ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE FATHER AND SON
(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 278-281.
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[p. 278] Having from my childhood been much puzzled with what I believed
to be the doctrine of Christianity on the subject of the Father and Son,
I shall here state some of the difficulties into which this doctrine frequently
led me, and attempt to explain the whole subject in conclusion upon principles
which may be comprehended and understood. And first as to the difficulties:-I
could not comprehend how it should be possible that three beings should be
one being. Every thing that was to be found in the world stood distinct,
and no proposition is more clear than the following,--that no two things
can at the same time be one thing. But the doctrine imposed by the advocates
of Christianity requires us to believe that God, the Father, is one thing,
and that God, the Son, is another, and that those two are one. If we do not
believe this we cannot be Christians-and if we do believe it we must believe
it in contradiction to reason, and to the evidence of every thing around
us. This would be a belief founded in ignorance, and consequently a prostration
of the faculties received from that God who it is said has imposed upon us
this difficulty. The disputes of professed divines have been almost endless
upon this subject--and their contrary arguments are only calculated to involve
the honest enquirer in deeper perplexity. Schoolmen have personified the
Trinity, and added to their many absurd propositions the additional difficulty
arising from the opinion that those three Persons are after all to be [P.
279] acknowledged as one Person. Were a philosopher to tell us that the sun,
the moon, and the earth are one he would have as full a claim to our belief
of this sentiment upon the plain principles of the human understanding as
those divines who assert that there are three persons in the Godhead. Man
is a being, it is true, of limited capacity; and it would be expecting too
much of him that he should fully comprehend all the mysteries of God and
nature. It would be equally absurd that he should refuse his assent to the
truth of fundamental principles, because he did not fully comprehend them.
There are principles which though they may be above his reason, yet do not
contradict it, and in which it is proper for him to have faith, however
impenetrable they maybe to his understanding. Such is the first principle
of all religion, the being of God--that anything should exist without a cause,
and that anything should be the cause of its own existence, are propositions
that exceed our reason. We are utterly incapable of penetrating this secret,
and yet we must believe that one of them is true or nothing could ever have
existed. We see therefore that it is not for us to understand all the principles
by which the universe is governed. But if a statement is made of principles
contradictory to our reason, .here we have a right to doubt, and cannot be
required to give our assent--such for instance, as that two things can at
the same time be one. Happy for the cause of Christianity, it involves no
such absurd requisitions. Ii is: plain in its principles and easily comprehended.
With this view I shall confine myself to the testimonies of the scriptures,
and show that they contain no personal doctrines on the question. The evangelist
John has [P. 280] said that "in the beginning was the word, and the
word was with God, and the word was God. All things were made by him, and
without him there was not any thing made that was made." By this testimony
we are informed that God created all things; and it clearly conveys the idea,
that the Almighty and his creative power operating to the production of all
things, are as cause and effect. That is, that the Creator was entire, having
in himself the fullness of all existence; and therefore his will to create
must be subsequent to that of his power and wisdom. But when he determined
upon creation, his wisdom, his power; and will to create, came into action.
The moment, therefore, in which creative power began to operate, an effect
proceeded from himself: and as it was God, so it was also an effect of God,
and therefore one with him. In this sense the creative power of God is spoken
of in the revelations;--where the Son is said to be the beginning of the
creation of God; and Paul mentions that by him the worlds were made--consequently
the power and wisdom of God when it came into action in the production of
a universe, is an effect of God, and in this sense is clearly the offspring
of God. But though it is the offspring of God, it is nevertheless in the
nature of God, and cannot be separated from him. In this view of the doctrine
of Father and Son we have a most happy conviction of the simplicity of another
testimony of the scriptures, where it is said that God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself. This implies that the same creative power which was
in the beginning and by which the worlds were made, is still operating for
the restoration of man. That is to say that the perfect man can only be formed
now as [P. 281] at the first by the all-creative power of God. Viewing
therefore the doctrine of Father and Son as containing the idea in a qualified
sense of cause and effect, we are by this conclusion entirely freed from
the absurd opinions which enjoin the belief that two beings are one. Nor
do we find from a rational construction of the testimonies concerning God
and Christ which the scriptures contain, any evidence to contradict or oppose
the foregoing construction--from the time in which Jesus Christ began his
ministry until his ascension, we find the constant dependence upon his Father
acknowledged,--and we have the same proof that he always maintained that
he and his Father were one, that his: outward manifestation in the flesh
was an effect of the all-creative power will not be denied. This was manifest
in the testimony delivered by the angel to Mary, when he said to her, "Fear
not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God; and thou shalt conceive and
bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus." But Mary adverting to the
common course in nature, could not reconcile this testimony with her knowledge
of facts: and when she doubted she was informed that the Holy Ghost should
come upon her and the power of the Highest should overshadow her. Consequently
the creative power and offspring of God was manifest in the birth of Christ.