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had been laid open to this prophet, and that he had read the whole history of God's people from the captivity.

The persecutions of the kings of Syria, and the wars they wage against Judah, are discovered to him in all their consequence*. He sees Jerusalem taken and sacked, a dreadful pillage, and infinite disorders, the people flying into the wilderness, uncertain of their fate, between death and life; but on the brink of utter desolation, a new light suddenly appears to them. Their enemies are conquered; idols are thrown down in all the holy land: we see peace and plenty in town and country, and the temple is revered throughout all the East.

One memorable circumstance of those wars is revealed to the prophet: that Jerusalem was to be betrayed by her own children, and that amongst her enemies many Jews should be found.

Sometimes he sees a long train of prosperity: Judah is filled with strength §; the kingdoms that oppressed her are humbled ||; the neighbours, who did not cease to torment her, are punished; some are converted, and incorporated with the people of God. The prophet beholds this people crowned with divine favours, among which he reckons the triumph, no less modest than glorious, of the king, just, lowly, and having salvation, who riding upon an ass, and upon a

* Zech. xiv. Zech. ix. 10.

+ Zech. xiv. 14.
§ Zech. x. 6. Ibid. 11.
Zech. ix. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

colt, the foal of an ass, cometh unto his city of Jerusalem.

After having recounted their prosperity, he resumes from the beginning, the whole series of their calamities *. He sees all at once the temple on fire, the whole country destroyed with the capital, murders, violences, and a king authorizing them. God takes pity on his forsaken people, he becomes himself their shepherd, and his protection supports them. In the end civil wars break out, and things turn to decay. The time of this change is specified by a certain mark, and three princes degraded in one month, speak the commencement of it †.

In the midst of these woes appears a still greater. A little after those divisions, and in the times of decay, God is prized at thirty pieces of silver, by his ungrateful people; and the prophet sees every thing even to the potter's (or the sculptor's) field, on which the money is laid out. Hence follow extreme disorders amongst the shepherds of the people; at last they are blinded, and their power is destroyed.

What shall I say of the wonderful vision of Zechariah §, who sees the shepherd smitten, and the sheep scattered? What shall I say of the look the people cast upon their God ||, whom they have pierced, and of their mourning for a more lamentable death than that of an only son, or than that

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of Josiah? Zechariah saw all these things: but the greatest sight he saw was, The Lord sent by the Lord to inhabit Jerusalem, from whence he calls the Gentiles, to join them to his people, and to dwell in the midst of them*.

Haggai says less, but what he says is surprizing. Whilst the second temple is building, and the old men, that had seen the first, melt into tears, on comparing the meanness of this latter edifice with the magnificence of the former, the prophet, who sees farther than they, publishes the glory of the second temple, and prefers it to the first t. He explains whence the glory of this new house shall proceed; that the desire of all nations shall come: the Messiah promised for two thousand years, and from the beginning of the world, as the Saviour of the Gentiles, shall appear in this new temple. Peace shall be established there; the whole world shaken shall bear witness to the coming of its redeemer; there is now but a little while to expect him, and the times appointed for that expectation are in their last period.

At length the temple is finished; victims are offered up; but the covetous Jews present defective sacrifices. Malachi, who reproves them for it, is raised to a higher conşideration, and upon occasion of the polluted offerings of the Jews, he sees an offering pure, and never polluted, which shall be presented to God; no longer as aforetime in the temple of Jerusalem only, but from the rising of

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the sun, unto the going down of the same: no longer by the Jews, but by the Gentiles, among whom he prophesies, that the name of God shall be great.

He sees also, like Haggai, the glory of the second temple, and the Messiah honouring it with his presence: but he sees, at the same time, that the Messiah is the God, to whom that temple is dedicated. 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 *.

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An angel is a messenger: but here is a messenger of wonderful dignity, a messenger, who hath a temple; a messenger, who is God, and who enters into the temple as his own dwelling; a messenger desired by all the people, who comes to make a new covenant, and who is, for that reason, called the angel of the covenant, or, of the Testa

ment.

It was, therefore, in the second temple, that this God, the messenger of God, was to appeart: but another messenger goes before, and prepares his ways. There we see the Messiah preceded by his forerunner. The character of that forerunner is also shewn to the prophet. This is to be a new Elijah, remarkable for his holiness, for the austerity of his life, for his authority, and for his zeal.

Thus the last prophet of the ancient people pointed out the first prophet, that was

Mal. iii. 1. + Mal. iii. 1. iv. 5, 6.

to come after him, or that Elijah, the forerunner of the Lord, who was to appear. Till that time God's people had no prophet to expect, the law of Moses was to be sufficient for them, and therefore Malachi concludes with these words: Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments*. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, who shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, who shall shew to these what the others have expected.

To this law of Moses, God had joined the prophets, who had spoken in conformity to it; and the history of God's people composed by the same prophets, in which were confirmed, by visible experience, the promisings and threatenings of the law. All was carefully written; all was digested in the order of time: and this God left for the instruction of his people, when he made the prophecies to cease.

V.-The Times of the second Temple.

SUCH instructions made a great change in the manners of the Israelites. They had no more need either of vision, or manifest prediction, or of those unheard-of wonders which God so often wrought for their preservation. The proofs they had received were sufficient for them: and their incredu

* Mal. iv. 4, 5.

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