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But is not this cafe more than a fuppofition? Is it not in the moft ferious fenfe actually realized among ourselves? I should infult your understandings, if I judged a long application neceffary. I know my supposition must already have led your thoughts to the fubject of the Messiah, and to the spirit and temper of at least the greater part of the performers, and of the audiences. The holy fcripture concludes all mankind under fin*. It charges them all with treafon and rebellion against the great fovereign Lawgiver and Benefactor; and declares the mifery to which, as finners, we are obnoxious. But God is long-fuffering and waits to be gracious. The ftroke of death, which would instantly place us before his awful tribunal, is ftill fufpended. In the mean time he affords us his gospel, by which he affures us there is forgiveness with him. He informs us of a Saviour, and that of his great love to finners, he has given his only Son to be an atonement and mediator, in favour of all who fhall fue for mercy in The character of this Saviour, his unfpeakable love, his dreadful fufferings, the agonies he endured in Gethsemane, and

his name.

* Rom. iii. 9.

upon

upon the cross, are made known to us. And as his past humiliation, fo his prefent glory, and his invitation to come to him for pardon and eternal life, are largely declared. These are the principal points. expreffed in the pasfages of the Meffiah. Mr. Handel, who fet them to mufic, has been commemorated and praised, many years after his death, in a place profeffedly devoted to the praise and worship of God; yea, (if I am not mif-informed) the stated worship of God, in that place, was fufpended for a confiderable time, that it might be duly prepared for the commemoration of Mr. Handel. But, alas! how few are difpofed to praife and commemorate MESSIAH himself! The fame great truths, divested of the mufic, when delivered from the pulpit, are heard by many admirers of the oratorio with indifference, too often with contempt.

Having thus, as I conceived myself bound in duty, plainly and publickly delivered my fentiments, of the great impropriety of making the fundamental truths of christianity, the fubject of a public amufement, I leave what I have faid to your ferious reflections, hoping it will not be forgotten; for I do not mean

to trouble

you

often with a repetition of it. Let us now confider the passage before us. If you read it with attention, and confider the great ideas it suggests, and the emphatical language with which they are clothed, you will not, perhaps, think the manner of my introducing it wholly improper.

Malachi confirms and unites the prophecies of Ifaiah and Haggai, which were the subject of our two last discourses. John is the messenger, spoken of in the beginning of the first verfe, fent to prepare the way of the Lord. Then the Lord himself fhall come fuddenly to his temple, that is, immediately after the appearance of his fore-runner, and with regard to the people in general, unexpectedly.

The question, Who may abide the day of his coming? intimates the greatness and solemnity of the event. If we take his coming in an extensive fenfe to denote the whole of his fojourning upon earth, from his incarnation to his afcenfion, it is unfpeakably the greatest of all events recorded in the annals of mankind; and though he lived in the form of a fervant, and died the death of a malefactor, the vaft confequences which depend upon his appearance under these humiliating circum

ftances,

ftances, rendered it a manner of coming every way worthy of himself. It afforded a more awful discovery of the majesty, glory, and holiness of God, than was displayed upon Mount Sinai, and proved a clofer and more fearching appeal to the hearts and confciences

of men. To enter more into the spirit and meaning of the queftion here propofed, we fhall briefly take notice of the following points which the words offer to our ferious meditation. May the Holy Spirit, whofe office it is to glorify the Saviour, enlighten our hearts to understand them, with application to ourselves!

I. The names which are here afcribed to

MESSIAH.

II. The fuddennefs of his coming.

III. The fearching power of it in general, expreffed by a refiner's fire and by fuller's fope. IV. Its purifying power on the fons of Levi, the priesthood in particular.

I. The names afcribed to the MESSIAH. The Lord. It is a general rule with our tranflators to express LORD in capital letters, where it answers to Jehovah, in the Hebrew, and there only. But this place is an exception. The word here is not Jehovah, but Adonai. It is,

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however, a name of God, though not incommunicable like the other, being frequently applied to kings and fuperiors. It properly implies authority and rule. As we fay, A Lord and Mafter. In this connection it is undoubtedly a divine name. The Lord is faid to come to his temple, to his own temple. It was a houfe confecrated to the God of Ifrael. The first temple he honoured with tokens of his presence; the second, he vifited in perfon; on which account it exceeded the first in glory. MESSIAH, therefore, who appeared in our nature, and was known amongst men, as a man, and who is now worshipped both in heaven and upon earth, is the God of Ifrael. He came to his own. This doctrine of God manifeft in the flesh, is the pillar and ground of truth: the only foundation on which a finner, who knows the just desert of his fin, can build a folid hope of salvation, is, that Jefus Chrift is the true God and eternal life*. Unless this be admitted, the whole tenor, both of the Old and New Testament, is unintelligible. To fay that this doctrine approves itself to human reason in its present fallen depraved state, would be to contradict * 1 John v. 20.

the

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