risen and glorified one, and in us crucified with Hin but alive; not "we live, but Christ lives in us." Bu John, and hence the exceeding sweetness of the writing he has given to us by the Holy Ghost, presents th Divine person of the Son in life (and that in grace i flesh, Divine love shewing itself, and the Father), i His blessed superiority to evil, and as Divine love doe adapting itself to the want and sorrow around it, t everything the human heart could need, yet light a through. We do not get man up to heaven, so to speak in John; but we get God Himself in grace, the So revealing the Father down on earth. The gospel and epistle, as we have seen, reveal this life in itself or in us but the gospel (for the epistle gives us the life betwee the departure and return of the Lord) gives us a hint a the end, of the apostle holding on a testimony to th coming of Christ. He did not say he should not die but if He would that he tarried till he came. Pau might build the Church, or lay its foundation as a wis master-builder; Peter teach a pilgrim how to follow Hin that was risen, and had begotten Him again to a lively hope by it-how to follow his master through the wil derness, in which, after all, God still governed. These and others, warn too of coming evils. But he who was so personally near to Christ, Jewish in his relation ships and full of them; but in whose eyes, at the same time as taught of God, a person who was, in Himself above all relationship, save with the Father, and who had a place in which He could be in the Father's bosom, yet walk as man, in the title and manifestation of the Son, upon earth, and withal a place in his own heart; through grace, which attached him to His person, and life in it, such an one (and such an one was John, the disciple whom Jesus loved) could watch, with the power of divine love, over the departing glories of the Church on earth in the energy of a life which could not fail in it, and pass with prophetic vision to establish the rights of the same person (out of and on the part of heaven, yet still) on earth (rights, whose establishment should bring peace on the earth, and set aside the evil, and make these rights good, where the prophet had seen them despised, in One

on

he so loved, as manifested on earth), and connect the excellency of the glorified sufferer with the blessing of rescued world, which grace could bless through Him, though it had once rejected Him. The ways of bringing about this, with the failing Church's previous history, is what is given us in the Apocalypse, with the prophetically known person and glory of Christ connecting itself, first, with the responsible assembly on earth, though then judicially, and then with the earth.

From the beginning of the book, we have the revelation given treated as a prophecy. It is a revelation given of God to Christ to show what must shortly come to pass. The churches themselves thus come in merely as a kind of necessary introduction, their rejection by Christ as to their testimony on earth, as yet the subject of prophecy and warning, was needed for Christ's assuming the government of the world. Christ sends it by his angel-not exactly an angel, but one who specially represented Himself,-to His servant John. He bears record. It is the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ and a vision. This sentence is important. It is, no doubt, the character, except the being a vision, of all Scripture; but it gives us the fact that the present prophecy is the testimony of Jesus, and the suffering in the time of, and according to this prophecy, is suffering for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. It gives us, moreover, what indeed is evident and cannot be otherwise, but an additional proof of the same, that the prophecy is addressed not to the people of God or saints, in their normal state, like the epistles, but is a revelation about them to another. In the prophets, those who prophesied when the people were warned, carried the word directly from God to the people immediately addressed by Him. So in the epistles, though in another form, the Holy Ghost addressed Himself directly to the saints for their good and instruction. In Daniel, it is for the people, but not to them; and even in Zechariah, and in a measure in Habakkuk; so in the Apocalypse.

It is known that it should not be read, "and all things," but simply, "all things."

It is something given to John, of course as all the New Testament, for the Church, but not directly to th Church in its own natural state. The Church on eart is itself looked at as the subject of prophetic address and as in relationship with the God of Prophecy wh governs the world, not with the Father. The Son o Man who is Judge walks in the midst of the churches Grace and peace is wished from Him who is and wa and was coming-from the seven spirits in which the fulness of all His attributes in government is developed and from Christ as connected with the earth, though risen. But the time of the Church as such is left out in this greeting of grace, i. e. the character of Christ at that time. He is faithful witness, that He was in manifestation on the earth. First-begotten from the dead, He is risen (that, too, on earth, not ascended)-then prince of the kings of the earth, what He is indeed, now, in title but one in which the passage springs over, from His resur rection to His governmental title when He comes again. We have no church-relationship; but all that He was, has been, and will be, as to the earth, and what gives Him His right in the kingdom set up in right and power on the earth.

I have no doubt there were these seven churches in the state thus alluded to; and in the language used, we must keep this in mind. But I cannot think that, with this number seven, the character of the addresses, and details of expression, it is possible not to see that a wider sphere of thought is before the apostle's prophetic eye. But subjects previously spoken of by the apostle call for our attention first. We have Christ in three positions, or characters, in the Apocalypse. Walking robed down to His feet in the midst of the candlesticks; the Lamb in the midst of the throne; and Christ coming forth on the white horse; not to speak here of the descrip tion of the city, of which He is the light-bearer.

e It is remarkable, that in John i., when we have the names and titles of Christ so wonderfully displayed, exactly those are wanting which belong to His place in heaven, and present relationship with the Church exclusively. He is neither head of the Church, nor high priest. This is significant as to John's writings.

The character of God here is Jehovah, the Ancient of days, who was, and who is, and is the coming One. This is, in fact, the character in which God is revealed, the One who is to be a great King over all the earth. He was Almighty for Abraham-will be Most High ever all that is. But Jehovah is His personal name, in which He takes the rule as One who had counsels, purposes, and would fulfil them by His own power, and has

given the revelation of it.

As is said in Ps. lxxxiii. 18," that men may know that thou, whose name is Jehovah, art the Most High over all the earth." So Ps. lxxxvii. and xci., where the three rames are brought together so beautifully and strikingly, when the power of the Almighty is promised to secure him who knew the secret of the Most High, and it is answered (by Messias) I will take the God of the Jews; "I will say of Jehovah, He is my fortress," the Psalm then going on, speaking in the person of the godly Jew, to celebrate the rightness of the answer; Jehovah Himself closing it with His approbation: "Because He has set His love upon me, therefore will I deliver him." It is in this name that blessing is now wished to the seven churches which are in Asia."

Next, we have it wished from "the seven spirits, which are before His throne." This last word may be remarked. We are in presence of a throne on which Jehovah is, and seven spirits are before it. It is not from the Father, and from the Son, in their communion, and from the Divine nature, in its own blessedness, but from Jehovah, the Supreme Governor, upon His throne. And the spirits, as the lamps in the tabernacle, all before the throne. The Spirit itself has its place as the perfect development of governmental power in exercise from d. The spirits are the manifestation and display of this before the throne.

The characters of Christ are also of importance here. I have already spoken of their being in connection with the earth; but there is something more.

We have all at was needed to give the rightful place of governat over the earth, with which He is here in connec. He is, but much more, He was, the faithful

witness of God upon the earth. He spoke what H knew; testified what He had seen. He declared righteous ness in the great congregation, did not refrain His lips that Jehovah knew; at all cost to Himself bore witnes to what God was, made good the witness of it befor men. That was an immense service. He made good th perfect witness of light in the world. "While I am in the world I am the light of the world; and God is light." And that in spite of hatred and opposition because of it So that men had to say, "This is the message which w have heard of Him, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." And what He declared He was in mani festation, He was in every sense-a faithful Witness. Wher asked what He was, He could reply, "In nature and principle what I said unto you;” τὴν ἀρχὴν ὅ, τι λαλῶ ὑμῖν (John viii. 25). His words were the witness and ex pression of what He was; and this and its rejection i just the subject of that chapter, and the proof of man guilt; they loved darkness. No doubt His witness wa a witness of life in Himself, too; for the life was the ligh of man; but this remained in abeyance, so to speak, a to its revelation to us, and the part we could have in i till after His death, when we have the Spirit, bloc and water (which flowed out of his side when slain, a the Spirit came because he went away), as witnesses the God hath given unto us eternal life, and that this life i in His Son. The life was the light, and the light o men, properly of men as such; but except a corn of whes fell into the ground and died, it remained alone. Hend He was straitened till that baptism was accomplishe And the witness of all this was consequent on His deat a witness about Him rather than by Him. Hence do not speak of the witness that eternal life is given to in the Son, (that springs out of death, and as to an persons who are such, His servants are, with the Spir His witnesses), but of Christ Himself as the faithf Witness. There is always this necessary difference; for reconciliation, in 2 Cor. v., God was in Christ reco

d

In chap. x. with the sheep the Lord speaks of eternal lif but He speaks also of His laying down His as for the sheep., is after chaps. viii. and ix. ; that is, rejection of word and work.