Saviour will, ere long, issue this vindictive sentence — " Bring him hither, and slay him hefore me." The decree is gone forth, nor shall all the powers of hea- ven or hell reverse it, " He who believeth and is baptized, shall be saved ; but he that believeth not, shall be damned."
MCCCCLXII. MCCCCLXIII. MCCCCLXIV. MCCCCLXV.
See the end of Claude's Essay, where there are four different Skeletons on this same text, to illustrate the four different modes of dis- cussion, by Explication — hy Observations — by Propositions — and by perpetual Applica- tion. These, it is hoped, will throw consider- able light upon the Composition of a Sermon, as an art or Science, and facilitate the attain- ment of it.
Luke i. 17. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just ; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
THE Mosaic dispensation may be called the age of prophecy ; for under it was foretold every thing which should be accomplished to the end of time. The nearer the prophets arrived to the commence- ment of the Christian era, the more minute and circumstantial were their predictions respecting it. Other prophets had spoken largely of the Messiah ; but Malachi, the last of them, points out his harbinger; and closes the prophetic canon with announcing the mission of one, who should prepare the world for his reception3. Accordingly, about the time that Christ was to come, it was expected that Elijah, or at least some prophet like unto him, should first appear b. Hence, when the angel was sent to Zacharias to in- form him, that he in his old age should have a son, who was destined by God to the office of introducing the Messiah ; he cited that very prophecy of Malachi, and cast the true light upon it : he told him, that this son of his should go before the Messiah in the spirit and power of Elias, and have the honour of announcing to the world the Messiah's advent.
a Mai. iv. 5, G.
b Hence those questions put to the Baptist, John i. 21. and to our Lord, Matt. xvii. 10—13.