![]() ![]() It was highly proper that so glorious a person as the Messiah should not even appear to come in a surreptitious or clandestine manner but that the minds of men should be directed to him, and his arrival be made the subject of general expectation. This was peculiar to himself he alone of all the sons of men was appointed to be the forerunner of his Lord. In this view, John is said to be “great in the sight of the Lord”. the habits of their life - the exercise of their ministry -] ![]() ![]() He came “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” whom he closely resembled. It is in a comparative view that the text requires us to consider this: Respecting this person, thus solemnly foretold, and thus miraculously born, we shall be led to notice two things Hence, when the angel was sent to Zacharias to inform 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. 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. 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 reception. The nearer the prophets arrived to the commencement of the Christian era, the more minute and circumstantial were their predictions respecting it. 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. 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. ![]()
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