should nerve and cheer the missionary. Christ has said it: "The sheep who are scattered among the heathen will hear."

The text, "He that heareth you heareth Me" (Luke x. 16), is the Divine explanation of the expression, "hear my voice."

[And there shall be one fold...shepherd.] This sentence contains one word which ought to have been differently translated. It ought to be, as Tyndale renders it, "one flock and one shepherd." There is an evident difference. Christ's universal Church is a mighty company, of which the members may be found in many different visible Churches, or ecclesiastical "folds:" but it composes only one "flock." There is only "one Holy Catholic Church," which is the blessed company of all faithful people; but there are many various visible Churches.

The sentence is true of all believers now. Though differing in various points, such as government or ceremonies, true believers are all sheep of one flock, and all look up to one Saviour and Shepherd. It will be more completely fulfilled at Christ's second coming: then shall be exhibited to the world one glorious Church under one glorious Head. In the view of this promise unity with all true Christians should be sought and striven for by every true sheep.

Gualter remarks that there never has been, or can be, more than one Holy Catholic Church, and unless we belong to it we cannot be saved, and he warns us against the pernicious error that all men shall get to heaven if sincere, whether they belong to the Holy Catholic Church or not.

Chemnitius observes that we must be careful not to make this one Church either too narrow or too broad. We make it too narrow when, like the Jews and the Papists, we exclude any believer who does not belong to our particular fold. We make it too broad when we include every professing Christian, whether he hears Christ's voice or not. It is a flock of "sheep."

In every other place in the New Testament the word here wrongly translated "fold," is rendered "flock." (Matt. xxvi. 31; Luke ii. 8; 1 Cor. ix. 7.) The word "fold," before us, is evidently an oversight of our translators.

17.-[Therefore...my Father love me because, etc.] This is a deep and mysterious verse, like all verses which speak of the relation between the First and Second Persons of the Trinity. We must be content to admire and believe what we cannot fully understand.

When, as in John v. 20, and here, our Lord speaks of "the Father loving the Son," we must remember that He is using language borrowed from earthly affection to express the mind of one Person of the Trinity towards another, and accordingly we must interpret it reverently.-Yet we may surely gather from this verse that our Lord's coming into this world to lay down His life for the sheep, by dying on the cross, and to take it again for their justification, by rising again from the dead, was a transaction viewed with infinite complacency and approbation by God the Father.-"I am about to die, and after death to rise again. My so doing, however strange it may seem to you Pharisees, is the very thing which my Father in heaven approves, and for which He specially loves Me." -It is like the Father's words, "In whom I am well pleased;" and St. Paul's, "Wherefore God hath highly exalted Him" (Matt. iii. 17; Phil. ii. 9); and Isaiah's, "I will divide Him a portion with the great, because He hath poured out His soul unto death." (Is. liii. 12.)

Our Lord, by mentioning His resurrection, seems to remind His hearers that in one respect He was different from the best of shepherds. They might lay down their lives; but then there would be an end of them. He meant to lay down His life, but after that to take it again. He would not only die for His people, but also rise again.

Guyse thinks the true meaning is, "I cheerfully lay down my life for the expiation of my sheep's offences, in order that I may rise again for their justification."

Let it be noted here, that there is no part of Christ's work for His people that God the Father is said to regard with such special complacency as His dying for them. No wonder that ministers ought to make Christ crucified the principal subject of their teaching.

Gualter thinks these words were specially meant to prevent the offence of the ignominious death of Christ on the cross. That death, whatever the Jews might think, was part of Christ's plan and commission, and one reason why the Father loved Him.

Brentius thinks that there is here a reference to the story of Abraham offering Isaac, when the words were used, "Because thou hast done this thing, and not withheld thy son, therefore blessing I will bless thee." (Gen. xix.)

Hengstenberg remarks that the Father's love was the very opposite of that wrath of God, of which the Jews regarded

Christ's death as a proof and sign." They thought that God had forsaken Him, and given Him up to be crucified in displeasure, when in reality God was well pleased.

18.—[No man taketh...of myself.] In this sentence our Lord teaches that His own death was entirely voluntary. An earthly shepherd may die for his flock, but against his own will. The Great Shepherd of believers made His soul an offering for sin of His own free will. He was not obliged or compelled to do it by superior force. No one could have taken away His life had He not been willing to lay it down: but He laid it down "of Himself," because He had covenanted to offer Himself as a propitiation for our sins. His own love to sinners, and not the power of the Jews or Pontius Pilate's soldiers, was the cause of His death.

The word "I" is inserted emphatically in the Greek. "I myself" lay down my life "of myself."

Henry observes, "Christ could, when He pleased, slip the knot of union between body and soul, and without any act of violence done to Himself, could disengage them from each other. Having voluntarily taken up a body, He could voluntarily lay it down again. This appeared when He cried with a loud voice, and 'gave up' the ghost.'

[I have power...down...take it up.] Our Lord here amplifies His last statement, and magnifies His own Divine nature, by declaring that He has full power to lay down His life when He pleases, and to take it again when He pleases. This last point deserves special notice. Our Lord teaches that His resurrection, as well as His death, was in His own power. When our Lord rose again, He was not passive, and raised by the power of another only, but rose by His own Divine power. It is noteworthy that the resurrection of our Lord in some places is attributed to His Father's act, as Acts ii. 24, 32; once, at least, to the Holy Spirit, as 1 Pet. iii. 18; and here, and in John ii. 19, to Christ Himself. All leads to the same great conclusion,-that the resurrection of our Lord, as well as every part of His mediatorial work, was an act in which all three Persons of the Trinity concurred and co-operated.

Hutcheson observes that if Christ had power to take life again, when He pleased, "so He can put a period to the sufferings of His own when He pleaseth, without any help of their crooked ways."

[This commandment...received... Father.] Chrysostom, and most

other commentators, apply these words strictly to the great work which our Lord has just declared He had power to do: viz., to lay down His life and to take it again. "This is part of the commission I received from my Father on coming into the world, and one of the works He gave Me to do."

No doubt this is good exposition and good divinity. Yet I am rather inclined to think that our Lord's words refer to the whole doctrine which He had just been declaring to the Jews: viz., His office as a Shepherd, His being the true Shepherd, His laying down His life for the sheep, and taking it again, His having other sheep who were to be brought into the fold, His final purpose to exhibit to the world one flock and one Shepherd. Of all this truth, He says, "I received this doctrine in charge from my Father, to proclaim to the world, and I now declare it to you Pharisees. suspect that both here and elsewhere the word "commandment" has a wide, deep meaning, and points to that solemn and mysterious truth, the entire unity of the Father and the Son in the work of redemption, to which John frequently refers: "I am in the Father, and the Father in Me. The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." (John xiv. 10.) "The Father gave me a commandment what I should speak." (John xii. 49.) Our Lord's object in these often repeated expressions seems to be to keep the Jews in mind that He was not a mere human Prophet, but one who was God as well as man, and in whom, both speaking and working, the Father always dwelt.

When our Lord speaks of "receiving a commandment," we must take care that we do not suppose the expression implies any inferiority of the Second Person of the Trinity to the First. We must reverently remember the everlasting covenant between Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the salvation of man, and interpret "commandment" as meaning a part of the charge or commission with which the Second Person, Christ, was sent into the world, to carry out the purposes of the Eternal Trinity.

JOHN X. 19-30.

19 There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. 20 And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?

21 Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?

22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch.

24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.

25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.

26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. 30 I and my Father are one.

WE should notice, first, in this passage, what strifes and controversies our Lord occasioned when He was on earth. We read that "there was a division among the Jews for His sayings,”—and that "many of them said He hath a devil, and is mad," while others took an opposite view. It may seem strange, at first sight, that He who came to preach peace between God and man, should be the cause of contention. But herein were His own words literally fulfilled,-"I came not to send peace, but a sword." (Matt. x. 34.) The fault was not in Christ or His doctrine, but in the carnal mind of His

Jewish hearers.

Let us never be surprised if we see the same thing in our own day. Human nature never changes. So long as the heart of man is without grace, so long we must expect to see it dislike the Gospel of Christ. Just as oil and water, acids and alkalies cannot combine, so in the same way unconverted people cannot really like the people of God.-"The carnal mind is enmity against God.""The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." (Rom. viii. 7; 1 Cor. ii. 14.)

The servant of Christ must think it no strange thing if he goes through the same experience as his Master. He will often find his ways and opinions in religion the cause of strife in his own family. He will have to endure ridicule, hard words, and petty persecution, from