of nations. We are told by the writings of a prophet who lived above five hundred years before the Christian æra, that the Jews should be released from their captivity, and their temple and city restored, by a decree, which should precede the coming of their Messiah by seventy-seven weeks of years, and the final destruction of their temple and city by seventy-seven years; adding, at the same time, that the complete finishing of their temple and city would not last through the whole continuance of their state, but only through that part of it which commenced sixty and two weeks of years antecedent to the Nativity. The decree also is to take place at the distance of seventy years, according to the declaration made by a former prophet, that the captivity should last exactly that length of time. And the conqueror by whom this decree was to be delivered, and by whose arm the Jewish people was to be released from their captivity, was pointed

out by name and character by another prophet who lived at a still earlier period, not less than two hundred years before the event. Now inverting the prophetic order we ascertain with numeral exactness the position of the several times. The final destruction of the temple being placed as a fixed date, we thence proceed to the time of the nativity of our blessed Lord; from this we discover the issue of Cyrus's decree as well as the completion of the building of Jerusalem by Nehemiah; and from the decree of Cyrus we pass at once to the commencement of the Captivity of the Jews. Thus ascertaining from historical fact that the Temple was set fire to on the tenth of August in the year seventy from the Vulgar Æra; and assuming that it was completely desecrated and consumed at the latest on the twelfth; we arrive at the twenty-second day of September in the year seven before the Vulgar Æra as the day of the Nativity; we thence proceed to

the decree of Cyrus on the twenty-second of June in the year before the Vulgar Æra five hundred and thirty-eight (having fixed the final completing of the city of Jerusalem by Nehemiah on the twentieth day of December in the year before the Vulgar Æra four hundred and thirty-five); and, lastly, we determine the commencement of the Babylonish captivity to be on the twenty-fourth day of June in the year six hundred and seven before the Vulgar Æra.

Having now travelled through the numeral character of this prophecy, we conceive that we have accomplished that, which has been at all times the great desideratum. But as features of peculiar though not of numeral designation yet remain to mark out the office of the Messiah and the fates of the Jewish people, we shall follow on the remaining steps of the prophecy to its termination.

That the Messiah, the time of whose

coming had been promised, was, when he did come, to be cut off; and this not to be for himself or for any fault of his own; that he was then after this to come again with a mighty people, and, rejecting the people that had been his, to destroy the city and the sanctuary, overwhelming all with a flood of desolation, and marking his utter displeasure by a total and final destruction; this has been already announced by the Angel, and with a plainness too significant to require any elucidation.

The two events, characteristic of the two periods that were to follow the birth of Christ, being thus predicted, the one the rejection and death of the Messiah, and the other the consequent rejection and destruction of his chosen people, the Angel returns to particularise them by a more circumstantial detail.

And with respect to the first he foretels, that the abolition of the Jewish sacrifices should take place in the middle of

that week, during which the covenant was to be confirmed with many,―a prediction, which has been plainly verified by the fact; the Christian covenant having been proposed exclusively to the Jews during one week, or seven years, and the great sacrifice of Christ, by which all other sacrifices were for ever annihilated, having been offered in the middle of that week, or at the end of Christ's public ministry, which continued for three years and a half.

Again, respecting the event which was to close the second period, this, it is stated, was to be looked for so soon as the abomination of desolation, or the idolatrous ensigns of the invading army, should be displayed on the borders of the Temple.

The words of the Angel are as follow: "And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, [and for the overspreading of abominations, he shall make it