accomplished by its being honoured with the presence of the Saviour of Mankind. He again urges the completion of the temple by promises of divine favour, and under the type of Zerubbabel he is supposed to foretel the great revolutions which shall precede the second advent of Christ. The style of Haggai is in general plain and simple; but in some passages it rises to a considerable degree of sublimity.

Zechariah was the son of Barachiah, and the grandson of Iddo. He was born during the captivity, and came to Jerusalem when the Jews were permitted by Cyrus to return to their own country. He began to prophesy two months. later than Haggai, and continued to exercise his office about two years. Like his contemporary Haggai, Zechariah begins with exhorting the Jews to proceed in the rebuilding of the temple; he promises them the aid and protection of God, and assures them of the speedy increase and prosperity of Jerusalem; he then emblematically describes the four great empires, and foretels the glory of the Christian church, when Jews and Gentiles shall be united under their great high priest and governor, Jesus Christ, of whom Joshua the high priest, and Zerubbabel the governor, were types; he predicts many particulars relative to our Saviour and his kingdom, and to VOL. I. K the

the future condition of the Jews. Many moral instructions and admonitions are interspersed throughout the work. Several learned men have been of opinion that the last six chapters were not written by Zechariah; but whoever wrote them, their inspired authority is established by their being quoted in three of the Gospels (r). The style of Zechariah is so remarkably similar to that of Jeremiah, that the Jews were accustomed to observe that the spirit of Jeremiah had passed into him. By far the greater part of this book is prosaic; but towards the conclusion there are some poetical passages which are highly ornamented. The diction is in general perspicuous, and the transitions to the different subjects are easily discerned.

Malachi prophesied about 400 years before Christ; and some traditionary accounts state that he was a native of Sapha, and of the tribe of Zabulon. He reproves the people for their wickedness, and the priests for their negligence in the discharge of their office; he threatens the disobedient with the judgments of God, and promises great rewards to the penitent and pious; he predicts the coming of Christ, and the preaching

(x) Matt. c. 26. v. 31. Mark, c. 14. v. 27. John, c. 19. v. 37. Vide Newcome on the Minor Prophets.

preaching of John the Baptist; and with a solemnity becoming the last of the prophets, he closes the sacred canon with enjoining the strict observance of the Mosaic law, till the forerunner, already promised, should appear in the spirit of Elias, to introduce the Messiah, who was to establish a new and everlasting covenant. Malachi lived in the decline of the Hebrew poetry, which greatly degenerated after the return from the Babylonian captivity; but his writings are by no means destitute of force or elegance, and he may justly be considered as occupying a middle place among the minor prophets.

PART I.

CHAPTER THE THIRD:

THE OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY ABRIDGED,

AND

THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS CONTINUED

TO THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY THE

ROMANS.

THE Old Testament begins with the history

of the Creation, which Moses was enabled by B. C. divine Inspiration to relate. From Revelation 4004. therefore we learn, that the world was created (a) in six days, and that "on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it (b)." first man Adam was created on the sixth day. "And God said, Let us make man in our image,

The

after

(a) According to the Hebrew text, which we follow in this work, the world was created 4004 years before the birth of Christ. The Septuagint version places the creation 5872 years, and the Samaritan Pentateuch 4700, before the Christian æra.

(b) Gen. c. 2. v. 2 and 3.

after our likeness (c); and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl

of

(c)" In our image, after our likeness:"-Two words, some think, to express the same thing, with this difference only, as Abarbinel explains it, that the last words, after our likeness, give us to understand, that man was not created properly and perfectly in the image of God, but in a resemblance of him. For he doth not say, in our likeness, says that author, as he had said, in our image, but after our likeness; where the Caph of similitude, as they call it, abates something of the sense of what follows, and makes it signify only an approach to the divine likeness, in understanding, freedom of choice, spirituality, immortality, &c. Thus Tertullian explains it: Habent illas ubique lineas Dei, quâ immortalis anima, quâ libera et sui arbitrii, quâ præscia plerumque, quâ rationalis, capax intellectus et scientiæ, lib. 2. cont. Marc. cap. 9. And so Greg. Nyssen, cap. 16. de Opis. Hom. Navres το διανοείσθαι και προβολευειν δύναμιν έχεσι, &c. All have a power of considering and designing, of consulting and fore-appointing of what we intend to do. Purity and holiness likewise seem to be comprehended in this, as may be gathered from the apostle, Col. c. 3. v. 10. For the new man consists in righteousness and true holiness. Eph. c. 4. v. 24. But though he was created with a faculty to judge aright, and with a power to govern his appetites, which he could control more easily than we can do now; yet he was not made immutably good (quia hoc soli Deo cedit, which belongs to God alone, as Tertullian excellently discourses in that place) but might, without due care, be induced to do evil, as we see he did: for an habituated confirmed estate of goodness was even then to have

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