no other be

sides, but the Son from the Father; and conse"quently, that the Father is the fountain, original, "and principle of the divinity, which is in the Son. "2. "The catholic writers, both they that were before, and they that were after the Council of Nice, "have unanimously declared God the Father to be greater than the Son; even according to his divi

66

nity yet this not by nature indeed, or by any es"sential perfection, which is in the Father, and is "wanting in the Son; but only by fatherhood, or his

being the author and original; forasmuch as the "Son is from the Father, not the Father from the "Son. 3. The doctrine of the subordination of the

"Son to the Father, as to his origination and prin

cipiation, the ancients thought to be most useful, " and even altogether necessary to be known and be"lieved, that by this means, the Godhead of the Son "might be so asserted, as that the unity of God, ne"vertheless, and the divine monarchy might still be preserved inviolate. Forasmuch as notwithstand

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ing the name and nature are common to two, that "is, to the Father and to the Son, yet because one is "the principle of the other, from whom he is propa

gated, and that by internal not external production; "it thence followeth, that God may rightly be said "to be but one God. And the same ancients believed

moreover, that the very same reason did hold like"wise as to the Godhead of the Holy Ghost." This is the sum of his doctrine, concerning the divine monarchy and subordination in the blessed Trinity, so as not to lessen either the consubstantiality or coeternity of the Son and Spirit with the Father. For though he maintained that there are in the Deity three really distinct hypostases or persons, he no less strenuously insisteth, that there is and can be but one God; first, because there is but one fountain or principle of the Godhead, viz. The FATHER, who only is [Avródeos] God of and from himself, the SON and HOLY GHOST deriving from him their divinity: and then because the SON and HOLY GHOST are so derived from the fountain of the divinity, as not to be separate or separable from it, but always to exist therein most trine of the intimately united.

The doc

Council of

Nice, vindicated by

Mr. Bull a

Under each of these three last theses, there are some considerable observations made by our author, gainst the from the catholic doctors of the church, both before and after the rise of Arianism; without a thorough

modern Autotheans.

understanding of which, it will be impossible ever to settle this matter to satisfaction. In treating the first of them, he hath learnedly and solidly confuted the unreasonable and uncatholic notion of the moderns, which maketh the Son a self-dependent principle of divinity, (and by consequence another God,) by asserting and defending, that he might properly be called AUTÓ Eos, as well as the Father is, and that he is truly God of himself, and not God of God, as the Nicene Fathers confess him. This opinion was first of all started by Calvin, against the judgment of the catholic church to this very day, and even of the first reformers, Luther and Melancthon, as Petavius and our author have sufficiently shewn. It was afterwards dressed up and vindicated by Danæus, and after him by several others of the Calvinistical school; whose main argument was this, that Christ must have been God of himself, or else he could not be God at all; because the notion of God, supposeth self-existence. This opinion was very much opposed about the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century by Arminius, in an epistolary dissertation on this subject, to one Vytenbogard, in his Declaration made before the States of Holland; in his Apology against the one and thirty Articles; and, lastly, in a Letter to the Prince Palatine's envoyée to the States General. But the prejudices which many entertained against him were so violent, as none of his arguments could get to be heard by them, who were so bigotted to their master, and to his private opinions, as not to be able to bear any thing which might grate

* Inst. Theol. lib. i. cap. 13. §. 19. cap. 23,

y Isagog. Chris. lib. i