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"That God is the proper and eternal Father of His eternal Son--that in the very name
Father there is something of eminence which is not in the Son: and some kind of priority
we must ascribe to Him we call the First, in respect of Him we call the Second Person."
This priority he says
"Consisteth of this, that the Father hath the essence in Himself, the Son by
communication from the Father, from whence He acknowledgeth that He is from Him,
that He liveth by Him, that the Father gave Him to have life in Himself."
"He must be understood to have Godhead communicated to Him by the Father, Who
is not only eternally, but originally God."
Had Bishop Pearson confined these comments to the relation that existed between the
Father and the Son during that Son's life in the flesh, after He had made Himself of no
reputation and had been found in the form of a servant and found in fashion as a man, all
would be well, but because the Bishop and the orthodox persist in teaching that the
Trinity is eternal, that the essence of the Godhead from all eternity is a Trinity, logical
and Scriptural writers descend to such awful statements that "He must be understood to
have the GODHEAD communicated to Him by the Father, Who is not only eternally but
ORIGINALLY GOD"! How men who endorse the Athanasian Creed can tolerate such
terms is beyond understanding. The fatal concept, that the Father is:
"The fountain of the Godhead, owned
And foremost of the Three",
is categorically denied by the Creed they seek to uphold, which says "In this Trinity none
is afore or after other, none is greater, or less than another".
See how men of God, when once they make one fatal mistake, are compelled to make
others. Bishop Pearson speaks of `priority' and `first' of the Father, but any who know
the epistle to the Colossians could quote passages which give these titles to the Son. If
we can but see that the Trinity is a mode of the Godhead assumed in time for the purpose
of Creation and for Redemption, but that before the world was, before Creation came into
being God was essentially ONE, we shall have taken a step nearer to the truth of the great
and holy subject. Moses Stuart has this to say on the subject, which is very much to the
point:
"There can be no doubt in the mind of any man who carefully examines, that the
Nicene fathers and the Greek commentators, one and all, held that Christ, as to His divine
nature was DERIVED from the Father . . . . . Yet we may well ask the question--WE
CANNOT HELP ASKING IT, Is then the Son, Who is God over all blessed for ever--is
he, in His DIVINE nature, derived and dependent? Has He, as very God an aitia (a
cause) and an arche (a beginning)? And is it possible for us to make the idea of true and
proper divinity harmonize with that of derivation and consequent dependence? No; it is
not . . . . . Their views of the divine nature were built on the metaphysical philosophy of
their day; but we are not bound to admit this philosophy as correct; nor is it indeed
possible, now, for our minds to admit it."
One writer on the subject has said:
"The consummation of creation is to consist of the return of the logos from the
humanity of Christ to the Father, so that the original Trinity of the Divine nature is after