question, you see, seems to imply a respectable estimation of the learning and abilities of those masters in Israel of whom this nightly visitor was one, and to express much surprise at discovering Nicodemus' ignorance; whereas the thing insinuated is the total insufficiency of these selfconstituted teachers, who were ignorant of the first principles of that knowledge which Jesus brought from heaven to make men wise unto salvation. Nicodemus was a man of a fair and honest mind; but at this time probably not untainted with the pride and prejudices of his sect. Jesus intended to give him new light; but for this purpose he judges it expedient first to make him feel his present ignorance, which the triumph of this ironical question must have set before him in a glaring light. In the prophetical writings of the Old Testament, examples of a more austere irony abound. But we shall no where find an instance in which it is more forcibly applied than by Malachi in the text. "Ye have wearied the Lord," says this eloquent prophet to the infidels of his times, "Ye have wearied the Lord with your words." He makes them reply -"Wherein have we wearied him?" He answers"When ye say, Every one that doth evil is good in the sight of the Lord; or when ye say, Where is the God of judgment? And are ye then in earnest in the sentiments which you express? Is this your quarrel with Providence, that the blessings of this life are promiscuously distributed? It is really your desire that opulence and honour should be the peculiar portion of the righteous-poverty and shame the certain punishment of the wicked? Do you, of all men, wish that health of body and tranquillity of mind were the inseparable companions of temperance-disease and despair the inevitable consequences of strong drink and dalliance? Do you wish to see a new economy take place, in which it should be impossible for virtue to suffer or for vice to prosper? Sanctified blasphemers! be content your just remonstrances are heard; you shall presently be friends with Providence: the God of judgment

But

comes; he is at hand: he comes to establish the everlasting covenant of righteousness-to silence all complaint to vindicate his ways to man-to evince hisjustice in your destruction to inflict on you a death of which the agonies shall never end." All this reproach and all this threatening is conveyed with the greatest force, because with the greatest brevity, in those ironical expressions of the prophet, "The Lord, whom ye seek; the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in." although these expressions are ironical, they contain a positive character of the person to come; for the true sense of irony is always rendered by the contrary of that which it seems to affirm: the Lord and Messenger whom infidels are ironically said to seek and to delight in, is the Lord whom they do not seek, the Messenger in whom they cannot take delight-the Lord who will visit those who seek him not, the Messenger in whom they have not sought the Lord can take no delight, because he is the messenger of vengeance.

This, then, is another character of the person to come, -that he is to execute God's final vengeance on the wicked. But as this may seem a character of the office rather than of the person, it leads me to treat of what was the second article in my original division of the subjectthe particulars of the business upon which the person announced in the text is said to come. There remains, besides, the application of every article of this remarkable prophecy to Jesus of Nazareth. These important disquisitions we must still postpone; that no injustice may be done to this great argument, on your part or on mine-on mine, by a superficial and precipitate discussion of any branch of it; on yours, by a languid and uninterested attention.

SERMON XXXII.

And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, evea the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in: Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?" MALACHI .

1.2.

We have already considered the several characters by which the Messiah is described in this text of the prophet. He is the Lord of the temple at Jerusalem: he is, besides, the Messenger of that everlasting covenant of which the establishment is so explicitly foretold by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel: he is also the Lord whom the profane seek not-the Messenger in whom they delight not: that is, he is the appointed judge of man, who will execute God's final vengeance on the wicked. We are now to consider the particulars of the business on which the person bearing these characters is to come.

It may seem that the text leaves it pretty much undetermined what the particular business is to be; intimating only in general terms that something very terrible will be the consequence of the Messiah's arrival: "But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?" You will not wonder that the appearance of that "Sun of Righteousness who hath arisen with healing on his wings" should here be spoken of in terms of dread and apprehension, if you bear in remembrance what I told you in my last Discourse, that the prophet is speaking to the profane and atheistical-to those who had nothing to hope from the mercy of God, and every thing to fear from his justice. To these persons the year of the redemption of Israel is to be the year of the vengeance of our God. The punishment of these is not less a branch of the Messiah's office than the deliverance of the penitent. and contrite sinner; they make a part of that power of

the serpent which the seed of the woman is to extinguish. But the prophet opens the meaning of this threatening question in the words that immediately follow it; and which, if you consult your Bibles, you will find to be these: "For he is like a refiner's fire and a fuller's soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. And I will come near to you to judgment; and will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, saith the Lord of Hosts." Here you see the Messiah's business described in various branches; which are reducible, however, to these-the final judgment, when the wicked shall be destroyed; a previous trial or experiment of the different tempers and dispositions of men, in order to that judgment; and something to be done for their amendment and improvement. The trial is signified under the image of an assayist's separation of the nobler metals from the dross with which they are blended in the ore; the means used for the ameudment and improvement of mankind, by the Messiah's atonement for our sins, by the preaching of the gospel, and by the internal influences of the Holy Spirit-all these means, employed under the Messiah's covenant for the reformation of men, are expressed under the image of a fuller's soap, which restores a soiled garment to its original purity. One particular effect of this purification is to be, that the sons of Levi will be purified. The worship of God shall be purged of all hypocrisy and superstition, and reduced to a few simple rites, the natural expressions of true devotion. "And then shall this offering of Judah and Jerusalem," that is, of the true members of God's true church," be pleasant unto the Lord." These, then, are the particulars of the business on which the Messiah, according to this prophecy, was to come.

It yet remains to recollect the particulars in which this prophecy, as it respects both the person of the Messiah and his business, hath been accomplished in Jesus of Nazareth. And, first, the prophet tells us that the Messiah is the Lord, and should come to his temple. Agreeably to this, the temple was the theatre of our Lord's public ministry at Jerusalem: there he daily taught the people; there he held frequent disputations with the unbelieving Scribes and Pharisees: so that, to us who acknowledge Jesus for the Lord, the prophetical character of coming to his temple must seem to be in some measure answered in the general habits of his holy life. It is remarkable that the temple was the place of his very first public appearance; and in his coming upon that occasion there was an extraordinary suddenness. It was indeed before the commencement of his triennial ministry: he was but a child of twelve years of age, entirely unknown, when he entered into disputation in the temple with the priests and doctors of the law, and astonished them with his accurate knowledge of the Scriptures. And in this very year the sceptre of royal power departed from Judah; for it was in the year that Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great, was deposed by the Roman emperor, and banished to Lyons, and the Jews became wholly subject to the dominion of the Romans. Thus the prophecy of Jacob was fulfilled, by the coincidence of the subversion of the independent government of the Jews with the first advent or appearance of Shiloh in the temple.

But there are three particular passages of his life in which this prophecy appears to have been more remarkably fulfilled, and the character of the Lord coming to his temple more evidently displayed in him. The first was in an early period of his ministry; when, going up to Jerusalem to celebrate the passover, he found in the temple a market of live cattle, and bankers' shops, where strangers who came at this season from distant countries to Jerusalem were accommodated with cash for their bills of credit. Fired with indignation at this daring profanation of his