NOVEMBER 23RD, 1898

NOVEMBER 23RD, 1898

I was naturally glad to reach home again, but I was very happy in contact with the saints in America, where are many whom I very highly esteem and am thankful to have been in contact with. I feel that I have gained by it. I am sure that I shall not forget them and I trust they will not forget me. I am now extremely busy with the notes of our meetings, which have been very fairly taken, and will be published in America.... As to what you refer to, my point was that it was permitted to us to know divine Persons AS and WHEN revealed and only so. In view of that revelation the Son has taken a new place relatively, that is, of inferiority to the Father, coming to do the will of God, though of course there would be no change ^[p. 148] morally or in affection. The names under which we know divine Persons, that is, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are, I judge, connected with this position, and I doubt if we are allowed to enter into the eternal relation of divine Persons apart from this revelation. No one knows the Son but the Father. What I think led me to it was a fear lest in our minds we should almost insensibly give to the Son a place of inferiority (save as regards revelation) in our thoughts of the Godhead, which could not be right. The point is to be within the limits of Scripture and not trading on what is merely orthodox.