whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am come forth to give thee skill and understanding. At the beginning of thy supplication the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision of prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and to the end of the war desolations are determined." Ver. 20-26.

Here is Daniel, at the end of the Babylonian captivity, praying that God would restore the people and rebuild Jerusalem. An angel appears and tells him that his prayer was granted as soon as made; for that is the sense, I presume, of the words," In the beginning of thy supplication the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee." But something further: why do we suppose

Daniel was so careful about the re-establishment of his people in their land, and the rebuilding of the sanctuary? Was it merely for the affection which he bore his brethren, or his desire for the land of his fathers, or his concern for the honour of God, whose temple was now lying in rubbish on the ground, and trodden under foot by the heathen? But all this in the breast of one of the children of the promise, much more one gifted with the prophetic vision, was heightened by a longing expectation for the days of the Messiah, to whom, and the glory he was to bring, all present blessings seemed but to look forward, as a preparation only, and an earnest of their hopes. What so fit an opportunity then as the rebuilding of the sanctuary, to signify, if it was to be so signified, the period when the temple made with hands should be done away, and the virtue of the daily sacrifice be lost in the real sacrifice, of which that was the temporary shadow? But what, on the contrary, in all reasonable connexion, had this period to do with the period of the vision detailed in the preceding chapter, except as being directly opposed to it, as the one is a period to precede certain events, the other a period to date its commencement from them? But what possible reason can be assigned for the angel being supposed, in delivering this prophecy, to allude to the period of the other, in order to fix the commencement of this?—No; but, as a by-the-by, Mr. Pym would have it to fix the commencement of the other. That temple which the angel now announced should be built, was to stand till the coming of the Messiah. It was for the residence of God's Spirit on

earth, until the Son of God should visit the earth in his own person, and enter into a new covenant with men, by which the Spirit should be given in another measure, and seek for itself another kind of temple. It was to be the place of legal worship, in which the sacrifices of the law were to be performed, until the law itself should give place to the gospel of the Son of God. And so, when the spirit of Jesus took wing from his body, "the veil of the temple was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom;" the holy of holies was exposed, as it was no longer the sanctuary of the Almighty. The sentence of destruction then passed upon the temple, which therefore dates virtually from thence, if it were not carried into full execution till the expiration of some years afterwards. If this is so, was there not sufficient reason for the connexion of the prophecy of the time of the Messiah with the going forth of the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem? And was there not sufficient reason for the visit of an angel to announce such an event without supposing a connexion with some other visit of past time? And does not the prayer of Daniel explain sufficiently clearly the cause of his depression, without attributing it to a meditation upon the pictures of an ancient vision?

II. But what does Mr. Pym? He contracts the interval of several years, and brings together the events of successive chapters, as a continuous and uninterrupted narration.

"In the eighth chapter of Daniel (he says) we meet with the account of a vision, with which he had been favoured, which set before him a part of

the Divine purposes concerning his people. In the preceding vision of chap. vii. he had beheld a little horn come up among the ten horns of the fourth beast, and could not fail to see some resemblance in the little horn of chap. viii. ver. 9, 23, which would lead him to connect them both in time and character, and fill him with apprehension for his people under such great and long-continued tribulation, and occasion also no less perplexity to understand the vision. Wherefore it is said, at the end of chap. viii. 'I, Daniel, fainted, and was sick certain days, and I was astonished at the vision; but none understood it.'

"To comfort the heart of Daniel concerning this vision, which was so grievous and mysterious to him, the angel Gabriel comes in answer to his prayer: for though Daniel does not expressly mention the vision in his prayer, yet the desolation of the sanctuary, so often referred to, shows what was passing in his mind; and the angel, in his words to Daniel, expressly proves it, saying, ver. 23, 'At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved; therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision; that is, the vision of chap. viii.”—P. 36.

Now, in this piece, which I have transcribed, there are so many misrepresentations and unwarranted assumptions laid so thick upon one another, that I could not find where to stop, without breaking up the paragraphs, seeing still another delusion immediately ensuing wherever I would have stayed to point out the preceding ones.

Daniel is represented by this account as meditating at once upon the prophetic visions which he had seen during the whole period of his office-the vision, chap. viii., and the vision, chap. vii. Why not, then, the dream of Nebuchadnezzar too, of which Daniel had received the interpretation by revelation? for this actually is the same in substance with the vision, chap. vii. All are supposed by Mr. Pym to be now troubling his mind together. But when is this now? The time of chap. viii, or of chap. ix., sixteen years afterwards? as they are different, and not one time, as Mr. Pym would wish to leave his readers in an unquestioning belief that they are. It cannot be the time of chap. viii. ; for how could Daniel, during the time that he is suffering the overpowering awe of the present vision-"I, Daniel, fainted "-how could he have leisure, at this time, to think about the little horn of chap. vii., three years before?-and if he did, why, (to pursue this gentleman's reasonings to a point indeed irrelevant to the purpose,) should the resemblance of the two little horns occasion a perplexity to understand the vision? One would have thought that would have assisted him. But this is nothing to the purpose; only to show that here is a mingling and huddling together of many things irrelevant and unconnected, that would seem to be intended to lead the understanding captive; but the time is that of chap. ix. Now, then, mark the mistatement. Gabriel is, as related in chap. ix., sent to comfort the heart of Daniel concerning this vision, (so says Mr. Pym,) which had appeared fifteen years ago. Look to it again. Is it so? I