beloved of God and the Lord who loved them. A strange God is that which the Lord will not endure. It is Levi, with whom His covenant had been: it was the priests, whose lips should have kept the true knowledge of the Lord.

There is even no king here spoken of, except that the Lord, whose name is terrible among the heathen, is their King. Finally, the people (Israel) are commanded to return to the law of Moses, given at Horeb for all Israel.

Thus we have here the Lord's unchangeable love for the people whom He gathered to Himself at Horeb,— His controversy with them on account of their sins,— the marking out of a faithful remnant,—and the sending of a messenger before the execution of the judgment. Israel is looked at nationally, in their own relationship with the Lord, as returned from captivity, and awaiting the judgment of their God, who sends His messenger to forewarn them.

All was prepared to put the people morally to the proof, with respect to the accomplishment of this, at the time when John the Baptist was sent; but Israel had not ears to hear-and all was lost.

The perfect and entire fulfilment will take place at the end, after that other glorious work of God, with regard to the Church, shall have been accomplished.

The long-suffering of God towards Israel has been great, for when they had rejected His Son, He sent them through the intercession of that same well-beloved Saviour, on the Cross-the message by the mouth of Peter, that if they repented, the Christ whom they had slain would return. But their leaders were more than deaf to this grace on the part of God, and their house still remains empty and desolate.

At the time of the end, Elias,-whose mission was to call back an apostate Israel who had forsaken the Lord, to own Him in truth; and that, by the sovereign grace of God, although in connection with the law, and that Mount Horeb whither he went to lay down the burden of his prophetic office, when rendered useless by the unbelief of the people,-Elias, shall effectually accom

plish his mission, before the great and terrible day of the Lord; in order that the curse of God may not fall upon the land of His delight, in that day when He will definitively execute His judgments. It is on this account that John the Baptist is spoken of as being Elias, if Israel could receive it; for he answered to the 1st of chap. iii., and, at the same time, that he said he was not Elias; for, in fact, he did not at all fulfil the 5th and 6th ver. of chap. iv. (compare Luke i. 17, 76).

ver.

The prophecy speaks to the conscience of those who lived at the time it was delivered, chap. iii. 10; and passes on-showing that at the end of those times, Israel would be put on trial by the mission of grace-to the last days, in which God would display His unchangeable love for His people, and His righteous judgment against evil, by separating a remnant unto Himself for blessing, and by executing judgment on the rebellious.

The Gentiles are not mentioned, nor even the connection of His people with Christ, coming down as Man to the earth.

AMOS iii. 7, 8.

Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy ?

2 PET. i. 19, 21.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man : but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

No VIII.

REMARKS AND NOTES ON JOHN'S WRITINGS. The Gospel.

THERE is a connection between the Gospel, and the Epistles, and the Apocalypse-books which God has given to us by means of His servant John-which is of no little interest in these latter days.

It is one and the same truth which is ever prominent in each of these three books; and the peculiarity distinctive to each of them depends upon the point of view in which the said truth is looked at respectively in each.

John was not the one chosen for the communication to us of the heavenly calling, nor of the mystery, nor of the organization of the churches in the wilderness. Such subjects flowed rather from the pen of a Paul. Neither does John present us with the effects of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus upon believers from among Israel, etc., etc., as do Peter and James. John's subject is Eternal Life, or at least something flowing thence. Yea, that eternal life which was in Jesus is the subject which predominates, and is found everywhere in John's writings; but each class of his works has something by which it is distinguished from the rest; the Gospel as such from both the Epistles and the Apocalypse; and the Epistles as such from both Gospel and Apocalypse; and the Apocalypse as such from the other two. Yet in all of them there is as the governing truth, the eternal life which was in Christ.

In the Gospel, it is the eternal life which was in Christ Jesus, together with the history of the acts and sufferings which were necessarily His, in the time of His humiliation, if He would take the blessed position of being the communicator of eternal life to poor sinners dead in trespasses and sins; but the moment that all this is finished, and that He, raised from the dead, had accomplished that which was to become His liberty and power to bless withal, He departs. He left the earth to take His seat as Son of Man at the right hand of God in the Majesty of the Highest. The curtain drops upon the scenes of His earthly career, and He is lost to the sight of those who are but men upon the earth.

In the Epistles, it is the stream of this eternal life which is seen flowing from Him as its fountain—fountain of living water, placed in the midst of the Throne on High, and which, as it flows, brings into light a heavenly people here below, and fills them, as church of the living God, during their pilgrim-course through the wilderness.

In the Apocalypse, it is the effects of this eternal life; it is not the life manifested as it had been in the Gospel, in Jesus in humiliation, nor as in the Epistles made good by faith to a heavenly people, who upon earth are rejected as He was; but the results of these two testimonies. The effects of the eternal life, according to God, both upon those not subjected to it, and as to those who are so whether their place be upon the earth or in heaven. The Lord who had eternal life in Himself is He who first manifested it here below; He did and suffered all that was needed either for the communication of this life on the part of God or for the reception of it on the part of poor sinners. Without that which Christ did and suffered, holiness must have kept closed the way of divine goodness on the one hand, and on the other, the poor sinner never could have been free before God. When all was done, His grace began at Jerusalem. ... rejected there, He gave to His church as such, a people prepared for the heavenly places-the blessing; and finally, there must be manifested what is the glory of His person, and what the judgment is which God has formed concerning Him. He must reign upon the earth over an earthly people, to whom He will be manifested in the celestial glory which He has given to His heavenly Bride. The final result of the humiliation of the Son will be that every thing that will not humble itself under Him will be judged. For it becomes God to make the light of that eternal life shine forth; it behoves Him to make manifest both upon earth and in heaven what His judgment is of the work and travail of His Son. If the Son of God became Son of Man, He is the resurrection and the life; and, as such, every thing connected with man must be presented in the light of His glory, be its character what it may.

The divine glory must be fully manifested; that glory

which the eternal life, manifested in Jesus as Son of Man, has vindicated, even in the very moment of His being rejected.

The principle of that which we have in the Apocalypse seems established in that which we find presented in John v. "For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him... For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel

not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." So also in Acts x. 36-42, "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:) That word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judæa, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree: Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead." And xvii. 30, 31, " And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead."

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The same doctrine is found in Phil. ii. 5-11; and it