absurd to speak of God as still their God, if the Patriarchs are dead for ever; yet it might not be inappropriate language if they are dead in the distinct sense in which this Jewish sect regarded death, but merely for a certain period, longer or shorter as the case may be. In other words, the temporary extinction of consciousness cannot dissolve the relationship between God and His people, and between His people and Jehovah as their God.

To see some warrant for this, bring to recollection and meditate upon it, that for eight hours, on an average, during each twenty-four, Abraham, to single out for the present one of the worthies, was unconscious in sleep; but God did not then cease to be his God. At his bedside could not the Eternal announce, "I am the God of Abraham," even when the good man had no more recognition of the Supreme than if he had never been, or was never to serve Him as a worshipper again? During the third part of his daily existence, or, to widen it, during the third part of his life, the father of the Faithful was, when in natural repose, exactly as if he had gone out of being, so far as consciousness was concerned; and during all that time God was undeniably still his God.

But again, had he been for many days at a time in an insensible condition, say from fever, would not God have remained all the while his God? and at such a period would he not have been just as incapable of acknowledging the Divine authority, and reverently submitting to its requirements, as he would be rendered by becoming "extinct or annihilated"? And even in the circumstances imagined there would have been a tenderness and a truth in the words heard at the bush, had they been spoken over him while he lay tossing, as millions have tossed, in a state of absolute unconsciousness, produced by disease.

Now, that being itself can be suspended, as well as consciousness, surely no one will rashly venture to deny. That it could be restored after suspension may also readily be admitted without enclosing the impossible within the comprehensive range of Omnipotence. No contradiction is involved in the supposition that it may be rekindled. We are at perfect liberty to assert that even an Almighty fiat is unable to make an object black and white at the same time, a circle a square, water hot and cold, a man entirely alive and completely dead, at the same moment. Propositions of that kind are self-destructive. But no person need hesitate to concede that a man may pass out of existence and be rendered alive again. We do not assert at present, for there is no call to do it, that such an event ever happens, only that it might happen. In supposing as much, we do not exhibit the Almighty as accomplishing the impossible. There is neither unwisdom nor impiety in the thought; not the most distant approach to either. It is a perception on our part, an intuitive recognition of this marvellous deed, resurrection, as fairly within the compass of infinite energy.

Well, if Abraham was out of existence, let us say for 4,000 yearsand what are 4,000 years compared with eternity ?-his consciousness would be arrested necessarily when his being was suspended; and yet to him the obliteration of consciousness by the hand of death would not be more perfect in itself than the cessation of the mysterious attribute in sleep, or in the delirium of disease. If suspended in sleep or fever, it would naturally return when he awoke, or when health was recovered;

suspended by death, that is, by such a death as would completely extinguish his being, it would enter on a new term of activity when his existence was restored by the Omnipotent volition, which we assume to be adequate to the undertaking.

While the 4,000 years pursued their flight, as during the unconsciousness of natural sleep or aggravated trouble, could not the God of Mercy and unlimited power say at the cave of Machpelah, "I am the God of Abraham?" His devout worshipper is only temporarily unconscious; temporarily, that is to say, incapable of consciousness, as the effect of interrupted existence. We see not but that the gracious words would be quite as appropriate at the tomb as in the tent. There is no absurdity in conceiving them to be spoken in the circumstances; yet, and please mark it well, he was extinct for the time in no less a degree than if death actually held over him interminable sway. In the latter case, which was the doom of man according to the creed of the Sadducees, the language, we freely admit, would be absurd; in the former-the temporary duration of suspended being it could be used with singular propriety. By the voice from the flaming bush the Lord appeals against the doctrine of eternal unconsciousness accepted by His adversaries, and we doubt not the appeal can be shown to have triumphant force.

8. But after all it may be said, can anything be plainer than the words, "For He is not a God of the dead, but of the living," &c.? At the first glance, it is readily admitted, they seemingly embody the popular idea that men survive dissolution. Coming to their perusal with the accepted theory that man is a creature of God, composed of soul and body-a soul, remember, placed beyond the reach of death-we think it would be natural so to understand them. We could blame no one for that, especially if a doubt had never been suggested to him as to the soundness of the opinion. Once we read the words as millions read them now, and were satisfied with the ideas they appeared to convey, regarding them as the true thoughts of Jesus; but a doubt once started, we held on inquiring, till the common idea faded entirely out of sight, and what we intend to submit as the correct explanation has won our increasing confidence while meditating upon its claims year by year.

In the meanwhile we suggest, for deliberate consideration, that it is impossible for them to be used consistently in the sense ordinarily put upon them. Disharmony is immediately established thereby between the prevailing doctrine as to man and death, and the verse when so explained. What is death? Separation between soul and body, attended by the well-understood results to the constituent parts of the being man. No one, we apprehend, will dissent from this answer, so that we may go on assuming it to be correct, as we designed it should be. Death must have its opposite, and what is that? Life, or being

alive. What is it to be alive or living? To be in that state in which the soul is not separated from the body; and that may occur in these circumstances, (1) either before death or (2) after a resurrection, which, according to the popular creed, is substantially the recombination of the two component parts of a man. How then would it look if, guided by the account of death given in the orthodox standards, the passage should be read freely in this manner, introducing the equivalents for the words in the text?-He is not the God of those whose souls have been sepa

rated from their bodies [who are the dead], but of those whose souls have not been disjoined from them, or after separation have been reunited to them [who are the living]; since all those who have not undergone this separation, or have had the union restored, live unto Him—for His glory!

Thus there is evolved a painful antagonism to other important Bible testimonies, and what we have written is a fair representation of the common notion as to man and death, and of course life, when correctly applied to the words of Jesus. Antagonism? Yes, and of sundry aspects too. Why, it would necessitate faith in this-That God ceases to be the God of a soul disjoined from its corporeal frame, which rupture the regnant theology protests in our hearing is death. It would necessitate faith in this also-That while the union subsists anterior to dissolution, or when restored by a resurrection, He is the God of all in these circumstances, inasmuch as they are alive. Happens that to be true? Is He the God of all who have not expired-of all whose souls have not been disjoined from their bodies? Happy world, and a godly race ours! Are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob dead?-have not their souls been separated from their bodies? Then, according to the popular creeds, He has ceased to be their God. Which shall we credit? The Infinite One who proclaims, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;" or orthodoxy, which, if it would speak consistently with its own definitions of death, and life, and man, must assure us that He is not? Thus, instead of conducting us into the open plain, where all is manifested in heaven's own light, the popular view gathers around our steps an earth-born mist, and we find ourselves bewildered wanderers, not knowing what object we may strike against, or into what pit we may stumble.

It is perhaps not an inexcusable liberty to presume that some who may have attended us in our advance, page after page, even already have been visited with rather strong suspicions that whatever the correct interpretation of the Saviour's testimony in verse 38 may be, the familiar one, though venerable with age, must be laid aside. It jars too palpably with other disclosures in the Bible. It ceases to satisfy, and the mind craves for rest, amid the agitation of uncertainty and distrust. Only in truth can that repose be had.

In a few paragraphs, still further to invigorate suspicions of the accredited view, and if possible to clear the way more thoroughly for the introduction of the proposed interpretation, we intend to discuss the vital question, COULD THE LORD JESUS TEACH THAT DEAD MEN Are alive? We intentionally shun the form, Did He teach that? and present the interrogation in the strongest shape, because our aim is to penetrate down to the lowest strata of this matter.

COULD JESUS TEACH THAT DEAD MEN ARE ALIVE?

This is a fair question, and we have no apology for pressing it into notice. Indeed, it seems to be inevitable, and if properly handled only good may be expected as the result.

To aid us in discovering a reply that will bear every reasonable test, let us imagine the Old Testament-the Bible of Messiah's day-to be

quite silent respecting the departed; to give not a remote hint as to their state; to cast not one feeble ray on the darkness behind the veil. That would leave the condition of the gone, one might be prompted to say, shrouded in uncertainty, or something very closely resembling uncertainty. Men in all ages have been peering into the gloomknocking at the door of the sepulchre, anxious to catch but the faintest whisper of hope that the loved ones withdrawn from the scenes and services of life were perhaps not so completely undone as accumulated appearances betokened. The thoughtful or bereaved Jew, more particularly if he allowed the record of man's creation to slip from his memory, must have had a kindred experience. Have they-the dear ones removed-no thought of us now, no love, no longings towards friends they once prized beyond gold and gems? Is the end a blank?

Is light utterly quenched in the night into which they have retired? That was a tremendous word, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Can it be literally true? a broken heart by a newly-occupied tomb groans out in its desolation. Every sign indicates that it is so, but can the thought be endured? To believe him, so lately strong and loving and valiant, whose voice spoke in manly tones to the last, and whose faculties were all energetic as formerly when the shaft, winged by the unerring marksman, reached its destination, and the golden bowl was broken, and the eyes were closed, and the pulses of life stood still; -to believe him utterly oblivious of everything is a trial and an agony almost too crushing for nature to bear. We cannot tell what shadefancies, what delusive hopes, might have been constructed. Men, the world over, guided, we suspect, by unseen agents of falsehood, have conjured for themselves wild and soothing conceptions regarding the dead; and many of them are still displayed on sad and on sacred occasions to comfort the weary, the woe-worn, the longing, and the perplexed. In these circumstances, had no explanations been afforded, we could not have wondered if surviving friends had wished eagerly for some sure and plain announcement to end their doubts-to compose for ever the cry ascending from the depths of the heart, In death what is man ?

Actually such a response sounded through the ages. We have assembled and commented upon a host of its testimonies, and they are precise and unequivocal,-" In death there is no remembrance of Thee; in the grave who shall give Thee thanks ? " By such authoritative words, the appalling tokens that arrest the eye are confirmed; the end is silence and darkness, accompanied with the cessation of thought, volition and desire. All is over! God wills it, and it must be right.

But if there had been no interposition from heaven up to the date of Messiah's appearance in the flesh to disclose the actual condition of things-to quiet the longings and anxieties, and bow the heart of man under the stern reality of facts-He, the Grandest of all Teachers, might have stood up amongst the Jews and cast light on the dread unknown, if perchance there had been any light to diffuse, without assaulting testimonies no less divine than His own. But could He assert that men continued to think after death, when the Divine Spirit that guided His utterance had also led another voice to proclaim, "In that very day man's thoughts perish?" The ancient instruments of revelation spake

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they were moved by the Holy Ghost," and was it possible for the Spirit of God to contradict by the lips of Jesus what He had communicated to seers in earlier days? To ask such questions is to answer them. He was manifested to ratify, not to overthrow what inspiration had imparted to Moses, to Job, to David, to Isaiah, and others in earlier epochs. He assumed the truth of previous revelations when proceeding with His own, and absolute concord reigned, could not but reign, among them all. Hence even devout men in this age realise not what they do when they contend that His words, "He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him," inculcate the prevailing notion about the dead. Teach what they may, they cannot teach that.

9. Finally, on this department.-Too prominently it cannot be kept in mind that the purpose of Jesus was, from the ancient Scriptures, to establish a resurrection, in opposition to the Sadducean doctrine that when a man was dead he had eternally parted with existence. Where does the argument lie? In the words, "I am the God of Abraham," &c. It is there, and nowhere else in His reply. The addition, "For He is not a God of the dead, but of the living," &c., is, by an act of condescending grace, merely an expansion of the proof, explanatory of its point, and bearing, and force. To tell the Sadducees that those who had ceased to breathe were alive somewhere, as the common interpretation asserts He did, would have been an offence to their understanding, and more than ever harden them against His claims as the Messiah. Could homage be paid by them to a flat contradiction of their own Bible? Not with patience would they have borne it for a moment, be the speaker whom he might. To tell them, even were an after-death consciousness within the range of possibility, that it alone involved a physical resurrection, would in their esteem have been, as it ought to be in the esteem of all considerate men, like suspending an anchor by a spider's thread: there was no valid and self-evident connection between the premises and the deduction. So the work of exposition, we feel warranted to declare, has yet to be commenced; the adversaries were not driven into a corner, out of which escape was hopeless. To state it otherwise :-it remains, for the glory of the "Master," to show that His argument was clear, simple, straightforward, and unanswerable. We have-all of us have an antecedent conviction that such must be its essential characteristics. Then, "I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob "how does that establish this proposition, that those worthies, and by implication the vast company interested in the spiritual promises made to them, are yet to be aroused from the sleep of death?

(To be continued.)

DOES

IT IS FINISHED. WHAT IS FINISHED?

OES this question awaken surprise? Does it seem tainted with impiety?" What!" it may be indignantly replied, "Shall any - doubt, hesitation, or limitation, be permitted to stand in arrest of the sublime utterance which closed the tragedy of the Cross, and sent its echoes through all the succeeding centuries? Had not the sin of a