stitution, Holiness, Glory. The God-man stands in our stead, and all who believe are glorified with Him. “O JEHOVAH, our Governor: how excellent is Thy name in all the world."

But the prophets take us further than this: they not only prophesied until John, but of the work of the Almighty beyond His incarnation, resurrection, and ascension. In Hosea xiii. 14, we read: "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction." I have said, beyond the incarnation of the Almighty. Who but the Almighty God could do this? Ransom us from the power of the grave: what is the power of the grave? Mortality but who can define mortality ? the grip of death, the nature of disease, the nature of old mortality? "I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister." From this innate power we are ransomed. "In my flesh shall I see God." And again: "I will redeem them from death." What is death? The departure of the spirit from the body, and the return of the body to dust. What is it to redeem? To buy back from a state of bondage, and consequently to rescue, free, deliver, save. The precious blood of Christ" was the price; His life was the ransom; and we are free, and we are saved. Death can now no more retain us than it could retain Christ; the power of the grave can no more have dominion over us than it could have dominion over Him. He is our surety and our stead. He represents all to God. The Holy One could not see corruption, nor can one particle of

66

mortal dust see annihilation: every germ will be raised up at the last day.

The Restorer is the Creator. The JEHOVAH, who is speaking in this chapter, is the Holy Trinity, and is it more difficult for Him to restore than to create ? As I reflect upon the works of creation, I do worship the Creator; and as I reflect upon the work of the Holy Spirit, I do still worship the faithful Creator in Him, the Restorer.

"The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth" (John v. 28).

"This is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day" (John vi. 40).

And again the sublime declaration! revelation! "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die" (John xi. 25).

Amazing resurrection! amazing life! And yet it will as surely take place as that the JEHOVAH Jesus Christ is at God's right hand.

See other revelations of this. Isa. xxv. 8; Psa. xvii. 15; and the sublime chapter, 1 Cor. xv. Does not the voice of the Almighty vibrate throughout the realm of death? "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Let us take Him at His word: the four "I wills" of this ancient prophet demand our confidence.

"O death, I will be thy plagues." St. Paul called

death "the last enemy." The Conqueror over death did in His conquest, and will in His still more glorious work of restoration, destroy that "enemy;" “that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. ii. 14).

The devil is that enemy: he will be plagued till he be destroyed. "His name was Death and Hell, or Hades" (Rev. vi. 8). "And Death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. xx. 14).

And so in the ancient prophet: "O grave, I will be thy destruction," utter annihilation. There is no annihilation of the body, none of the soul; the annihilation is of death, of the grave, of the devil; and in time, we know not when this will be accomplished. All worlds will be radiant with the glory "of God and of the Lamb."

When He said He had "the keys of the kingdom of God," what did He mean? That to Him was given the gift of the Spirit; that the Spirit was the key of the kingdom of God; by His teaching alone can we enter in. And so, when He said, "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell and of death," what did it mean? That the merit of His own work, death, resurrection, and ascension, was those keys; that as the conqueror over death-over death, because He had been the conqueror over the devil-He had then "the power of the grave," and of death. He had taken the power from the enemy, and founded in its stead the power of His own Eternal Spirit, selfexistent nature; and this will now work till all be restored. "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus

from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Rom. viii. 11).

Well, then, we are not under the bondage of the law and the prophets, but under grace. They prophesied until John, but their severe justice and foreknowledge both alike revealed Christ: man could not meet God in controversy, or in judgment. "If Thou JEHOVAH shouldest mark iniquities, O JEHOVAH, who shall stand ?" Salvation is of grace; and, my dear reader, if, in the great judgment day, your name and mine are found in the Lamb's book of life, through all eternity we shall worship Him for His grace. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

66

Then there are two broad points of doctrine in the Bible, and really only two. "Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help" (Hosea xiii. 9).

CHAPTER XXII.

GOD IN CHRIST, IN THE NAME JEHOVAH.

"Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the JEHOVAH will do great things."-JOEL ii. 21.

E are not told at what time the Prophet Joel wrote, and most commentators are content to say the time in which he lived is uncertain; but I think the document fixes the period. It divides itself into two periods: the first chapter is a description of a calamity past, and the remainder of the book a trumpet of alarm of calamity in the future; and this fixes the period to the time between the captivity of Israel and the captivity of Judah, probably in the latter part of the reign of Hezekiah, and in the reign of Manasseh, kings of Judah. This page of history may be found in 2 Kings xviii., from verse 13, and chaps. xix., xx., xxi. The book of Joel is written in highly figurative language: it is a sublime poem. The kingdom of Christ is clearly set forth in it, the elements of which should ever be distinguished by us from the elements of the kingdoms of this world, and solemnly reflected on in their distinct spiritual nature. Throughout the Prophets, and throughout the Bible, the two kingdoms-the kingdom