though Christ had said, "What I can and shall do at the last day, I can do to-day; the life of the resurrection is in Myself, and I can put forth that life now, or when I will."

Perhaps there is no finer interpretation or illustration of the august name JEHOVAH than here: "I am the resurrection and the life." I WILL BE WHAT I SHALL BE. It was the very response to the faith, and reverence, and worship of the two sisters: JEHOVAH, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

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"I am the resurrection; I will be now what I shall be in that last day." And so, as surely as Lazarus rose from the dead, in the last day every child of the human family will rise from the dead. In every age of the world JEHOVAH, the Eternal God, has shown forth this great truth, "I am now to you what I shall be." And Christ was that Eternal Being, JEHOVAH. None but He could have raised Lazarus from the dead; none but He could, by that stupendous miracle, say, I will be now to you what I shall be in the last day. Has not God ever thus been leading on the world to faith in the future? Oh, let us trust Him more confidently, and commit ourselves to Him as unto a "faithful Creator." It is He who here stands before us, in all the majesty and Omnipotence of His sacred person.

"He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Whether this referred to Lazarus, who had believed and was dead; or whether it referred to that first germ of faith, as a grain of mustard seed, whereby the spiritually dead live, or to both,

we do not know. But the Creator and bestower of life, and of spiritual life, would give to the subject one more touch of Omnipotence, to lead the mind of her to whom He was speaking away from Lazarus, away from the spiritually dead, to herself. Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this ?"

It is plainly told us here that the death of the body is but a laying down of the mortal, sinful nature; the soul, the immortal part does not die; death is life, a birth into a new world, into a new state; into the presence of God and the society of the saved; into the Church triumphant and the eternal city. The assertion is most emphatic: "Shall never die." No, the death of the body is a new birth, life to the soul. What would Martha answer to that? "Yea," or yes, verily, certainly, "JEHOVAH: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world." With that admission nothing more remained impossible: the Son represented humanity, the Being was divine, the complex Being God-man.

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Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, JEHOVAH, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

"Jesus groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, "And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, JEHOVAH, come and see.

"Jesus wept."

Here the heart of the great Liberator is laid open. I do not think it was Christ in His distinct humanity

who wept, it was the God-man. Lazarus in the grave, a corpse, represented the whole family of man, and Divine tenderness overflowed, as the God in man beheld the scene. "Behold how He loved him! The voice of nature and of grace is the same as in another part of this book: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John iii. 16).

This history of the resurrection of Lazarus is too grand and sublime to mar by extract: my reader can turn and read it once more: it can never be read too often. Suffice it to say here, Martha's answer to "the resurrection and the life" (ver. 30) opens to us a truth relatively to the Jews, for I believe Lazarus represented also the spiritually dead body of the Jews as they now lie scattered over the world. "Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Jesus, JEHOVAH, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days."

Four times 666 (Rev. xiii. 18) would make 2664 years; four periods of 666 years from the beginning of the Christian era, the time of the dispersion of the Jews, save the two odd units; seven periods of 666 years from the calling of Abraham, or the divine institution of the postdiluvian Church. It is under the sixth vial that we see all in readiness for the restoration of Israel, that which is also clearly revealed in Ezek. xxxvii. Can the sister of him that is dead, the Christian Church, believe this?

"By this time he stinketh." The very name of a Jew has an evil odour, they are as alien to ourselves

as ever the Gentile was to them. But "with God all things are possible." Let but the mighty fiat be heard: "Lazarus, come forth," and they will live and stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

"Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" Every nerve should be strained to bring about that resurrection; the work of the Eternal Spirit would be so evidenced by it, and the general resurrection would soon take place. But let this seventh period go past, means may fail, and we know not where we may be landed, or stranded. St. John wrote: "Antichrist shall come; even now are there many antichrists" (1 John ii. 18). "He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son." And as we read the next, the twelfth chapter of his Gospel, do we not see antichrist? the spiritual adversary of Christ? In the ninth and tenth verses we read, "Much people of the Jews came to the Passover, that they might see Lazarus who had been raised from the dead. But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death." The Almighty worker of miracles, and the raised from the dead, to be put to death. And in the thirty-seventh verse we read: "Though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him."

Who can comprehend the darkness of the natural man? Surely this epoch of miracles, this advent of wisdom, this meridian splendour of Divine light, might have convinced the world, and converted it to the religion of the one true God. But no. "The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." If the world was not convinced, and saved by the

God incarnate, how can it be done? By God the

by the JEHOVAH, the Eternal God wrought in one, now He

Holy Ghost in men; God, still with men. works in the body the Church, and thus it was Christ said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto My Father" (John xiv. 12). "I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away" (John xvi. 7).

Christ would never have made these positive asseverations if something tremendous had not been at stake. And therefore I would be solemn, as I endeavour for a moment to glance at the implacable enemy in man that Christ had to baffle, to evade, and to conquer, and that His disciples had to conflict

with.

I do believe the devil is a power that required the caution, the forethought, the wary wisdom, and the watchful vigilance of the God, to attack and to overcome. We see this in the construction of our Bible. "Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand" (Luke viii. 10).

I believe it cost God a most profound exercise of omniscient wisdom to devise the plan of salvation, and to carry it out, so as to foil the wicked one in his malice and power. We see this in the manner in which Christ was obliged to convey Himself away, and to conceal Himself from the fury of the enemy; to hide His Godhead from him; and to exercise the power of