Our Prophet was the last of all the Prophets of the Old Testament, after which they were not to look for any other, till Elijah the forerunner of the Angel of the Covenant (who was the great Prophet of all) should come unto them. The Church appears ⟨p. 2⟩in his time to have been woefully corrupted, by those sharp reprehensions of Priests and people, for corruption of worship, for violation of Covenant, for contumacy against God, for reproaching his ways, and passing an hard and false charge against his services as if they were vain and fruitless. In the midst of this Hypocritical people, the Lord had an Holy remnant who feared his name, and spake often to one another. Both these seemed to call for the coming of Christ, and to delight in the promise of the Angel of the Covenant. chap. 2: 17. 3: 1. And accordingly here is a promise of his coming speedily. But though desired by both, he should come with great difference to the one and the other; to the one after a terrible manner, with refining fire and fullers soap, with fan, and sword, with a spirit of Judgment and burning to consume the stubble, to gather the body of that wicked people into 1Jerusalem as into an Oven and furnace, and there with a final and absolute [Greek or Hebrew] to dissolve the judaical polity, and leave them neither root nor branch, no visible hope of restitution again, chap. 4: 1. which was done by the army of the Romans under Titus. To the other with a promise of Comfort and Reviving. chap. 3: 17. They shall be mine, in that day when I make up my Jewels, ⟨p. 3⟩and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. And that so remarkable, that the reproach cast by the wicked Hypocrites upon the ways of God, ver. 14, 15. Ye have said it is vain to serve God: What profit is it that we have kept his Ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts? And now we call the proud happy &c. should be clearly confuted, by the conspicuous difference which the Lord would make between the righteous and the wicked, ver. 18. the one jewels and sons to be preserved and spared, the other stubble to be burnt and dissolved; the one to be healed and restored, the other to be trodden down and despised.
OUr Prophet was the last of all the Prophets of the Old Testament, after which they were not to look for any other, till Elias the forerunner of the Angel of the Covenant (who was the great Prophet of all) should come unto them. The Church appears ⟨p. 2⟩in his time to have been wofully corrupted, by those sharp reprehensions of Priests and people, for corruption of worship, for violation of Covenant, for cont•macy against God, for reproaching his ways, and passing an hard and false charge against his services as if they were vain and fruitless. In the midst of this Hypocritical people, the Lord had an Holy remnant who feared his name, and spake often to one another. Both these seemed to call for the coming of Christ, and to delight in the promise of the Angel of the Covenant. chap. 2: 17. 3: 1. And accordingly here is a promise of his coming speedily. But though desired by both, he should come with great difference to the one and the other; to the one after a terrible manner, with refineing fire and fullers sope, with fanne, and sword, with a spirit of Judgment and burning to consume the stubble, to gather the body of that wicked people into 1Jerusalem as into an Oven and furnace, and there with a final and absolute 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 to dissolve the judaical politie, and leave them neither root nor branch, no visible hope of restitution again, chap. 4: 1. which was done by the army of the Romans under Titus. To the other with a promise of Comfort and Reviving. chap. 3: 17. They shall be mine, in that day when I make up my Jewels, ⟨p. 3⟩and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. And that so remarkable, that the reproach cast by the wicked Hypocrites upon the ways of God, ver. 14, 15. Ye have said it is vain to serve God: What profit is it that we have kept his Ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts? And now we call the proud happy &c. should be clearly confuted, by the conspicuous difference which the Lord would make between the righteous and the wicked, ver. 18. the one jewels and sons to be preserved and spared, the other stubble to be burnt and dissolved; the one to be healed and restored, the other to be troden down and despised.
- 1Math. 3: 12. Math. 10: 34. Isai, 4: 4.
