The manifestation, therefore, expected by Malachi was of the dread angel of the covenant so revered in the Mosaic writings. Most Christians believe that this angel was Jesus the Messiah himself. But Luke, altering the quotation from "me" to "thee," affirms that Jesus himself applied it to John the Baptist. If the quotation in Luke is not from Malachi, but part of Exodus xxiii. 20 just referred to, "thee" is correct, but it still implies that John the Baptist and the angel of the Exodus were one. Who has made the mistake? Jesus in ascribing this quotation to John, or Luke in making Jesus so ascribe it? _Second_.--Malachi iv. 5; Luke i. 16, 17; Matthew xi. 14; xvii. 11-13; Mark ix. 11-13. The Elijah of Malachi was to come "to you" (Israel), (1.) Before the great and terrible day of the Lord; (2.) to turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; (3.) lest I (the Lord) come and smite the earth with a curse. Luke's authoritative angel predicted that John was, (1.) To go before him (Jesus) in the spirit and power of Elias; (2.) to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; (3.) to make ready a people prepared-for the Lord. Jesus states of John, (1.) If ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come; (2.) "Elias truly shall first come and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed," Mark adds, "as it is written of him." It is certainly nowhere written (in the Old Testament) that the people Elijah is to be sent among are to do _to him_ whatsoever _they_ list. The Elijah of Malachi is _to turn them_, and this, by the account of the New Testament writers, John the Baptist did not accomplish. _Third_.--Isa.mh. xl. 3; Matt. iii. 3; Mark i. 2, 3; Luke iii. 4-6; John i. 23. If Isaiah's doctrine implies that before the majesty of the eternal, the infinite, universe, the distinctions of brief-lived mortals disappear, and that its glory and its operations are open to all flesh alike to behold and to investigate; that though we shall perish, it, in one or other of its various forms, will evermore endure,--then the "voice of one crying in the wilderness" may still refresh and cheer the human heart, whether it be the voice of Isaiah, John the Baptist, or any other seer or man. What it proclaims is the heritage of all. (b.) _Claim of Jesus to be the seed of the woman who bruised the serpent's head_.