Levitical economy altogether, and the institution of the Apostolic Church, were all the purgation here spoken of. In the fifth verse, the Second Person, the Messiah, who had been spoken of, again changes to the First Person: "I will come near to you to judgment. saith the JEHOVAH of hosts. For I am the JEHOVAH, I change not." So that the JEHOVAH, "the Ancient of days," was One with 'the Son of man," as seen in Daniel vii. 9, 13, 22, 27.

The last chapter of the ancient canon is a striking prelude to the new, although four hundred years lay between the utterance of it and the events foretold, or the ushering in of the King of glory.

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Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the JEHOVAH of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." As we see the body of the Pharisees, the whole house of Israel swept away, and the holy city destroyed, do we not understand this trumpet of alarm?

"But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings." This designation of Christ is not only poetical, it was the bow of promise fringed with glory. How dark had those four hundred years been to the hidden Church; but the morning came, the day dawned, "the Sun" that had gone down in cloud and blackness arose, the heavens brightened, and His meridian splendour cheered the earth.

In the first chapter of Luke I see the fulfilment of this verse: there, those who had loved and feared the

great Name, are seen to bask in His beams, to triumph in His glory.

"And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the JEHOVAH of hosts." And when He did do it, the voice of the exulting Church was: "He hath showed strength with His arm; He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

"And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David.

"That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us."

But the charge in the ancient canon to the newly constituted people is remarkable: "Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments." The Gospel was not to abrogate the Law, but to fulfil it. "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the JEHOVAH :

66 And He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.'

When the angel Gabriel announced to Zacharias the birth of John the Baptist, he quoted this passage: "He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the JEHOVAH their God. And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the

just; to make ready a people prepared for the JEHOVAH" (Luke i. 17).

Thus do we see how the Word of God was enrolled in heaven. Four hundred years rolled on, and still the Word was there, ready to be delivered, and the messenger of JEHOVAH there ready to deliver it. The four cherubims of Ezekiel do represent the prophets, also the four evangelists and the New Testament. And this is what we see everywhere throughout the inspired Word "A wheel in the middle of a wheel; and the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels." And St. Peter said: "The Word that liveth." We must therefore be prepared to receive both the complexity of Scripture, and the letter of the written Word: it is a spiritual, living agent. John said of himself: "I am not Elias" (John i. 21). Christ said: "If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come" (Matt. xi. 14). The angel Gabriel explained both passages. "He shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias.” Both Elijah and John were spiritual ambassadors from the court of heaven, and they both returned to bear their message there. What an embassy! What a report! Let us seek as much as possible to live in the invisible world.

We are come to the end of the Old Testament, and we have only to turn one blank leaf of our Bibles to be in the New Testament; to see the One Eternal Being, whom we have seen throughout thirty-six centuries, descend into the Body prepared for Him, to reveal Himself, His name, His glory, His exalted, celestial nature, to the world.

I have said, let us watch steadily the transit of that heavenly Body, EMMANUEL-GOD with us. I repeat, let us observe carefully; because Satan may obscure the sight; the clouds and mists of earth may obscure the sight. The blind, dead soul of man cannot behold the vision: and what is he without the providence and care, without the presence of the Eternal Father; without the reconciliation to Him, made by the Son; without the Holy Ghost to enlighten, to sanctify, and to restore to Him? Come, O come, Lord of life and glory, "in the spirit and power of Elias," that many faithful ambassadors may go before Him. To make ready a people prepared for the JEHOVAH," the second coming of our JEHOVAH.

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But I will not pass on to the New Testament without retracing our steps for a moment, to track the Eternal along the track of time, from whence we started, to where we are come. And then I purpose glancing at the Apocryphal writings, the otherwise void period between Malachi and Christ.

It is simply the prefix, the signature of the Almighty to the sacred writings, I want to direct attention to, and to beg my reader to remember, that that prefix is the covenant name, the representative of the Holy Trinity; of Three Persons and One God; engaged alike to redeem and restore man. "God is a Spirit." Creation reveals Him, the Almighty; but Revelation alone reveals Him in His relative character to ourselves.

Although we read in the first chapter of Genesis, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,"

still, in that page of creation, and of Revelation, God did in some measure appear in the unity of His Person, rather than in the sacred Trinity. The page of history, down to the third verse in the second chapter, seems to stand alone in the Bible. But from that verse, "the JEHOVAH GOD" was the prefix of His word to man. "THE JEHOVAH GOD formed man of the dust of the ground." He put the first pair into the garden of innocence, to dwell with Himself. He witnessed their fall. He stood by to condemn and to forgive; to proclaim the spiritual conflict with evil, and the victory over it by the seed of the

woman.

The JEHOVAH destroyed the old world, and brought the Ark through the great deep.

The JEHOVAH called the Patriarchal Church; went down with her into Egypt, and brought her up again.

The JEHOVAH called Moses; authorised His great name afresh with him. He set His prefix to every message to Pharaoh, to each judgment sent. "The JEHOVAH said unte Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh," was the form of each commission. And the order of the great deliverance was headed by the same. "The JEHOVAH spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying” (Exod. xii. 1). The prefix to the order for the overthrow of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, was the same: "The JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, saying" (Exod. xiv. 1). In the Israelites' song of deliverance, JEHOVAH was the Object of praise. and worship (Exod. xv.). The law was given in the covenant name, for the consolation of the lost family