61 lines
3.7 KiB
XML
61 lines
3.7 KiB
XML
<div2 id="Mal.i" n="i" next="Mal.ii" prev="Mal" progress="97.91%" title="Introduction">
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<h2 id="Mal.i-p0.1">Malachi</h2>
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<hr/>
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<pb id="Mal.i-Page_1475" n="1475"/>
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<div class="Center" id="Mal.i-p0.3">
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<p id="Mal.i-p1" shownumber="no"><b>AN</b></p>
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<h3 id="Mal.i-p1.1">EXPOSITION,</h3>
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<h4 id="Mal.i-p1.2">W I T H P R A C T I C A L O B S E
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R V A T I O N S,</h4>
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<h5 id="Mal.i-p1.3">OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET</h5>
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<h2 id="Mal.i-p1.4">M A L A C H I.</h2>
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<hr style="width:2in"/>
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</div>
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<p class="indent" id="Mal.i-p2" shownumber="no"><span class="smallcaps" id="Mal.i-p2.1">God's</span>
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prophets were his witnesses to his church, each in his day, for
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several ages, witnesses for him and his authority, witnesses
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against sin and sinners, attesting the true intents of God's
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providences in his dealings with his people then and the kind
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intentions of his grace concerning his church in the days of the
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Messiah, to whom all the prophets bore witness, for they all agreed
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in their testimony; and now we have only one witness more to call,
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and we have done with our evidence; and though he be the last, and
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in him prophecy ceased, yet the Spirit of prophecy shines as
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clearly, as strongly, as brightly in him as in any that went
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before, and his testimony challenges an equal regard. The Jews say,
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Prophecy continued forty years under the second temple, and this
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prophet they call the <i>seal of prophecy,</i> because in him the
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series or succession of prophets broke off and came to a period.
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God wisely ordered it so that divine inspiration should cease for
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some ages before the coming of the Messiah, that that great prophet
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might appear the more conspicuous and distinguishable and be the
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more welcome. Let us consider, I. The person of the prophet. We
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have only his name, <i>Malachi,</i> and no account of his country
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or parentage. <i>Malachi</i> signifies <i>my angel,</i> which has
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given occasion for a conjecture that this prophet was indeed an
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angel from heaven and not a man, as that <scripRef id="Mal.i-p2.2" osisRef="Bible:Judg.2.1" parsed="|Judg|2|1|0|0" passage="Jdg 2:1">Judges ii. 1</scripRef>. But there is no just ground for
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the conjecture. Prophets were messengers, God's messengers; this
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prophet was so; his name is the very same with that which we find
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in the original (<scripRef id="Mal.i-p2.3" osisRef="Bible:Mal.3.1" parsed="|Mal|3|1|0|0" passage="Mal 3:1"><i>ch.</i> iii.
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1</scripRef>) for <i>my messenger;</i> and perhaps from that word
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he might (though, probably, he had another name) be called
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<i>Malachi.</i> The Chaldee paraphrase, and some of the Jews,
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suggest that Malachi was the same with Ezra; but that also is
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groundless. Ezra was a scribe, but we never read that he was a
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prophet. Others, yet further from probability, make him to be
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Mordecai. But we have reason to conclude he was a person whose
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proper name was that by which he is here called; the tradition of
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some of the ancients is that he was of the tribe of Zebulun, and
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that he died young. II. The scope of the prophecy. Haggai and
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Zechariah were sent to reprove the people for delaying to build the
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temple; Malachi was sent to reprove them for the neglect of it when
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it was built, and for their profanation of the temple-service (for
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from idolatry and superstition they ran into the other extreme of
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impiety and irreligion), and the sins he witnesses against are the
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same that we find complained of in Nehemiah's time, with whom, it
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is probable, he was contemporary. And now that prophecy was to
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cease he speaks more clearly of the Messiah, as nigh at hand, than
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any other of the prophets had done, and concludes with a direction
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to the people of God to keep in remembrance the law of Moses, while
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they were in expectation of the gospel of Christ.</p>
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</div2> |