Lord is strength to the upright, but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity. The righteous shall never be removed, but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.

Prov. 13: 13. Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed, but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded. The law of the wise is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death.

Prov. 14: 12. There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Prov. 15: 24. The way of life is above (an upward road) to the wise to depart from sheol (the state of death) beneath.

Prov. 22: 16. The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead. Rephaim--Heb.

After the above copious citations, it is unnecessary to do more than refer to the general style in which the holy prophets denounce God's judgments to the ungodly. Their words are uniformly to the effect, that the sinner shall be destroyed, shall be consumed, shall die, perish, or be slain.

The last threatening in the Old Testament, (Malachi 4.) may likewise be adduced as an average representation of the whole current of phraseology in the Prophets, and may serve to indicate the degree to which God's ancient messengers encouraged the wicked to reckon upon an everlasting existence. For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven, and the proud, and all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch."

CHAPTER V.

OFFICES AND DIVINITY OF CHRIST.

There is no subject, or doctrine of the Christian faith that has called forth more discussion, or upon which theological writers have been more voluminous than upon the offices and divinity of Christ. No sooner was the banner of the gospel unfurled, and the standard of truth erected, and churches multiplied by the hands of the apostles, than the genius of human philosophy and speculation, began its work, to alter and remodel, and fashion the plain, simple, and unadorned doctrines of Christ, after its own depraved and heathenish image.

Thus, the speculations and discussions on the offices and divinity of Christ, early began, have been kept up through every successive generation to the present time, and the Christian church is still rent and torn in divisions, by this evil genius of human philosophy and speculation. The story respecting Christ, his offices and divinity, is very plain and easily understood, when we adhere strictly to the voice of inspiration. His offices and divinity are distinctly announced in the divine prediction of him, by the mouth of Isaiah 9: 6, 7.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon the kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth even for The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

ever.

Whenever this personage shall appear according to this plain prediction, he must possess the character and fill the offices here named, viz., Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Now, the trouble in the theological world, and the grand secret, of all the error concerning Christ's divinity and offices, arises from a want of keeping a distinction between the different offices Christ is to fill in the plan of redemption, and the power and divinity He is to possess in each of them. They bestow all these upon Christ at once.— They make him the mighty God, and everlasting Father, when He is a child, and when He is a Counsellor. Now, this is irrational, confuses the mind, and can never be made. to harmonize with truth. When He is a child, He is not the Counsellor, or mighty God; or when He is the Counsellor, He is not the mighty God, and everlasting Father; and when He is the mighty God, He is not the everlasting Father or Prince of Peace. His work is a progressive work in the plan of redemption, and he fills all these offices at different times, and receives divine wisdom and power accordingly. First, then, we will attend to his birth. Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. This son was begotten by the Holy Ghost, in the Virgin. Mary, espoused to Joseph, who was of the house and lineage of David, and born in the days of Herod, King of Judea.

The apostles say, When the fullness of the time was come God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made un

der the law. He was made of a woman, by the distinct interposition and power of God. Here is the beginning and origin of the person, Jesus Christ. God made Adam; God made the woman; you can go for their personal existence no further back than the time God made them. So with Christ. You can go no further back for his personal origin and existence, than the time when God made him of a woman.

All discussions and writings about the preexistence of Christ, or his having a personal existence before God made him of this virgin, is as gratuitous and useless as it would. be to contend for the preexistence of Adam and Eve, before God made them. In the plan of God, Christ existed from the foundation of the world. I have shown the necessity of Christ's being produced, in opening the plan of redemption. Let the reader turn back and read that in connection with my remarks here.

The whole plan and purposes of God in the creation would have been thwarted and come to nought, had it not been for Jesus Christ. His design was to have this earth peopled with holy beings, but as his first son and daughter transgressed and incurred the penalty of death, God must produce another heir, or all was lost, and the earth uninhabited. Therefore, Christ, the second son, and second Adam, is the sole heir of all that the first Adam lost. And consequently, it follows that God by him, [Christ] and for him made the world and all that is therein, and also that it become him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons into glory to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.Heb. 2: 10. The reader will then understand that it was in consequence of the second Adam and his redeemed and begotten children, that God proceeded and produced the works of creation.

You can now see in what sense Christ was in the begin

ning and how he made the world, as stated in the first chapter of John, and the first chapter of Colossians. He was in the beginning with God, as effectually in the crea tion and plan of redemption, and had as much power and influence in the mind of God as though He had actually existed in person. Therefore, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. God could make nothing without any reference to the one for whom he was making all things. The Word, or Christ, was this person, consequently nothing, as I have before stated, was made without him. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. This Word, or Christ, that was in the beginning with God, in all his mind, and plan, and purposes, came into actual personal existence when God made Him of a woman. He never existed in any form, or had any personal existence till then. This sweeps away that dark cloud of mysticism and error, that has long obscured the light of the true gospel faith, on the existence and divinity of Christ. Our teachers have long darkened counsel by a multiplicity of words without knowledge.

As Christ was to be the second Adam, and heir this world, and also to redeem the first Adam's children, and adopt them as his, and as they were flesh and blood, so He himself took part of the same, and so become subject to death, that through death, or this means, he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage. For verily, He took not on him the nature of angels; but He took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, tha: He might be a faithful and merciful high priest in things pertaining to God, to