unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby; and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them which were nigh: for through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father."

How exactly do the prophet and the apostle agree! The peace here meant is peace or reconciliation with God, which it was our Saviour's declared purpose to preach and to produce.

The last prophecy I will detain you with at present is to be found in the 3d chapter of Malachi, and the 1st verse. Here are these words: "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in." What is to be observed of this prophecy lies in a very little compass. "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me." Here is an exact description of the office and character of John the Baptist, who came expressly to prepare the way before Jesus Christ; that is, to announce his approach, and prepare mankind for his reception. "And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple; even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in"—that is, the Messiah himself, whom they so earnestly expected, and from whom they promised themselves so much, should suddenly appear. "Suddenly;" that is, after the messenger that was to prepare his way. This is a very explicit prophecy, and has no difficulty in it, if you take care not to be misled by the term, to suppose the messenger that was to prepare the way, and the messenger of the covenant, to be the same; whereas, if you examine the prophecy with attention, you will soon see that the one

means the Messiah himself-the other his forerunner. For the messenger is to prepare the way before whom? Before nothing, unless the Lord, whom ye seek, the messenger of the covenant, be a different person from him. So that two distinct persons are plainly foretold in the prophecy, who were to be associated in the same plan and commission; who were, that is, the one to be introduced to give notice of the approach of the other both indeed called messengers from God, but of different degrees and denominations; the one the messenger to prepare the way-the other the messenger of the covenant; the one necessarily to precede the other; the second, or greater messenger, to appear soon, or immediately after his forerunner, to supersede his office, as being preparatory to his own. No Christian, it may be hoped, is so ill versed in the gospel history as not to perceive the correspondence of all the circumstances, as to the appearance and preaching of John the Baptist and of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist assumed nothing, delivered nothing, in his own name:"I am not he." His preaching and functions all referred to another: himself was the messenger of God, but only to prepare the way for a greater. That greater messenger suddenly followed-the messenger of the covenant-who came into the world to convey from the Father, and communicate to the whole race of man, the knowledge and the condition of eternal salvation.

XL.

PROPHECIES.

(PART III.)

ACTS XXVIII. 23.

And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God; persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.

THE next prophecy, in the order and manner I have proposed to mention them, is from the 9th chapter of Daniel, and begins at the 24th verse, as follows: "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the time spoken of, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem until Messiah the prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks; and the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times; and after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood,

and unto the end of the war desolations are determined; and he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined, shall be poured upon the desolate."

Now in this prophecy, amongst some places that are dark and obscure, there are others which point out the coming and character of Jesus Christ in very plain words. I believe the best way of considering it will be, first, to lay out of the question that of the computation of the time, which forms a material part of the prophecy. Now, that for the present being omitted, it appears, I think, that at some future period, the Most Holy, the Messiah, the Saviour should appear, and that he should be cut off, that is, be put to death, but not for himself, and that some future and foreign nation should then destroy the city and the sanctuary.

I hardly need observe that, supposing Jesus Christ to be the person meant in this prophecy, all this was punctually fulfilled. I will repeat to you the former part of the prophecy, and you will judge whether it is not as plainly foretold. "From the going forth of this commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem until Messiah the prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks the street shall be built again, and the wall, in troublous times; and after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself; and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and sanctuary."

The next thing to be represented is, from the description that is given of what was to come to pass at this appointed time, that it corresponds with the offic

and ministry of Christ. "Seventy weeks," the prophecy begins," are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city." To do what?"To finish transgression, to make an end of sin, to make a reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision of prophecy, and to anoint the most holy." First; at this time transgressions were to be finished, and sins made an end of. The epistle to the Hebrews twice describes the Christian scheme in words borrowed from the prophet Jeremiah, and which, in effect, say the same thing that is here foretold. "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more." Secondly; if this reconciliation was to be made for iniquity, or as it might better be rendered, iniquity to be expiated, who knows not that he is the "propitiation for our sins;" "that now, even at the end of the world, he hath appeared, to put away sins by the sacrifice of himself?" Again, everlasting righteousness was to be brought in: "This is his name, the Lord our righteousness. "A sceptre of righteousness," says the epistle to the Hebrews, "is the sceptre of thy kingdom," that is the doctrine of the gospel. The 5th chapter and 13th verse of the same epistle is emphatically called "the word of righteousness." It does not appear that any of these expressions were applied with a view to the prophecy of Daniel: nor do I think it material to the argument, whether they were applied to Christ in a literal or figurative sense, because if these bear any sense so easy and natural as to lead his followers to apply these expressions to him afterwards, they might in the same sense, no doubt, be predicted of him before. The two remaining clauses of the verse, "to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy," are