manner, from society, to learn humility in the fields and woods, until he acknowledged the power and the righteousness of the King of heaven. And thus the idolatrous and superlatively wicked Manasseh became a sincere and hearty penitent in the solitude of a Chaldean prison. Nor can we but admire, upon this occasion, the wisdom and goodness of God in sending sickness, as a preparative for death. Sickness takes a man, as it were, out of this scene of things, to fit him for another. It draws the curtain between him and the world, shutting out all its cares, and all its pleasures. It puts away his idle and noisy acquaintance far from him; and having thus secured his attention to the one thing needful, gives him ideas of the nature of sin, and the importance of death, the vanities of time, and the glories of eternity, to which he was before an utter stranger. Now appear to him, in their proper colours and natural deformity, the diabolical nature of pride and envy, the brutality of intemperance, the folly and torment of lasciviousness, the wretchedness of avarice, and the stupidity of sloth. Now he hath no longer any unlawful desires, and grieves that he ever had such. Now he is what he always ought to have been, and what retirement, at proper seasons, should and would have made him. In morality, as in husbandry, the preparation of the soil is a great step towards the production of a plentiful harvest. If carnal desires are dead in us, all things belonging to the Spirit will live and grow in us. If the affections are disengaged from things on earth, the difficulty of the work is over; they will readily and eagerly lay hold on things above, when proposed to them. If the snare of concupiscence be broken, and the soul be delivered out of it, she will presently fly away, on the wings of faith and charity, towards heaven. They who have duly practised mortification in the school of retirement, will, at their appearance in the world, afford it the brightest examples of every thing that is "honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report." We may, therefore, conclude, that he who desires to undertake the office of guiding others in the ways of wisdom and holiness, will best qualify himself for that purpose by first passing some time in a state of sequestration from the world; where anxious cares and delusive pleasures may not break in upon him, to dissipate his attention; where no sceptical or sectarian spirit may blind his understanding, and nothing may obstruct the illumination from above; where every vicious inclination may be mortified through grace, by a prudent application of the proper means and every fresh bud of virtue, sheltered from noxious blasts, may be gradually reared up into strength, beauty, and fragrance; where, in a word," he may grow and wax strong in spirit, until the day of his showing unto Israel." SECTION IV. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PROPHECIES RELATIVE TO ST. JOHN IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. BEFORE we proceed to view the Baptist in the exercise of his ministry, it will be proper to look back to the predictions in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, concerning his office and character. We shall begin with that remarkable one, "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, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse * As there was amongst the Jews a general expectation of Messiah's appearance, at the time when he did appear, so an opinion likewise prevailed, that the world should be first prepared for his reception, in some extraordinary manner. But wrong ideas of his appearance and kingdom introduced mistakes with regard to the person who should precede and proclaim him. According to the notions then current, occasioned by applying to his first advent the prophecies which belonged to the second, Messiah was to come in power and majesty, to confer on the sons of Jacob dominion over the Gentiles, and make Jerusalem the metropolis of the world. And by misunderstanding this pre * Mal. iv. 5, 6. diction of Malachi, they had imagined, that Elijah the Tishbite should return from heaven, as his precursor. For this reason it was, that when the Sanhedrim sent a message to St. John, desiring to know whether he were Elias? he answered, "I am not :" not the Elias by them intended and expected. But that St. John was the person foretold by Malachi under the name of Elias, we have the declarations of our Lord himself to his own disciples, " Elias is indeed come *;" and to the Jews, "If ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him heart." By these expressions it was evidently Christ's intention to put his hearers upon the search after something more than the words, in the bare letter of them, might seem to contain. He directed them to go deeper into things, to study with attention the mission of the Baptist, his office and character; to compare together persons, times, and events; and so to discover, in what sense John was Elias, and why Malachi had given him that appellation. But if they did this, and were once brought, in the person of John, to acknowledge Elias, who was to precede the Messiah, they must necessarily, in the person of Jesus, acknowledge the Messiah whom Élias was to precede. And therefore, as they were obstinately resolved not to own the Master, Christ knew they would not recognize the servant, or receive this saying concerning him. Thus when the chief priests and elders interrogated our Lord in the temple, "By what authority dost thou these things, or who gave thee this authority? I will also," said he, "ask you one question, The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men?" They perceived the dilemma, and having considered consequences, made the only safe answer, "We cannot tell ;" an answer which did honour to their prudence and their caution, but certainly at the expense either of their wisdom or their honesty. As sitting in the chair of Moses, they ought to have known whence the baptism of John was; and if they did know, they ought not to have been shy of declaring it. That St. John was the Elias predicted by Malachi, we have also the testimony of an angel ||, at the annunciation • Mark ix. 13. + Matt. xi. 14 || Luke i. 17. of his birth, who cites the very words of the prophet; "He shall 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 case, it follows by necessary inference, that by "the great and dreadful day of the Lord," before the coming of which Elijah is promised, Malachi intends primarily and immediately, the day, not of the world's, but of Jerusalem's destruction. For want of adverting to this, an opinion hath prevailed among Christian interpreters, that the whole prophecy relateth principally to the day of judgment, and to the appearance of an Elias, who shall then precede Christ. Whether there will be such an Elias at that time, and so the second advent will symbolize with the first in the circumstance of being previously proclaimed by a harbinger, like St. John, sent for that purpose, is a speculation with which we shall not at present concern ourselves, resting satisfied with the application of the prophecy, upon infallible grounds, to the person of the Baptist, the undoubted forerunner of our Lord, when he came to visit us in great humility. God punisheth not sinners, till he hath first invited them to repentance. He giveth fair warning before he striketh; and a day of grace, in which mercy may be sought, and pardon found, always goeth before a day of vengeance and extermination. Elias was sent " before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord;" John called his countrymen to turn from their sins, and believe in their Messiah, ere yet the desolations of Jerusalem exhibited to the wondering nations a specimen of that almighty power and inflexible justice, which shall one day lay the world itself in ruins. The third chapter of Malachi containeth a most evident and clear prediction of Messiah's advent, with that of his precursor St. John: "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: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts." The prophet goes on to foretell the effects of Christ's advent in the selection of a peculiar people, and the purification of a new priesthood, to offer new and acceptable offerings. "But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years;" pleasant as in the days when their fathers offered in faith, and the desire of Messiah's appearance was the ruling passion of their souls. The rest of the chapter is employed in reproving the rebellion, sacrilege, and infidelity of the Jews; and the fourth chapter opens with a description of the day fatal to Jerusalem-" Behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." For the consolation of the faithful, God by his prophet again foretelleth Messiah's advent, with the increase, victory, and triumph of the church" But unto you that fear my name, shall the SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS arise, with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as the firstlings of bullocks and ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet, in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts." In the mean time, "Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments." And then when the law hath done its office, and prophesied for the appointed time, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet;" not the personal Elijah, but, as the angel expoundeth it, one to preach and live after the model of his example, in his "spirit and power." Thus, in the prophecy of Ezekiel, where God foretelleth the union of Israel and Judah in the days of Messiah, he saith, They shall be my people, and I will be their God, and David, my servant, shall be their prince for ever." Not that Christ was to be David risen from the dead, or when he came, was to bear his name; but he was to be, in certain respects, like David, conquering the enemies, and sitting upon the throne of Israel. So the 66 * Ezek. xxxvii. 23. U |