1685. God the Father is by necessary consequence inferred, which is the subject of the following section.

Now whereas the ancient church-writers did difcoeternity ferently express themselves on this point, while yet he will have it that there was no difference in their meaning, he hath proved, I. That the better and greater part of the Christian doctors, who lived before the council of Nice, did openly, clearly, and perspicuously, without any windings, teach and profess the τὸ συναΐδιον of the Son, that is, his coeternal existence with God the Father. II. That some catholic writers, more ancient than the Nicene council, seem to attribute a certain nativity to the Son of God, as God, which sometime began, and just preceded the creation of the world: but that these notwithstanding were very wide from the opinion of Arius. " For if," saith he, " their say" ings are accurately weighed, it will appear that " they spake of a nativity not real and properly so " called, whereby the Son received a beginning of “ his substance [ὑπόστασις] and subsistence; but of " a figurative and metaphorical one: that is, their " meaning was only this, that the Logos, or di"vine Word, which from before all ages (or rather " from all eternity) did, as being nothing but "God, exist in and with God the Father, as the " coeternal offspring of his eternal mind, then, when " he was about to create the world, came forth " unto operation, [κατ ̓ ἐνέργειαν,] or effectually, and " so proceeded to the constitution (and formation) of " all things therein, for the manifesting himself and " his Father to the creatures: and that by reason of “ this progression [προέλευσις] he is in Scripture called,

" the Son of God, and his first-begotten." III. That 1685. some of the catholic doctors, who lived after the Arian controversy was sprung up, and strenuously opposed themselves to the heresy of the Ariomanites, nevertheless refused not to express themselves according to the sentiment, or rather according to the manner of explaining their sentiment, held by those primitive Fathers just before mentioned. For these also, as he evidently sheweth, have acknowledged that progression out of the Father of the Logos, that existed always with the Father, to create all this universe; which some of them have called by the name Συγκατάβασις, that is, his condescension: and have confessed, that even with respect to this progression, the Word was born as it were of God the Father, and is called in Scripture the first-begotten of every creature. IV. That Tertullian indeed had the boldness to write in express terms, fuisse tempus, quando Filius Dei non esset, that there was a time when the Son of God was not. But then, first it is plain that this writer, though otherwise of a great genius, and no less learning, fell away from the catholic church into heresy: and it is very uncertain which books he writ when he was a catholic, which when he was inclining towards heresy, and which, lastly, when he was a downright heretic. Then again Tertullian seems to have brought forth that saying only problematically, or by way of disputation, [ἀγωνιστικῶς,] and in the conflict with his adversary, as it were playing about the word Son: so as though he may seem absolutely to deny the Son's eternity, yet all the while he doth mean no more at the bottom, than those other Fathers that have been before

1685. mentionedf; namely, that that divine Person, who is called the Son of God, notwithstanding that he never but existed with the Father, was yet then first declared to be the Son, when he proceeded forth from the Father, in order to make or constitute the universe. Certain it is, that the same Tertullian elsewhere, in many places, philosophizeth altogether as a good catholic concerning the Son's coeternity, the supereminency of the subject considered. And as for Lactantius, who somewhere not obscurely ascribeth a beginning of existence to the Son of God, his esteem and authority in the church of God is but very small, forasmuch as he was uninstructed in the Scriptures, and was furnished with but a small share of Christian knowledge. But moreover, 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 f Sect. ii. cap. 5, 6, 7, 8.

explication of the opinion of Athenagoras, concern- 1685. ing 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 Cæsarea, 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 Constantine the Great to the Nicomedians, against Eusebius and Theognis, and other considerable materials out of the forecited 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 AnteNicene 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 ever

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1685. lasting. 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, Miltiades, 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 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.

Notwith

standing

LVII. Now concerning the subordination of the his subor- Son, as to his original from the Father, Mr. Bull the Father. hath laid down and proved these three following

dination to

theses; viz. 1. "That decree of the Nicene council, " by which it is declared that the Son of God is "God of God, [Θεὸς ἐκ Θεοῦ,] 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