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but to be subordinate to no other, inasmuch as He is of the Father alone, and of no other.

They

believed the Holy Ghost to be, not "begotten," but "proceeding;" to be of the Father and of the Son,1 and therefore to be subordinate both to the Father and to the Son.

And as the sacred Three had mutually agreed to enter upon certain official capacities, differing from each other in point of rank, the Father to command, the Son to execute those commands, and the Spirit to go forth as sent by the Son; so, upon this account also, the same rank and order was recognised by them.2

between the sacred Three by virtue of the different mode of subsistence of each person in the Divine essence and the offices in which each is engaged. Pearson uses the same term when he treats upon the same mysterious doctrine. Vide infra note on p. 33. So also does Sherlock. See his Vindication of the Trinity, p. 18. And Bishop Bull has employed it as the title of the 4th Section of his Defens. Fid. Nicænæ.

' Vide Appendix, p. 79, note (5).

Neither are we to under

"When it is said," observes Dr. Waterland, 66 none is afore or after other, none is greater or less than another," we are not to understand it of order. For the Father is first, the Son second, the Holy Ghost third in order. stand it of office. For the Father is supreme in office, while the Son and Holy Ghost condescend to inferior offices. But we are to understand it, as the Creed itself explains it, of duration and dignity, in which respect none is afore or after, none greater or less; but the whole Three Persons co-eternal and co-equal.". Waterland, Commentary on the Athan. Creed, vol. iv. p. 292, Oxford, 1822. Vide Appendix p. 82, note (ŋ).

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The pre-eminence of the Father is thus described by Pearson in his exposition of the Apostles' Creed. "In the very name of

The doctrine of the economy of Persons, (for such may be called the doctrine which I have endea

FATHER, there is something of eminence, which is not in that of the SoN. And some kind of priority we must ascribe unto him whom we call the FIRST, in respect of him whom we term the SECOND Person. And, as we cannot but ascribe it; so must we endeavour to preserve it. Now that privilege or priority consisteth not in this, that the essence or attributes of the one are greater than the essence or attributes of the other; but only in this, that the Father hath that essence of himself; the Son, by communication from the Father. Whence he acknowledgeth, that He is from Him, that he liveth by Him, that the Father gave him to have life in himself. And he generally referreth all things to Him, as received from Him.

"Wherefore, in this sense, some of the ancients have not stuck to interpret those words, the Father is greater than I,' of Christ, as the Son of God, as the Second Person in the blessed Trinity; but still with a reference, not unto his essence, but unto his generation, by which he is understood to have his being from the Father, who only hath it in himself, and who is the original of all power and essence in the Son. I can of mine ownself do nothing,' saith our Saviour, because he is not of himself; and whosoever receives his being, must receive his power from another, - especially where the essence and the power are undeniably the same, as in God they are.

"We must not, therefore, so far involve ourselves in the darkness of this mystery, as to deny the glory which is clearly due unto the Father, whose pre-eminence undeniably consisteth in this, that He is God, not of any other, but of Himself; and that there is no other Person who is God, but is God of Him. It is no diminution of the Son to say, that he is from another. For his very name imports as much. But it were a diminution of the Father so to speak of Him, and there must be some preeminence, where there is place for derogation. What the Father is, he is from none; what the Son is, he is from the Father.

voured to describe,) has been ably commented upon by the learned Bishop Bull; to whose writings I shall now refer, for proof that I have not dealt un

What the First is, he giveth; what the second is, he receiveth. The First is a Father, indeed, by reason of his Son; but He is not God by reason of Him. Whereas the Son is not only so in regard to the Father, but he is also God by reason of the same. "Upon this pre-eminence, as I conceive, may safely be grounded the congruity of the divine mission.

"We often read, that Christ was sent. Whence he bears the name of an Apostle himself, as well as those whom he therefore named so; because, as the Father sent him, so sent he them. The Holy Ghost also is said to be sent, sometimes by the Father, sometimes by the Son. But we never read, that the Father was sent at all, there being an authority in that name which seems inconsistent with this mission.

Again, the dignity of the Father will yet further appear from the order of the persons in the Blessed Trinity, of which he is undoubtedly the first. For, although in some passages of the Apostolical Discourses, the Son may first be named, and in others the Holy Ghost precedes the Son, yet, where the three persons are barely enumerated and delivered unto us as the rule of faith, there that order is observed which is proper to them, which order hath been perpetuated in all confessions of faith, and is for ever inviolably to be observed. Now this priority doth properly and naturally result from the Divine Paternity; so that the Son must necessarily be second unto the Father, from whom he receiveth his origination, and the Holy Ghost unto the Son.

"Neither can we be thought to want a sufficient foundation for this priority of the First Person of the Trinity, if we look upon the numerous testimonies of the ancient doctors of the Church, who have not stuck to call the Father the Origin, the Cause, the Author, the Root, the Fountain, and the Head of the Son, of the whole Trinity."-Pearson on the Creed, p. 50-56, 8vo. 1832

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fairly with the Fathers. "The manner of speaking (says he) of some moderns, in which they call the Son God of, or from Himself,' is plainly repugnant to the Nicene Synod and the opinion of all Catholic Doctors who wrote before and after it." "The Catholic Doctors, both before and after the Synod of Nice, have unanimously determined, that God the Father is greater than the Son, even with respect to His Divinity, namely, not IN NATURE, or any ESSENTIAL PERFECTION, which is in the Father and not in the Son; but in AUTHORITY, i. e.,

In the eighth Article he treats again upon the same doctrine as it relates to each Person of the Trinity.

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“As there is a number in the Trinity, by which the Persons are neither more nor less than Three, so there is also an order, by which, of these Persons the Father is first, the Son the second, and the Holy Ghost the third. Nor is this order arbitrary or external, but internal and necessary, by virtue of a subordination of the second unto the first, and of the third unto the first and second. The Godhead was communicated from the Father to the Son, not from the Son unto the Father. Though, therefore, this were done from all eternity, and so there can be no priority of time, yet there must be acknowledged a priority of order, by which the Father, not the Son, is first, and the Son, not the Father, second. Again, the same Godhead was communicated by the Father and the Son unto the Holy Ghost, not by the Holy Ghost to the Father or the Son. Though, therefore, this was also done from all eternity, and, therefore, can admit of no priority in reference to time, yet that of order must be here observed; so that the Spirit, receiving the Godhead from the Father, who is the first Person, cannot be the first; receiving the same from the Son, who is the second, cannot be the second; but, being from the first and second, must be, of the three, the third."—Ib. p. 482.

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ORIGINAL ALONE, as the Son is from the Father, not the Father from the Son."

"The ancient Doctors thought this doctrine of the subordination of the Son to the Father, as His ORIGINAL and PRINCIPLE, very useful and necessary to be known and believed; because by this especially the Divinity of the Son may be asserted, and the unity of the Divine Monarchy preserved entire notwithstanding. For though the name and nature be common to two, namely, to the Father and His Son, yet because the one is THE PRINCIPLE of the other, from which he is propagated, and that by an interior, not an exterior production, God is truly said to be one. This reason those Ancients did also believe equally to belong to the Divinity of the Holy Ghost."1

'The words which I have quoted are the theses of three chapters. They are, therefore, to be considered not as a mere assertion on the part of Bishop Bull, but rather as an assertion which that learned prelate proves to be correct. His words are as follows:-" Proponitur Thesis prima, de subordinatione Filii ad Patrem, ut ad sui originem ac principium. Quæ et unanimi veterum consensu confirmatur. Ostenditur locutionem illam quorundam Neotoricorum qua Filium dicunt åvróɛov hoc est, a seipso Deum, sententiæ Synodi ipsius Nicænæ adeoque Catholicorum Doctorum omnium tum qui ante tum qui post istam scripsere Synodum prorsus repugnare."-Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicæn. sec. iv. сар. 1.

"Catholici Doctores tum qui Synodo Nicæna anteriores fuere, tum qui postmodum vixerunt, unanimi consensu Deum Patrem etiam secundum Divinitatem Filio majorem esse statuerunt: nempe non natura quidem, aut perfectione aliqua essentiali, quæ

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