abound, the love of many shall wax cold........ 205 Preached for the Philanthropic Society, March JOHN, XX. 29.-Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.............. SERMON XLII. JOHN, XX. 29.-Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.............. SERMON XLIII. 231 249 1 JOHN, iii. 3.. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure. pure. 270 Preached at the Anniversary of the Institution of the Magdalen Hospital, April 22. 1795. SERMON XLIV. ROMANS, xiii. 1. Let every soul be subject Preached before the Lords Spiritual and APPENDIX. SERMON XXX: MALACHI, iii. 1, 2. 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? FOR the general meaning of this passage, all expositors both Jewish and Christian agree, and must indeed agree, in one interpretation; for the words are too perspicuous to need elucidation or to admit dispute. The event announced is the appearance of that Great Deliverer who had for many ages been the hope of Israel, and was to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Concerning this Desire of Nations, this seed of the woman who was to crush the serpent's head, Malachi in the text delivers no new prediction ; but, by an earnest asseveration, uttered in the name and as it were in the person of the Deity, he means to confirm that general expectation which his predecessors in the prophetical office had excited. "Behold He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts.". Saith the Lord of Hosts. This was a solemn form of words with all the Jewish prophets, when they would express the highest certainty of things to come, às fixed in the decrees of Heaven, and notified to man by him to whom power is never wanting to effect what his wisdom hath ordained. And the full import of the expression is nothing less than this-that the purpose of him whose councils cannot change, the veracity of God who cannot lie, stand engaged to the accomplishment of the thing predicted. "He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts." With this solemn promise of the Saviour, Malachi, the last inspired teacher of the Jewish church, closes the word of prophecy, till a greater prophet should arise again to open it. It will be a useful meditation, and well adapted to the present season to consider the characters under which the person is here described whose coming is so pathetically foretold, and the particulars of the business upon which he is said to come; that we may see how exactly the one and the other correspond to the person and performances of Jesus of Nazareth. These meditations will both much contribute to the general confirmation of our faith, and, in particular, they will put us on our guard against those gross corruptions of the Christian doctrine which the caprice and vanity of this licentious age have revived rather than produced. First, for the characters under which the person is described whose coming is foretold. The first is, that he is the Lord. The word, in the original, is the same which David uses in the hundred-and-tenth psalm, when, speaking of the Messiah, he says— "JEHOVAH said unto my Lord." The original word in this passage of Malachi, *The season of Advent. and in that of the hundred-and-tenth psalm, is the same; and in both places it is very exactly and properly rendered by the English "Lord." The Hebrew word is not more determinate in its signification than the English: It denotes dominion or supe→ riority of any kind,-of a king over his subjects, of a master over his slave, of a husband over his wife; and it seems to have been used, in common speech, without any notion of superiority, property, or dominion, annexed to it, as a mere appellation of respect, just as the word “Sir” is used in our language. Nevertheless, in its primary signification, it denotes a lord, in the sense of a governor, master, or pro prietor; and is used by the sacred writers as a title of the Deity himself; expressing either his sovereign dominion over all as Lord of heaven and earth, or his peculiar property in the Jewish people, as the family which he had chosen to himself, and over which he was in a particular manner their master and head. It is a word, therefore, of large and various signification, denoting dominion of every sort and degree, from the universal and abso |