inquiries shall have determined the right of the several claimants. This has been in some measure the case with Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks: not however because there is really any indistinctness in the intended mark of the end, but because interpreters have lost sight of it in pursuing it by indirect paths. Finding several edicts of the Persian monarchs in favour of the Jews, they hastily concluded, that the term must take its beginning from one of them; and they expected that the retrograde calculation would enable them to determine which. But the term when reckoned backward from its natural end was found to fall short of even the latest of those edicts. This should have been taken as decisive, that, unless the prophecy had failed of its accomplishment, the beginning of the term could not be fixed by any one of those edicts; and they ought to have sought the point of commencement in some other event. But instead of that, they generally deserted the natural and proper post, fixed by the plain expressions of the prophecy for the end of the term; and endeavoured to invent plausible arguments in behalf of another event, which the prophet himself has placed in the course of its progress. Hence, in order to support their opinions, they have been driven to those "numerous hermeneutic arts and that

great distortion," with which they are upbraided by Michaelis, or to the more pernicious contrivances of groundless conjecture and unwarrantable alterations.

In spite however of all the difficulty attending this prophecy, and all the variety of interpretations thereby occasioned, it has in all ages of the church maintained its credit. For however various and discordant the sentiments of christian interpreters may be among themselves, there is one triumph, which they have all achieved, and which they will ever continue to achieve; that I mean, which is gained over the incredulity and perverseness of the Jews. For no creditable or even plausible explication has ever been or ever can be given of the various terms of weeks and of the events appointed to take place during their course, which does not contradict or entirely preclude every hope of such a temporal and imperial Messiah, as they have been for ages expecting in vain. Their national commentators have indeed laboured by manifold hypotheses, each one more fanciful, inconsistent, and wild than the other, to make the prophet declare in their favour. But "seeing they see not;" and every expositor, who takes the trouble of examining their opinions, exposes to the world the fatality of their blindness. For as Frischmuth,

who has made it the chief object of his dissertation to recite and refute the principal Jewish interpretations, observes, "their incredulity has brought it to pass, that they cannot deliver any certain opinion of any prophecy. For while they strain the whole power of their understandings to pervert the true sense of words, they are carried to and fro by a sort of desultory temerity, uncertain in what point to find a footing*. Besides, as Bishop Chandler has remarked, "although the explication of some parts of it have been very opposite, according to the different views and hypotheses of interpreters, yet the main general truths exhibited in the prophecy stand nevertheless unshaken; wherein all expositors must agree, if they will agree with the textt."

Unhappily however even this general agreement has disappeared, the condition, on which the learned prelate rests it, having been abandoned. Interpreters do not agree with the text; and their disagreements on that head are not less wide, and are likely, if persisted in, to be much more detrimental to the cause of truth, than on any other. Without referring to foreign critics, Dr. Blaney and Mr. Faber, especially the former,

* Dissertatio ad Dan. ix. 24, § 24.

+ Defence of Christianity from Prophecy, vol. 1, p. 134.

in their several dissertations, have thought themselves warranted in introducing numerous and great alterations into the Hebrew text; alterations which seriously affect not only the meaning of single words, or even of the clauses, in which those words are found, but the whole structure of the prophecy. Of the former of those learned men, now no more, I have been accustomed from my youth to think and to speak with the highest respect: but I cannot help considering, that he has treated this prophecy, much as the daughters of Pelias, at the persuasion of the Colchian enchantress, served the body of their aged father. And although he has "kept the word of promise to the ear" better than Medea to the parricidal sisters, yet he has "broke it to the sense." For the resuscitated form, that issues from his critical elaboratory, is a thing of quite another mould, of quite different parts and proportions from what we have seen in the sacred original; and coming in such a questionable shape, we can never recognize it, as the lively oracle, that proceeded from the pen and from the voice of Inspiration. I should also be seriously displeased with myself, if by any asperity of language I were to give just cause of offence to a gentleman of Mr. Faber's learning and piety; but I must say, that the principal alteration,

which he has introduced into the text, consisting of an addition of two whole words made on very slight authority, gives to the prophecy a new and foreign feature, and becomes in his hands the means of forcing an interpretation, which without resorting to such a violent expedient could not have been fixed upon it. When the formidable changes thus wrought on the original are considered in combination with the erroneous translations, by which they are accompanied, especially as to one of the most important clauses, with the new expositions which are consequent upon the new readings and renderings, and with the former varieties and oppositions of interpretation, it must be confessed, that they do altogether throw over the prophecy a degree of doubt and darkness sufficient to prevent the christian advocate from appealing to its testimony with that decision and confidence, which the wishes, not to say the wants, of his hearers and his own zeal for the honour of the common faith reasonably but vainly call for.

I trust therefore, that I shall not be considered, as making an useless addition to the volumes, that have been written on this signal prophecy, if I recall it once more to diligent examination; and if, by a new arrangement of its several periods of weeks and a new interpretation in some

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