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and the devil, and has the keys of death and hell; and into whose hands is placed all power in heaven and earth. He can open and no man shuts; and He can shut and none opens.

While we are considering the character of God our Savior, it would be well to mark his condescension for us, "For though he was rich, he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich." It would have been condescension in an angel; but while we reflect that it was the Christ, Creator of all things, that suffered while inhabiting a body like ours, we may sink at his feet in humble contrition. The blessed Savior died for us.

"Who nought deserved, who nought deserved but death,
Saving the vilest! Saving me! O love

Divine. O Savior God! O Lamb once slain !
At thought of thee, thy love, thy flowing blood,
All thoughts decay, all things remembered, fade
All hopes return; all actions done by men
Or angels, disappear, absorbed and lost."

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The texts we have cited prove the omnipotence of the Lord Jesus Christ, as clearly as words can express it, for his own mouth declares that he is the Almighty.

(1.) He is called the mighty God, and the mighty God is the Almighty.

(2.) The Almighty distinguishes himself from all his creatures by the appellations FIRST and LAST, which was and which is.

(3.) Jesus says He is the first and the last.

(4.) These terms convey the same sense when

applied to the Lord Jesus, that they do when ap'plied to Jehovah.

(5.) Jesus Christ, in his divine nature, is the Almighty God, or there are two Almighty Gods, which is absurd. Can a creature be proved to be the Almighty God? Certainly not. But we trust the candid reader will very readily see that Jesus Christ is called Almighty.

CHAPTER IX.

The equality of our Lord Jesus Christ with God the Father.

We do not pretend that the humanity of our blessed Lord was equal with God the Father, in power and eternity. Trinitarians do not say that the human nature of Christ was "the very and eternal God," nor that there are three Gods, though frequently accused of such sentiments by their opposers. When we speak of Jesus Christ as being God, we speak of him in his divine nature. And when we speak of him as man, we speak of him in his humanity. Now this manner of speaking is in common use. Says David: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul." Here he seems to address his spirit. Again he says, "My flesh and my heart faileth," so we see him mentally speaking of his body, and yet none supposes David was inconsistent in his expression, and in fact this is the every day expression of almost all persons.

But if the Bible speaks of Christ as equal with God, he is so, or the Bible is not true. "Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be EQUAL WITH GOD." Phil. 2:15. No man nor angel can be said to be equal with God. But our Lord thought it not robbery (arpagmon) to be So. The original word (arpagmon,) which is translated "robbery,” signifies seizing by force. If he had not been equal with God, it would have been

"seizing by force" for him to have claimed equality, but there was no robbery in his claiming that which belonged to him. But the reader will indulge us in making a few remarks on these words.

1. Jesus Christ was eternally in the bosom of the Father, and of the same dazzling glory with him. 2. He clothed his brightness in a human body. While he was transfigured on the mount before three of his disciples, he displayed some of his former glory, that glory he had with the Father before the world was. 3. We see that if he had not been equal with God, his pretensions to equality must have been not only robbery but blasphemy. 4. If he possessed but one nature, and that was derived, or created nature, he could not in any sense have been "equal with God," for the highest grade of creatures falls infinitely short of equality with God. 5. To be equal with God, is to be God, or there are two Gods, which none will allow. 6. In order for Christ to have been equal with God, he must have possessed equal power, and equal eternity of existence, for how, (with any respect to truth,) could the pen of inspiration call a creature, whose very existence was given to him by his Creator, equal with him? Yet, notwithstanding his glory with his Father before time began, or creature was formed, he

"Is led by choice to take his gloomy walk,

Beneath Death's dreary, silent cyprus shade,
Unpierced by vanity's fantastic ray,

To read his monuments, to weigh his dust,
Visit his vaults and dwell among the tombs."

Again: Jehovah says that He is his equal. "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and the man that is my fellow, (equal,) saith the Lord." Zech. 13:7. "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he had not only broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. "Then answered Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do, for what thing soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. . . For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.” John 5:18-21. The Jews understood our Savior right, when they said he made himself equal with God; for he conveyed the obvious idea that they, (that is, the Father and Son,) possess the same nature. The Jews accused him of two crimes; one was breaking the Sabbath, the other was making him the equal of God. We learn from what our Lord said at this time, that-1. God does no works but what Christ also does. 2. The Son can do nothing but what he sees the Father do, consequently if the Son has sinned, the Father also has sinned. If the Son has broken the Sabbath, the Father has broken it also. 3. That such was the union of nature and design between them, that one did nothing without the other, and what either did was equally the work of both. The text in Zechariah, which we have just cited, proves this equality beyond the possibility of confutation.

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