ON THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST
(Part of the Collection, Kersey's Essays)
Jesse Kersey
Taken From A Narrative of the Early Life, Travels, and Gospel Labors
of Jessey Kersey, Late of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia:
T. Ellwood Chapman, 1851, pages 274-277.
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[P. 274] On recurring to the feelings which I have often had by hearing the
divinity of Christ spoken of, it has at length seemed to me that it would
be right to put some of my thoughts on this subject on paper. I shall therefore
complete this design in as plain a manner as I am capable of. In the first
place, I shall state that I cannot credit any doctrine that implies a plurality
of gods, and therefore I am persuaded that throughout the :Scriptures wherever
a divine influence or operation is spoken of, it must always relate to the
great all powerful, all-wise, and first Cause. And he is unlimited in his
nature, and must be in all things, so all the effects produced either in
the mental or physical world are effects produced by the one eternal great
first Cause. Hence I conclude that when Paul speaks of the Son of God, and
declares him to be the Wisdom and Power of God, the same by which the worlds
were made, he means neither more nor less than this: that the Wisdom and
power of God when they become active, as must have been the ease in the formation
and production of this visible creation, they must be viewed as effects of
God, and in that sense they proceed from him, and hence he calls the Wisdom
and Power of God the Son. In the same sense I can only understand the Evangelist
John, where he has said in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God; all things were made by him, &c. That is agreeing
with Paul, in the beginning was the Wisdom and Power of God, and the Wisdom
and Power was with God, and was God. All [P. 275] things were made by
this Wisdom and Power. This Wisdom and Power is then the beginning of the
creation of God, and in that sense alone being an effect of God, is the Son.
Now :in whatever way the great first cause may manifest himself, that
manifestation is an effect of God, and therefore the Son. Every manifestation
which it has pleased God to make of himself is an effect of God. Such was
the case when his Wisdom and Power appeared in the person of the man Jesus.
His body was not the divinity for it was a finite body; it was capable of
animal life and death. It was the Wisdom and the Power that was manifest
through that body that was the true divinity. ~ow as God is one eternal,
all-wise, undivided, and unchangeable being, so God was manifest in the flesh,
and he is manifest in the flesh in all his saints. They are one as God is
one, and while they remain in God they must be one and undivided. The great
clamor that has been raised in the Society about denying the divinity of
Christ, and which made its appearance in England in the treatment of Hannah
Barnard, is much of it the fruit of the same spirit that appeared in the
defence of: the absurd doctrine of the Trinity; and this doctrine of three
distinct divisions of the great first Cause has always been the cause of
producing absurd opinions and divisions among men from its commencement Among
the professed Jews they had nothing like it; nor does it appear from anything
said by Jesus himself that he wished for any such divided views to be
entertained. I and my Father, says he, are one. Now let the manifestations
or operations of the Eternal be when they may, or what they may, they are
from himself and therefore they are and can be but one. All the [P. 276]
notions that are held about Father, Son, and Holy Ghost appear therefore
without any rational foundation. The fact is, God is one and undivided, and
if when we speak of an operation of God upon the soul of man, we were governed
by this undivided view of the divine nature there would be less mystery in
the doctrines delivered than is now the case. In the formation of man he
is acknowledged to be the work of God, and in his government and perfect
regulation it is an effect that must result from the influence of the one
eternal spirit of God. If then in the ministry of the gospel it were the
practice to show that in all cases where transgression takes place it is
the one eternal Spirit that is opposed by our evil acts, and that to this
pure and perfect principle we must be united before we can be happy, the
nature of man's redemption and salvation would be better understood than
is the case under the generally received opinions.
It is evident from some of the productions of latter time that the Society
of Friends who came out from under the dominion of formal professors of religion
and manifested that they had been visited and enlightened by the one great
and good God, and therefore attained to the possession of clear spiritual
views of the nature of the Christian religion and the spirituality of its
character have returned to the beggarly elements, and really seem determined
again to renew those formal bonds from which we had been in some measure
made free. We have the evidence of this from the material or corporeal ideas
they seem now to entertain of the Saviour of men. Holding up to one another
the material blood that was shed on Calvary's mount, and thereby justifying
the Jews in the murder of the man Jesus--for the [P. 277] divinity they could
not slay. Our friends in the beginning had some just conception of the one
only wise God our Saviour, and could by no means agree to a plurality of
gods; and if the Society would follow the leadings of this pure fountain
of perfection their understandings would become clear in the things of God.
They would clearly discover that the whole work of religion was spiritual
and not carnal.