it is paraphrafed-" To turn the "hearts of the fathers to the chil

dren, and the difobedient to the wif "dom of the juft*." The meaning of the whole feems to be, either, that men of every age and every difpofition fhould be united in truth and charity; or, as fome learned expofitors understand the paffage, that St. John fhould bring many of the Jews to have the fame heart and mind which their fathers and progenitors had, who feared God, and believed his promifes; that fo their fathers might, as it were, rejoice in them, and own them again for their children; in other words, that he fhould convert them to the faith of that Chrift whom their fathers hoped in, and looked

for; as it was faid by the angel, Many of the children of Ifrael "fhall be turn to the Lord their "God;" left, all continuing obftinate in their unbelief, till the day when a rejected Saviour fhould vifit an apoftate people, the curfe fhould be univerfal.

BESIDES thefe notices afforded us by Malachi, there is a prophecy on the fame fubject in the Lth chapter of Ifaiah, to which St. John referred the priests and levites, when they preffed him, faying, "Who art thou, "that we may give an answer to "them that fent us? What fayeft "thou of thyself? He faid, I am the "voice of one crying in the wilder

"Lord, as faid the prophet Efaias *." But let us take a view of the whole context, as far as it concerns our prefent purpose.

ISAI. XL. 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, faith your God.

THE future manifeftation of Chrift's kingdom is reprefented to the prophet in fpirit, with the concomitant figns and circumftances of it. He hears the voice of God directing his fervants to comfort his people, by proclaiming certain glad tidings which had been communicated to them. Thefe glad tidings were the tidings of the Gofpel. The perfons to whom they firft came where Zacharias, the bleffed Virgin, Simeon, and

precede. And therefore, as they were obftinately refolved not to own the Master, Christ knew they would not recognize the fervant, or receive this faying concerning him. Thus when the chief priests and elders interrogated our Lord in the temple, "By "what authority doft thou these "things, or who gave thee this au"thority? I will alfo," faid he, "afk you one question, The baptifm "of John, was it from heaven, or of "men" They perceived the dilemma, and having confidered confequences, made the only fafe anfwer, "We cannot tell*;" an anfwer which did honour to their prudence and their caution, but certainly at the expence either of their wifdom, or their honefty. As fitting

* Matt. xxi. 23.

in the chair of Mofes, they ought to have known whence the baptism of John was; and if they did know, they ought not to have been fhy of declaring it.

THAT St. John was the Elias predicted by Malachi, we have alfo the teftimony of an angel, at the annuntiation of his birth, who cites the very words of the prophet; "He "thall go before him in the spirit and "power of Elias, to turn the hearts "of the fathers to the children," &c. And if this be the cafe, it follows by neceffary inference, that by "the 66 great and dreadful day of the "Lord," before the coming of which Elijah is promifed, Malachi intends, primarily and immediately, the day, not of the world's, but of Jerufalem's