'An Antidote against the lurking Poison': Nelson's 'Life of Dr. Bull' and a necessary critique of Remonstrant thought

We first encountered the Dutch Remonstrant theologian Episcopius early in Nelson's Life of Dr. George Bull, with the young Bull subversively reading him while under the care of a Calvinistic tutor during the Interregnum. The Remonstrant thinker, said Nelson, "preserved [the young Bull] from the bad Principles of those Times, and directed his Understanding in distinguishing Truths of very great Importance". 

Episcopius now reappears as Nelson explores Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae: the context, however, is much more critical of the great Remonstrant. Part of Bull's motivation in writing this work was, Nelson states, to challenge a tendency amongst Remonstrant writers, while rejecting Socinian error, to yet critique the Council of Nicaea:

It is plain Episcopius was far from being a Socinian, as our Author truly observeth, having expresly written against, and solidly overthrown the fundamental Article of Socinianism; and endeavoured from the Testimony of Scripture, to shew his Orthodoxy in the Doctrine of the blessed Trinity; but the Defender of the Nicene Faith is, it seems, more than a little displeased at him, for his course, and most unhandsome Treatment of the Nicene Fathers: And the Theological Institutions of this learned Remonstrant, being about that time generally in the Hands of our Students of Divinity in both Universities, as the best System of Divinity that had appeared, Mr. Bull had reason to fear, that many by reading a Book so well approved of, might suck in thence a very mean Opinion of those venerable Fathers; and not only of them, but of most, or all of the Primitive Writers and Witnesses, both preceeding and succeeding them; and thought it incumbent upon him to wipe off the Calumny which he saw cast upon them, at the same time that he defended the common Faith, as by them delivered and explained.

Bull, therefore, feared that the legitimate influence in Cambridge and Oxford of Remonstrant theology - Episcopius' Institutiones Theologicae being "the best System of Divinity that had appeared" - would lead to the faith confessed by Nicaea being undermined. This points to a failure by the Remonstrant theologians to show due deference to Nicaea and to be dismissive of wider patristic thought.

We have seen previously how Nelson described Bull as "this great master of the Ancient Fathers". In light of Bull's reverence for patristic figures and theologies, and mindful that the post-1662 Church of England witnessed a flowering of patristic studies, alongside a perception of itself - in the words of Eamon Duffy - as "primitive Christianity revived", there is little doubt that this Remonstrant tendency to be dismissive of "all the Primitive Writers and Witnesses" displeased Bull. 

This was for Bull a dangerous weakness in Remonstrant theology, giving encouragement to the Socinianism which the Remonstrants themselves rejected. He was certainly not alone in this view. Jeremy Taylor had highlighted Bramhall's concern that the Remonstrants, while "in many things of a most excellent belief ... approached too near and gave too much countenance to the great and dangerous errors of the Socinians". 

As Nelson continues, it was the very strengths of the Remonstrant theologians which made it vital to challenge and refute their failure to exercise deference to Nicaea:

This was the more necessary, because the Remonstrant Writers, among whom there were Men of excellent Learning and Parts, had now acquir'd a considerable Reputation in our Universities, by the means of some great Men among us: And therefore since Grotius, Episcopius, Curcellaus [i.e. Étienne de Courcelles], and others of them, while they were willing to appear as Orthodox as any in the Article of our Saviour's Deity, did yet let fall several things, which the Adversaries thereof greedily catch'd up, as making for them; Mr. Bull was much in the right to prepare an Antidote against the lurking Poison, which might secretly instil itself into the Minds of unwary Readers. 

Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae, therefore, was a significant, necessary corrective to Remonstrant thought by a leading divine of what we might term English anti-Calvinistic divinity (perhaps a more accurate term than 'Arminian'). The fact that Nelson employs graphic language to describe this - "an Antidote against the lurking Poison" - demonstrates how the creedal orthodox and patristic commitments of English anti-Calvinists necessarily rejected those tendencies in Remonstrant thought which gave succour to Socinianism.