But did I proceed to deny the Divinity of the Son? By no means: I
conceived of him as in the highest and fullest sense divine, short
of being Father and not Son. I now believed that by the phrase "only
begotten Son," John, and indeed Christ himself, meant to teach us that
there was an unpassable chasm between him and all creatures, in that
he had a true, though a derived divine nature; an indeed the Nicene
Creed puts the contrast, he was "begotten, not made." Thus all Divine
glory dwells in the Son, but it is _because_ the Father has willed
it. A year or more afterward, when I had again the means of access
to books, and consulted that very common Oxford book, "Pearson on the
Creed," (for which I had felt so great a distaste that I never before
read it)--I found this to be the undoubted doctrine of the great
Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, who laid much emphasis on two
statements, which with the modern Church are idle and dead--viz. that
"the Son was _begotten_ of his Father _before all worlds_," and that
"the Holy Spirit _proceedeth from_ the Father and the Son." In
the view of the old Church, the Father alone was the Fountain of
Deity,--(and _therefore_ fitly called, The One God,--and, the Only
True God)--while the Deity of the other two persons was real, yet
derived and subordinate. Moreover, I found in Gregory Nazianzen and
others, that to confess this derivation of the Son and Spirit and the
underivedness of the Father alone, was in their view quite essential
to save Monotheism; the _One_ God being the underived Father.

Although in my own mind all doubt as to the doctrine of John and Paul
on the main question seemed to be quite cleared away from the time
that I dwelt on their explanation of Monotheism, this in no respect
agitated me, or even engaged me in any farther search. There was
nothing to force me into controversy, or make this one point of