I had successively
found the prevalent Protestantism to be unapostolic. Hence arose in me
a conscious and continuous effort to read the New Testament with fresh
eyes and without bias, and so to take up the real doctrines of the
heavenly and everlasting Gospel.

In studying the narrative of John I was strongly impressed by the
fact, that the glory and greatness of the Son of God is constantly
ascribed to the will and pleasure of the Father. I had been accustomed
to hear this explained of his _mediatorial_ greatness only, but this
now looked to me like a make-shift, and to want the simplicity of
truth--an impression which grew deeper with closer examination.
The emphatic declaration of Christ, "My Father is greater than I,"
especially arrested my attention. Could I really expound this as
meaning, "My Father, the Supreme God, in greater than I am, _if you
look solely to my human nature?_" Such a truism can scarcely have
deserved such emphasis. Did the disciples need to be taught that God
was greater than man? Surely, on the contrary, the Saviour must have
meant to say: "_Divine as I am_, yet my heavenly Father is greater than
I, _even when you take cognizance of my divine nature._" I did not
then know, that my comment was exactly that of the most orthodox
Fathers; I rather thought they were against me, but for them I did not
care much. I reverenced the doctrine of the Trinity as something vital
to the soul; but felt that to love the Fathers or the Athanasian
Creed more than the Gospel of John would be a supremely miserable
superstition. However, that Creed states that there is no inequality
between the Three Persons: in John it became increasingly clear to me
that the divine Son is unequal to the Father. To say that "the Son of
God" meant "Jesus as man," was a preposterous evasion: for there is
no higher title for the Second Person of the Trinity than this very
one--Son of God. Now, in the 5th chapter, when the Jews accused Jesus
"of making himself equal to God," by calling himself Son of God Jesus
even hastens to protest against the inference as a misrepresentation
--beginning with: "The Son can do nothing of himself:" and proceeds
elaborately to ascribe all his greatness to the Father's will. In
fact, the Son is emphatically "he who is sent," and the Father is "he
who sent him:" and all would feel the deep impropriety of trying to
exchange these phrases. The Son who is sent,--sent, not _after_ he was
humbled to become