'The old Catholick Doctrine': Nelson's 'Life of Bull' , divine monarchy, and the Calvinistical School

Last week we saw, from Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull, how Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae (1685) asserted a subordination of the Son on the basis on Nicene confession that He is begotten of the Father, "God of God", the Father thus being "the Fountain, Original and Principle of the Divinity". This view of the divine monarchy and the Son's subordination was, of course, controversial, provoking sustained critiques of Bull, despite (as previously noted) divines such as Ralph Cudworth and Jeremy Taylor sharing this understanding.

Nelson himself has no hesitation whatsoever in affirming Bull's position, placing it in a wider context of Lutheran and Roman Catholic divines who likewise understood the Nicene Confession, and identifying its opponents as "the Calvinistical School":

he hath learnedly and solidly confuted the unreasonable and uncatholick 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 autotheos, 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 Catholick Church to this very Day, and even of the first Reformers, Luther and Melanchton, as Petavius [Denis Pétau] and our Author have sufficiently shewn. It was afterwards dressed up and vindicated by Danaus [Lambert Daneau], 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.

What is more, Nelson has no hesitation in also invoking the father of Remonstrant theology in defence of "the old Catholick doctrine" - that is, divine monarchy and the Son's subordination - against "the Calvinistical School":

This Opinion was very much opposed about the End of the XVIth, and the Beginning of the XVIIth 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 but never so little upon the Esteem they had for him, and for Theses, which were looked upon by them as so  many evangelical Discoveries. This seems to be the true State of the Matter; whence this Controversy was still kept up by some of the more zealous Anti-Remonstrants, notwithstanding the great Weight of Evidence brought for the old Catholick Doctrine against them in this Article.

We have, of course, seen this explicit openness to Remonstrant theology from very outset of Nelson's work, in which he acknowledges and, indeed, praises the influence of the Remonstrants on the young Bull. Here it is no less significant. In a matter which provoked deep controversy in the late 17th and early 18th century Church of England, with the leading divines of English Reformed Orthodoxy leading the charge against Bull, Nelson unambiguously states that Bull's understanding of the Son's subordination had been promoted by Arminius. And this despite Bull - as reported by Nelson - being fully aware, and deeply critical, of those trends in Remonstrant theology which veered towards Socinianism. How, then, might we explain this openness to Arminius? 

Nelson refers in this context to Bull's "generous Liberty of Mind". It is this, I think, which explains his willingness to read, quote, and invoke divines with whom he disagreed on other matters, while yet welcoming their insights and support on the matter before him. This brings to mind words used by George Rust in his funeral sermon for Jeremy Taylor:

He was one of the eklektikoi a sort of brave Philosophers that Laertius speaks of, that did not addict themselves to any particular Sect, but ingenuously sought for Truth among all the wrangling Schools; and they found her miserably torn and rent to pieces, and parcell'd into Raggs, by the several contending Parties, and so disfigur'd and mishapen, that it was hard to know her; but they made a shift to gather up her scatter'd Limbs, which as soon as they came together by a strange sympathy and connaturalness, presently united into a lovely and beautiful body. This was the Spirit of this Great Man; he weighed Mens Reasons, and not their Names, and was not scar'd with the ugly Vizars men usually put upon Persons they hate, and Opinions they dislike; nor affrighted with the Anathema's and Execrations of an infallible Chair, which he look'd upon only as Bug-bears to terrifie weak, and childish minds. 

This contrasts starkly with the approach of the anti-Remonstrants who, "so bigotted to their Master, and to his private Opinions", immediately rejected Arminius' work on the divine monarchy and subordination of the Son, driven by "prejudices" which rejected "the great Weight of Evidence brought for the old Catholick Doctrine against them in this Article". 

Bull, as with Taylor, represented a well-established eirenic stream of divines in the Church of England: engaging - thought certainly not uncritically - with Remonstrant theology, open to strands of French Roman Catholic thought, aware of the diversity of thought amongst the Churches of the Reformation, and unwilling to accept attempts by representatives of Reformed Orthodoxy to, as Rust put it, act as "an infallible Chair", preventing theological engagement and discourse. 

Now, to be abundantly clear, this does not make Bull (or Taylor) a 21st century 'liberal'. Bull's definitive framework for theological exploration and discourse was summarised by Nelson: "the Judgment of the Catholick Church ... the old Catholick Doctrine". Or, as Taylor directed his clergy:

Every Minister ought to be careful that he never expound Scriptures in publick contrary to the known sence of the Catholick Church, and particularly of the Churches of England and Ireland, nor introduce any Doctrine against any of the four first General Councils; for these, as they are measures of truth, so also of necessity; that is, as they are safe, so they are sufficient; and besides what is taught by these, no matter of belief is necessary to salvation.

"The old Catholick Doctrine" is sufficient and safe. It provides the solid doctrinal core; alongside it "private opinions" - even those of Master Calvin - have no claim to authority. Indeed, this is why Nelson described Reformed Orthodoxy's rejection of Bull's patristic reading of the confession of Nicaea as the "uncatholick Notion of the Moderns". Bull's "generous Liberty of Mind" flows from and within patristic catholicity, refusing the narrow confines of those "Moderns", "the Calvinistical School". Nowhere was this more clear than in Bull's defence of the Nicene Confession against those "Moderns" who "maketh the Son a self-dependent Principle of Divinity".