The last of the Prophets lived, and gave his oracles, after the Temple was rebuilt*. His moral admonitions shew that the service of the Altar and the Temple, with its offerings and sacrifices, was established, and in use; for it is a profane and insincere spirit in that service, a religion without purity, which he labours to reform; and both the people and priesthood, have their share in the imputed contamination of their restored worship.

The Christian predictions of Malachi are singu larly framed, in many points of them, upon this existing state of religion. "I have no pleasure in

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you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept "an offering at your hands." Such is the reproof: but what the prophecy joined with it? "From the

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rising of the sun even unto the going down of the "same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, "and in every place incense shall be offered unto my "name, and a pure offering; for my name shall be "great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts t." The concourse of worshippers to the restored Temple leads the prophet to predict the greater assembly of the Gentile world, when the knowledge and worship of God should have the circuit of the sun, and every place, as much as Jerusalem, should be fit to be a temple or an altar to his service: whilst the formality and hypocrisy of the Jewish worship

*Chap. i. 10; iii. 10.

† Chap. i. 11.

per prompt the prediction of the purer worship, and holier offering, of the Christian Church.

Again: "And now,

Oye priests, this commandment is for you." After the prophet has delivered at large his reproof of them in their public, sacerdotal duties; "Ye are departed out of the

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way ye have caused many to stumble at the law:

ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the "Lord of hosts :" the prediction follows: "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. But who

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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 sope. And he shall sit as a "refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify "the sons of Levi as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. "Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be

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pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and "as in former years." The Covenant, the Temple, the Levitic Priesthood, the Offering, are all combined in this prediction; but the force of the prophetic representation does not consist in the mere analogy of the Jewish images, but in the action and import of the existing scene, which gave life to that form of representation. The Temple was again in

use: the prophecy is, "the Lord whom they seek "shall suddenly come to that Temple." A prevaricating priesthood" was corrupting the covenant, and "making men stumble at the law:" it is foretold, that the Lord will send his messenger "to prepare "his way before him." That priesthood had debased religion by ignorance and personal corruption: the prophecy is, that the messenger of the new covenant" will sit in judgment as a refiner," and discerner of spirits, and purify his priesthood, and hallow the offering by the graces and sanctity of his apostles and evangelists. So that this great predictive revelation of the Gospel is at once a prophecy, and a moral parable, putting to shame the priesthood of those days of Malachi, in the reversed exhibition of the holiness and spiritual illumination of the new Covenant and its purified ministers.

It is one predominant and general characteristic, therefore, of this last age of Prophecy, that its predictions of the Gospel are modelled upon the history of the Temple, the Priesthood, and Public Worship. In the auspicious re-establishment of the Temple and Priesthood; in the profaneness and irreligion which soon entered with this renovated state of public Order; prophecy equally set forth the Gospel promises. What was fair and glorious, in this scene of Jewish history, was made a pledge of the glory What was base and degenerate, had its

to come.

opposed counterpart exhibited in the sanctities of the new Covenant. In a word, the Second Temple is covered with Christianity.

t

And now, when Prophecy was about to be withdrawn from the ancient Church of God, its last light was mingled with the rising beams of "the Sun of "Righteousness." In one view it combined a retrospect to the Law with the clearest specific signs of the Gospel advent. "Remember ye the law of "Moses my servant, which I commanded him in "Horeb, for all Israel, with the statutes and judg"ments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, "before the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Prophecy had been the oracle of Judaism, and of Christianity, to uphold the authority of the one, and reveal the promise of the other. And now its latest admonitions, were like those of a faithful departing minister, embracing and summing up his duties. Resigning its charge to the personal Precursor of Christ, it expired, with the Gospel upon its tongue.

* Malachi iv. 2.

RECAPITULATION.

A brief statement may suffice, to recapitulate what has been said in the survey which I have taken of the Structure, and Use, of ancient prophecy.

I. It has been shewn that the character of Prophecy is not simple and uniform, nor its light equable. It was dispensed in various degrees of revelation; and that revelation adapted, by the wisdom of God, to purposes which we must explore, by studying its records, and considering its capacity of application.

II. The principal age of Prophecy is from Samuel to Malachi. From the Fall to the Flood, and thence to the Call of Abraham, its communications are few. In the Patriarchal Age, they are enlarged. During the Bondage in Egypt, they are discontinued, but renewed with the Law. A pause of them, during four hundred years, follows the Law; and a pause of the like duration precedes the Gospel..

III. The subjects of Prophecy varied. Whilst it was all directed to one general design, in the evi dence and support of religion, there was a diversity in the administration of the Spirit, in respect of that design. In Paradise, it gave the first hope of a Re