Chapter IV.—The Unity of the Godhead and the Supremacy and Sole Government of the Divine Being. The Monarchy Not at All Impaired by the Catholic Doctrine.
But as for me, who derive the Son from no other source but from the substance of the Father, and (represent Him) as doing nothing without the Father’s will, and as having received all power from the Father, how can I be possibly destroying the Monarchy from the faith, when I preserve it in the Son just as it was committed to Him by the Father? The same remark (I wish also to be formally) made by me with respect to the third degree in the Godhead, because I believe the Spirit to proceed from no other source than from the Father through the Son.31 [Compare Cap. viii. infra.] Look to it then, that it be not you rather who are destroying the Monarchy, when you overthrow the arrangement and dispensation of it, which has been constituted in just as many names as it has pleased God to employ. But it remains so firm and stable in its own state, notwithstanding the introduction into it of the Trinity, that the Son actually has to restore it entire to the Father; even as the apostle says in his epistle, concerning the very end of all: “When He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; for He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet;”32 1 Cor. xv. 24, 25. following of course the words of the Psalm: “Sit Thou on my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.”33 Ps. cx. 1. “When, however, all things shall be subdued to Him, (with the exception of Him who did put all things under Him,) then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.”34 1 Cor. xv. 27, 28. We thus see that the Son is no obstacle to the Monarchy, although it is now administered by35 Apud. the Son; because with the Son it is still in its own state, and with its own state will be restored to the Father by the Son. No one, therefore, will impair it, on account of admitting the Son (to it), since it is certain that it has been committed to Him by the Father, and by and by has to be again delivered up by Him to the Father. Now, from this one passage of the epistle of the inspired apostle, we have been already able to show that the Father and the Son are two separate Persons, not only by the mention of their separate names as Father and the Son, but also by the fact that He who delivered up the kingdom, and He to whom it is delivered up—and in like manner, He who subjected (all things), and He to whom they were subjected—must necessarily be two different Beings.
CAPUT IV.
Caeterum, qui filium non aliunde deduco, sed de substantia Patris, nihil facientem sine Patris voluntate, omnem a Patre consecutum potestatem, quomodo possum de fide destruere monarchiam, quam, a Patre Filio traditam, in Filio servo? Hoc mihi et in tertium 0159B gradum dictum sit, quia Spiritum non aliunde puto, quam a Patre per Filium. Vide ergo ne tu potius monarchiam destruas, qui dispositionem et dispensationem ejus evertis in tot nominibus constitutam, inquot Deus voluit. Adeo autem manet in suo statu, licet trinitas inferatur, ut etiam restitui habeat Patri a Filio. Siquidem Apostolus scribit de ultimo fine: cum tradiderit regnum Deo et Patri. Oportet enim eum regnare usque dum ponat inimicos ejus Deus sub pedes ipsius: scilicet secundum Psalmum: Sede ad dexteram meam, donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum. Cum autem subjecta erunt illi omnia, utiqueabsque eo qui ei subjecit omnia, tunc et ipse subjicietur illi, qui ei subjecit omnia, ut sit Deus omnia in omnibus. Videmus igitur non obesse monarchiae 0159C Filium, etsi hodie apud Filium est; quia et in suo statu est apud Filium, et cum suo statu restituetur Patri a Filio. Ita eam nemo hoc nomine destruet, si Filium admittat, cui et traditam eam a Patre, et a quo quandoque restituendam Patri constat. Hoc uno capitulo Epistolae apostolicae potuimus jam et Patrem et Filium ostendisse duos esse, praeterquam ex nominibus Patris et Filii, etiam ex eo quod qui tradidit regnum, et cui tradidit, item qui subjecit, et cui subjecit , duo sint necesse est.