judgments." And then, when the law hath done it's office, and prophefied for the appointed time, "Be"hold I will fend you Elijah the "prophet;" not the perfonal Elijah, but, as the angel expoundeth it, one to preach and live after the model of his example, in his fpirit and power." Thus, in the prophecy of Ezekiel, where God foretelleth the union of Ifrael and Judah in the days of Meffiah, he faith, "They "fhall be my people, and I will be "their God, and David my fervant "shall be their prince for ever*." Not that Chrift was to be David rifen from the dead, or when he came, was to bear his name; but he was to be, in certain refpects, like David,

* Ezek. xxxvii. 23.

conquering

conquering the enemies, and fitting upon the throne of Ifrael. So the forerunner of Meffiah was not to be Elijah defcended from heaven, nor was he, at his manifeftation, to be called by that name; but was to be like him in his office and character. Such a meffenger, faith God, "I will fend, before the coming of the

great and dreadful day of the "Lord," that is, the day that should "burn like an oven," the day of Jerufalem's destruction, mentioned in the firft verfe. "And he fhall turn "the heart of the fathers to the chil"dren, and the heart of the children "to the fathers, left I come and "finite the earth," or "the land, "with a curfe." In the citation of this paffage by the angel, one part of

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 should 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 thyfelf? He faid, I am the "voice of one crying in the wilder"nefs, make straight the way of the * Luke i. 16.

Lord,

"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. These glad tidings were the tidings of the Gofpel. The perfons to whom they firft came where Zacharias, the bleffed Virgin, Simeon, and