I 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 opprefs the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn afide the stranger 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 send 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 fmite the earth with a curfe3.

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 destruction of Jerufalem, because this messenger was to prepare the way for the Lord, who was to come Suddenly 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

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

than

than 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 presented 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 compass of the Jewish history for the intermediate space of 400 years, no perfon can be found to whom this Prophecy can be applied with any degree of probability, except to John the Baptift, who appeared at the time which had been expressly marked for the coming of the Mesfiah, as we shall see in the following Chapter. To him it applies fo clofely as to point out with fingular precision his office and character, and the fubftance of his precepts and exhortations.

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

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 exprefsly the nature of the commiffion which he was to execute, in the very words of Malachi," and he fhall go before him [the Lord] in the fpirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wifdom of the just, 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 most full and illuftrious teftimony to the dignity of their mafter, and the moft 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

Luke i. 17.

Matt. xi. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Luke vii. 26, &c.

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him whatsoever they lifted." This allufion is confidered as fufficiently plain, for it is immediately added by the facred historians, that "the difciples understood that he fpake. of John the Baptist "."

The refemblance between the office and character of the Elijah foretold by Malachi, and of John the Baptift as described in the Gofpels, is indeed exact. The Prophet declares that Elijah was to come before the great and terrible day of the Lord, which time has ever been underftood to refer, in its primary fenfe, to the comple destruction of Jerufalem by the Romans. The Evangelifts affert, that when John appeared, the day of wrath was coming the ax was laid at the root of the tree. Malachi predicts that a meffenger shall be fent to prepare the way of the Lord. John exhorted the people to repent with more than common earnestnefs, because the kingdom of heaven was at hand," or immediately coming. From this, and from other Prophecies, the Jews expected that Elias would be the precurfor of the Meffiah, that he would publickly announce his approach, anoint him King, and introduce him to the

Matt. xvii. 12, 13.

• Ifaiah xl. 3.

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people.

people. John was the voice crying in the wilderness, that one was coming mightier than bimfelf, whofe fhoes he was not worthy to bear. In obedience to the request of Him whom he knew to be the Meffiah, John baptized Jesus in the river Jordan, before he entered upon his public ministry, and testified in the prefence of the affembled multitudes, that "he faw the spirit of God defcending from heaven like a dove," (emblematic of the character of the Chriftian difpenfation)" and that it rested uon Him," whom he declared to be" the Lamb of God which taketh away the fins of the world-the long-expected King of Ifrael -even the Son of the most High." It is evident then, that the particular nature of an office, or commiffion, and not the exact identity of a perfon, was the point which the Prophet Malachi had in view.

The teftimony of the angel, and the declaration of Chrift himself, explaining the nature of the miffion of the Baptist, and fhewing the ftrict reference of the Prophecies to him, agree precifely with his manner of life and general conduct.

Matt. iii. 3, II

The