24. He opens his prophecies by reminding the people of God's great and distinguishing love towards them and their fathers, which they were so slow to acknowledge. He then reproves them sharply for the sins above referred to, and forewarns them that the Lord, of whose delay they complain, will suddenly come to his temple to sit in judgment there--an advent which they will not be able to endure; for it will consume the wicked root and branch, while it brings salvation to the righteous (3:1-5; 4:1-3). In view of the fact that the revelations of the Old Testament are now closing, he admonishes the people to remember the law of Moses, and closes with a promise of the mission of "Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord" (4:5, 6). This promise, with that contained in chap. 3:1, is repeatedly referred to in the New Testament, and applied to the coming of John the Baptist as our Lord's forerunner. The opening words of the prophecy, chap. 1:2, are quoted by the apostle Paul (Rom. 9:13). APPENDIX. THE APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 1. The Greek word _Apocrypha_, _hidden_, that is, _hidden_ or _secret_ books, was early applied by the fathers of the Christian church to anonymous or spurious books that falsely laid claim to be a part of the inspired word. By some, as Jerome, the term was extended to all the books incorporated by the Alexandrine Jews, in their Greek version, into the proper canon of the Old Testament, a few of which books, though not inspired, are undoubtedly genuine. Another designation of the books in question was _ecclesiastical_, books to be read in the churches for edification, but not as possessing authority in matters of faith. But at the era of the Reformation, when these books were separated by the Protestant churches from the true canon, and placed by themselves between the books of the Old and the New Testament, Jerome's old epithet _Apocrypha_, or the _Apocryphal books_, was applied to the entire collection. How the term _Apocrypha_, _hidden_, became associated with the idea of _spurious_ or _anonymous_ is doubtful. According to Augustine, it was because the origin of these books was not clear to the church fathers. A later conjecture, expressed by the translators of the English Bible, is "because they were wont to be read not openly and in common, but as it were in secret and apart." Still more probable is the opinion that they were so called from their close relation to the _secret_ books containing the mysteries--secret doctrines--of certain heretical sects.