312 'rue ARIAN INVITED TO ORTHODOX FAITH. because the Father is the principle and original of the Son, there= fore they say, heis greater. It is true, they sometimes make the nature of the Father and Son the same : But they had such a settled belief and universal maxim among them, that the Fattier had some pre-eminence and prerogative above the Son, that they express his priority and superiority to the Son, in various forms of speech. Bishop Bull affirms this in Defensione /ìdri nicaenae, sectioná iv.' capite 2. de subordinatione fill. And capite 1. he asserts, that "All the fathers without fear pronounced him principiurn, causa et autor filii, apxn, agia, & moloy avoa, the principle or spring, thecause, the author of the Son, the cause of his being ;" as well as that the Father is said to be the spring of his godhead and power. He is the fountain, the root, the head of the Sou, and has the peculiar title of the only true God. And as the Father is the cause, so the Son is crtataros, the thing, or person, caused. And Bishop Bull expressly grants, that in the sense of the fathers, and in his own opinion, " The Son receiv- ed not only his person, but his nature and deity from the Father." See " Defensionem fidei nicaenae," sectione iv. capite 1. § 7. II. TheLogos isnot only represented by these writers as generated, and existing by the will and power of God, but a great part of the ante-nicene fathers, and some of the post- nicenes also represent the procession, prolation, production, or generation of the Son, as temporary, and at some time before this worldwas made ; or inorder to form, make, or to adorn this world. It must be confessed, that the post-nicene writers speak more of the eternal generation than the primitive ancients had done, yet they make his ante-mundane production from the Fa- ther to be a generation also, and suppose this to be voluntary as well as temporal. Though all of them grant the co-eternal existence of the Logos; as a divine power, as the reason or wisdom of God, and in this sense some of them say, the Father was always a Father, and never was without the Son, considered as the internal word, wisdom or reason of God, or considering God the Father, as having the Son always potentially within him, yet many of the most early writers make the generation and distinctSonship of the Logos, to be temporary and voluntary, and ante- mundane, and speaknot plainly of any other, as Justin, Athenagoras, Theo- philus, and several more besides them. Some of the most inge- nious, and learned defenders of the eternal godhead of Christ, have constantly allowed the highest generation of the Son, spoken of by Justin, and several others of the fathers, to be temporal, and that, perhaps, even the nicene bishops, meant the same, when they call the Son light of light, &c. Tertullian saith plainly, " Though God is a Father, yet he was not always a Father, for he could not be a Father before,
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