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caufe; and that their opportunities of being well informed rendered them fully competent to speak to the Fact-that this expectation did generally prevail at the precife time when Jefus Chrift, the Meffiah-the Prince-fo particularly defcribed by Daniel, was manifefted to the world.

CLASS

CLASS I.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

The Promife of John the Baptift, the Messenger, or Forerunner of the Meffiah, given 400 Years before his Birth.

BEHOLD, I will fend my messenger, and he Shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye feek, fhall fuddenly come to his temple, even the mesenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in; behold, he shall come, faith the Lord of bofts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who fhall fand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's fope: and he shall fit as a refiner and purifier of filver: and he shall purify the fons of Levi, and purge them as gold and filver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then fhall the offering of Judah and Jerufalem be pleafant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I

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will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a fwift witness against the forcerers, and against the adulterers, and against falfe fwearers, and against thofe that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn afide the ftranger from his right, and fear not me, faith the Lord of hofts. For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye fons of Jacob are not confumed.

Behold, I will fend you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, left I come and Smite the earth with a curfe".

There can be no queftion concerning the application of this Prophecy to fome perfon who was to be of Jewish extraction, and who was to appear before the deftruction of Jerufalem, because this messenger was to prepare the way for the Lord, who was to come fuddenly to his Temple. The difputes, whether this Temple was identically that which was built immediately after the Babylonish captivity, or whether it was rebuilt rather than

Mal. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. iv. 5, 6.

repaired

repaired by Herod, are not material; it is enough for us to know that a Temple, dedicated to the worship of God according to the Mofaic inftitutions, was ftanding from the time of Malachi to the time of John the Baptift-that Jefus was acknowledged by thofe “who had waited for the promises of God," to be the Chrift when first prefented in the Temple-and that foon after the rejection of this Meffiah by the Jews, this Temple was deftroyed, and no other has ever been fince rebuilt. In all the compafs of the Jewish history for the intermediate fpace of 400 years, no perfon can be found to whom this Prophecy can be applied with any degree of probability, except to John the Baptist, who appeared at the time which had been exprefsly marked for the coming of the Meffiah, as we shall fee in the following Chapter. To him it applies fo clofely as to point out with fingular precifion his office and character, and the fubftance of his precepts and exhortations.

There were many proofs fufficiently clear to have satisfied all the Jews, if their prejudices had not been of the most stubborn nature, that a Prophet fimilar to Elias, and not Elias himself, was intended to be announced

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by Malachi. The angel fent to Zecharias made a declaration to this purpose the most full and direct. At the time when he exprefsly ordained that the name of the promifed child fhould be John, he declared as expressly the nature of the commiffion which he was to execute, in the very words of Malachi," and he shall go before him [the Lord] in the fpirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the difobedient to the wifdom of the juft, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." When the difciples of John came to Jefus for complete fatisfaction whether he was the expected Meffiah or not, our Lord took occafion to give the moft full and illuftrious teftimony to the dignity of their master, and the most clear decifion of the point in queftion. And after the glorious transfiguration of our Lord upon the mountain, when Mofes and Elias, or Elijah, the two greatest Prophets under the Law, had held a divine conference with him, our Lord exprefsly affirmed, "Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him what

&c.

b Luke i. 17.

Matt. xi. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.

Luke vii. 26,

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