1378.] Elijah's advent in john baptist. 465
plishnienf^. Hence, when all things relating to our Lord's death had been fulfilled, except the offering of vinegar to him in his extremity, he said, " I thirst :" and then, after tasting of the vinegar, " he gave up the ghosf^." We may assume it, therefore, as an unquestionable truth, that " the Scripture cannot in any single instance be broken^."]
But, in the instance before us, it seemed to the Apostles, as it does also to the Jew^s of the present day, that an important prophecy still needed to be accomplished —
[We wonder not that the Apostles were unable to account for the prohibition which they had received, and which seemed to disappoint the reasonable expectations of the Jews. Nor do 1 wonder that the Jews at this day lay a considerable stress on this, as invalidating the claims of Jesus to the Messiah's office. I grant them all that they can desire; and willingly concede to them, that if this difficulty cannot be removed, they are justified in rejecting the Lord Jesus, and in looking for a Messiah yet to come.]
But let US, for the removing of this difficulty,
attend to,
IL The solution given of it —
Our Lord, in reply to his Disciples, acknowledged that Elias was certainly foretold as his harbinger, but affirmed that " he was already come," in the person of John the Baptist —
[John was born in a preternatural way, of parents who were at an advanced period of life. And the Angel who an- nounced his formation in the womb declared, that " he should turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God ; and should go before him. in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to (with) the children, and the dis- obedient to the wisdom of the just ; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord^." Now this distinctly applied to John the very pirophecy on ivhich the Jeivs founded their expectation of Elias, ^ and which our blessed Lord declares in my text to have been fulfilled in him.
Again: In John was fulfilled all that Elias was ordained to execute. He bore the most ample testimony to Christ, as " the So7i of God,'' " in whom all were to believe," and who by his atoning blood should expiate the sins of the whole world', and
d Luke xvi. 17. ^ John xix. 28 — 30. <" John x. 35.
g Lukei. 13—17. '^ Mai. iv. 5, 6.
J John i, 29 — 34. with Acts xix. 4. VOL. XI. n n