“With Dangers Compast Round” 1660–1665cannot know God save by revelation; he is also mutable and “remains good by His
own free will, while he chooseth” as all other creatures do.^118
Milton introduces his very long chapter 5, on the Son of God, with a new
preface urging his readers to weigh his arguments not by orthodox opinion but
solely in terms of his scripture evidence. In almost every respect Milton’s anti-
Trinitarianism is couched in Arian terms: the Son was not generated by any natural
necessity or process but produced by God’s “free will... as a result of his own
decree”; he is not eternal but was begotten “within the bounds of time, for the
decree itself must have preceded its execution” (CPW VI, 208–9); his generation
was the first external act of God, as is indicated in texts terming him “the first born
of every creature” (Colossians 1:15) and “the beginning of God’s creation” (Rev-
elation 3:14). He cannot be co-equal to the Father, since “a supreme God is self-
existent, but a God who is not self-existent, who did not beget but was begotten, is
not a first cause but an effect, and is therefore not a supreme God” (263–4). The
Son’s metaphorical begetting – his elevation to kingship celebrated in Psalm 2 –
was also by God’s will; that mutability and the kenosis by which he “emptied him-
self” of the form of God to become man (Philippians 2:6–8) also shows that he
cannot be the supreme God, since “a God who is infinite can no more empty
himself than contradict himself, for infinity and emptiness are mutually exclusive
terms.”^119 Milton marshals many proof texts indicating that the Son ascribes the
attributes of divinity – omniscience, omnipresence, divine honor, omnipotence,
divine glory – to the Father alone, and ascribes his own participation in them en-
tirely to the Father’s gift:
The Son himself reports that he received from the Father not only the name of God
and Jehovah, but also whatever else he has... his individuality, his life itself, his
attributes, his works, and, lastly, his divine honor.... He receives everything from
the Father: everything – not only what belongs to him as mediator, but also what
belongs to him as Son. (259–60)Denying the customary application of such texts only to Christ’s human nature,
Milton insists that once the two natures have coalesced into one person, Christ
speaks “as a whole person speaking about a whole person” unless he himself makes
a distinction; to suppose otherwise would “rob Christ’s speeches and replies of all
their sincerity” (218). The Son, he specifies, was appointed Savior and Judge by the
Father; he cried out for and obtained the Father’s aid during his passion; his resur-
rection was accomplished by the Father’s power; and his place at the right hand of
God “implies a glory not primarily or supremely divine, but only approaching that
of God” (272).
Milton departs from Arian doctrine on one point only, that while the Son shares,
by gift, some part of God’s substance and nature, he is not “consubstantial” in the
orthodox sense of sharing in the Father’s divine essence: