saith the prophet Zechariah; "for lo, I come; and I dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD;" in the original, "saith JEHOVAH." "In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the LORD," says Isaiah; in the original it is, “I saw JEHOVAH,"" sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple: above it stood the seraphim; and one cried out to another, and said Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of Hosts !" in the original, "JeHOVAH, God of Hosts;" "the whole earth is full of his glory." The same Spirit which displayed this glorious vision to Isaiah, has given the interpretation of it by the evangelist St. John. St. John tells us that Christ was that Jehovah whom the entranced prophet saw upon his throne-whose train filled the temple-whose praises were the theme of the seraphic song--whose glory fills the universe. "For these things said Esaias," saith St.. John, "when he saw his glory, and spake of him." St. John had just alleged that particular prophecy of Isaiah which is introduced with the description of the vision in the year of Uzziah's death. This prophecy the evangelist applies to Christ, the only person of whom he treats in this place; subjoining to his citation of Isaiah's words, "These things said Esaias when he saw his glory, and spake of him." It was Christ's glory, therefore, that Esaias saw; and to him whose glory he saw the prophet gives the name of JEHOVAH, and the worshipping angels gave the name of JEHOVAH God of Sabaoth. Again, the prophet Joel, speaking of the blessings of the Messiah's day, saith-"And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD," in the original," JEHOVAH," "shall be delivered." Here, again, the Holy Spirit hath vouchsafed to be his own interpreter; and his interpretation, one would think, might be decisive. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, alleges this passage of Joel to prove that all men shall be saved by believing in Christ Jesus. But how is the apostle's assertion that all men shall be saved by faith in Christ confirmed by the

prophet's promise of deliverance to all who should devoutly invocate Jehovah, unless Christ were in the judg ment of St. Paul the Jehovah of the prophet Joel?

From the few passages which have been producedmore indeed might be collected to the same purpose-but from these few, I doubt not but it sufficiently appears to you that the promised Messiah is described by the more ancient prophets, as by Malachi in the text, as no other than the everlasting God, the JEHOVAH of the Israelites, -that Almighty God whose hand hath laid the foundations of the earth, whose right-hand hath spanned the heavens-that jealous God who giveth not his glory to another, and spareth not to claim it for himself. These explicit assertions of the Jewish prophets deserve the serious attention of those zealous and active champions of the Arian and Socinian tenets, who have within these few years become so numerous in this country; and who, as they cannot claim the honour of any new inventions in divinity (for their corruptions were indeed the produce of an early age), are content to acquire a secondary fame by defending old errors with unexampled rashness. They are said to have gone so far in their public discourses as to bestow on Christ our Lord the opprobrious appellation of the "Idol of the Church of England." Let it be remembered, that he who is called the Idol of our church is the God who was worshipped in the Jewish temple. They have the indiscretion too to boast the antiquity of their disguised and mutilated scheme of Christianity; and tell their deluded followers, with great confidence, that the divinity of the Saviour is a doctrine that was never heard of in the church till the third or fourth century, and was the invention of a dark and superstitious age. This assertion, were it not clearly falsified, as happily it is, by the whole tenor of the apostolical writings, would cause a more extensive ruin than they seem to apprehend: it would not so much overturn any single article of doctrine, such as men may dispute about, and yet be upon the

whole believers-it would cut up by the roots the whole faith in Christ. Mahomet well understood this: he founded his own pretensions prudently, however impiously, on a denial of the godhead of Christ. "There is one God," said Mahomet, "who was not begotten, and who never did beget." If the Father did not beget, then Christ is not God; for he pretended not to be the Father: if he claimed not to be God, he claimed not to be the person which the Messiah is described to be by the Jewish prophets if Christ was not Messiah, the Messiah may come after Christ: if he was a prophet only, a greater prophet may succeed. Thus, Christ's divinity being once set aside, there would be room enough for new pretensions. Mahomet, it should seem, was an abler divine than these half believers. With the pernicious consequence, however, of their rash assertion, they are not justly chargeable: they mean not to invalidate the particular claims of Jesus of Nazareth as a prophet, and the Deliverer promised to the Jews; but they would raise an objection to the notion of a plurality of persons in the undivided substance of the Godhead. They are particularly unfortunate in choosing for the ground of their objection this imaginary circumstance of the late rise of the opinion they would controvert. Would to God they would but open their eyes to this plain historical fact, of which it is strange that men of learning should be ignorant, and which will serve to outweigh all the arguments of their erroneous metaphysics, that the divinity of the Messiah was no new doctrine of the first preachers of Christianity; much less the invention of any later age: it was the original faith of the ancient Jewish church, delivered, as I have shown you, by her prophets, embraced and acknowledged by her doctors, six hundred years and more before the glorious era of the incarnation. Nor was it even then a novelty; it was the creed of believers from the beginning; as it was typified in the symbols of the most ancient patriarchal worship. The cheru

bim of glory, afterward placed in the sanctuary of the Mosaic temple, and of Solomon's temple, had been originally placed in a tabernacle on the east of the garden of Eden, immediately after the fall. These cherubim were figures emblematical of the Triune persons in the Godhead-of the mystery of redemption by the Son's atonement-and of the subjection of all the powers of nature, and of all created thing, animate and inanimate, to the incarnate God.

This therefore is the first character under which the person is described whose coming is foretold, that of the LORD JEHOVAH of the Jewish Temple. Other characters follow not less worthy of notice. The prosecution therefore of the subject demands a separate Discourse.

SERMON XXXI.

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 may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth. MALACHI iii. 1, 2.

ALTHOUGH the words of my text are too perspicuous in their general sense and meaning to need elucidation, yet the characters by which the person is described whose coming is announced, and the particulars of the business upon which he is said to come, deserve a minute and accurate explication. The first character of the person, that he is the Lord of the Jewish temple, has already been considered. It has been shown to be agreeable to the descriptions which had been given of the same person by the earlier prophets; who unanimously ascribe to him both the attributes and works of God, and frequently mention him by God's peculiar name, "JEHOVAH;" which, though it be the proper and incommunicable name of God, is not exclusively the name of the Almighty,

Father, but equally belongs indifferently to every person in the Godhead, since by its etymology it is significant of nothing but what is common to them all, self-eristence.

The next character that occurs in the text of him whose coming is proclaimed, is that of a messenger of a covenant : "The Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in." The covenant intended here cannot be the Mosaic; for of that the Messiah was not the messenger. The Mosaic covenant was the word spoken by angels; it is the superior distinction of the gospel covenant, that it was begun to be spoken by the Lord. The prophet Jeremiah, who lived long before Malachi, had already spoken in very explicit terms of a new covenant which God should establish with his people, by which the Mosaic should be superseded, and in which the faithful of all nations should be included: "Behold, the days come, saith the JEHOVAH, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the JEHOVAH,-I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." In a subsequent prophecy he mentions this covenant again, and calls it an everlasting covenant. He had mentioned it before, in less explicit terms; but in such which perspicuously though figuratively express the universal comprehension of it, and the abrogation of the ritual law: In those days, saith the JEHOVAH, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the JEHOVAH! neither shall it come to mind; neither shall they visit it; neither shall any more sacrifice be offered there. At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the JEHOVAH; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it -to the name of the JEHOVAH, to Jerusalem. Neither shall they," that is, the Gentiles, "walk any more after the