Therefore, Christ he is the Lord God and shepherd.
John, xx. 28.—“And Thomas answered and said, my Lord and my God.”
Romans, ix. 5.—“Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came; who is over all, God, blessed for ever.”
Christ is, therefore, Lord and God.
Isaiah, ix. 6.—“And his name shall be called, The Mighty God.”
Rev. i. 8.—“I am the Almighty.”
I might here fill a volume of immense size, to prove the same fact; but when God gives a man up to satanic delusion, he generally mounts the scorner’s chair; sets his tongue against the heavens, and endeavours to bring down the Almighty to his proud carnal reasonings.
“Thus fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.”
But, whilst so many are endeavouring to dethrone the glorious persons in the Trinity, or to degrade them, other fools have set up many; one in particular, whom I once wrote against, in “Zion’s Controversy:” this poor creature insists upon it that every separate perfection in Jehovah is a god. There was also a sect of people in the beginning of the sixteenth century, called Familists, who held the notion that every believer was an Emanuel—was really God; that Christians, were Christed into Christ, and Godded into God. Such stupid ideas have neither scripture reason nor common sense in them; but I suppose by the bye, this doctrine was advanced to degrade the essential and eternal Godhead of Christ, as modern Sabellians do, though very high Calvinists in some other points—yet maintain the idea that the Father communicates his Godhead to Christ; and why not to his people? Why not, indeed? Both are Christ-degrading errors. May the Lord deliver his people from them; while conceited, empty-talking, all-knowing professors fall into those ditches, out of which nothing short of superabounding mercy, in a miraculous way, can deliver them. “Fear, and the pit, and the snare are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth; and it shalt come to pass, that he who flieth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and whoso cometh up out of the pit shall fall into the snare; for the windows from on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth do shake.”—Isaiah xxiii.
Being delivered from this awful snare, satan harrassed my mind, concerning the personality and Godhead of the ever-blessed Holy Spirit. Here I was much troubled, but the Lord has promised to be the profitable teacher of his people.—“I am the Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit, and leadeth thee in the way thou shouldest go.” I bless his name for all his teachings, although it has been under some very painful experiences; above all, that he has led me to the acknowledgement (not comprehension) of the mystery of God—the Holy Ghost—and of the Father, and of Christ.—Colossians ii.