During many years, one learned man after another, had amused himself with destroying the system of his predecessor, and replacing it with his own, not a whit better, but tending to the same end, viz., to make the prophecy of the seventy weeks tally and fit with the event of the crucifixion.  At length Marsham, a learned Englishman, declared, and demonstrated, that his predecessors, in this enquiry, had been grossly mistaken, for that the prophecy in all its parts was totally irrelevant and irreconcileable with the time of the crucifixion.  The appearance of his book put all the theologians of that age in an uproar!  But many learned Christians in the last, and present, century, now freely acknowledge, that Daniel is not on their side, but as much a Jew as his brethren.

This celebrated prophecy, literally translated from the original, is as follows:—­Dan. ix. 24, &c.—­“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 the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy, [i. e., the sanctum sanctorum, or Holy of Holies.] Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem, unto the anointed prince, shall be seven weeks; and (in) threescore and two weeks, the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.  And after threescore and two weeks shall the anointed (one) be cut off, and be without a successor; (Heb. “and not, or none to him”) and the city and the sanctuary shall be destroyed# by the people of the prince that shall come; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.  And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, and half the week (i. e., in the midst of the week) he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation and that (is) determined, be poured upon the desolate?”

This is the prophecy on which such stress has been laid, as pointing out the precise time of the coming of the Messiah; and I shall fully demonstrate that it hath not the most distant reference to that event.  And for the better explanation of the prophecy, it is proper that we attend a little to the context.

In the preceding chapter of Daniel it is said, that when Daniel was informed of the vision of the two thousand and three hundred days, he sought for the meaning; but not rightly understanding it, he judged, that that great number was a contradiction to the word of God as delivered by Jeremiah, concerning the redemption at the end of seventy years; (Jer. xxv. 11, 12, and ch. xxix. 10) and from thence he concluded that the captivity was prolonged on account of the sins of the nation.  This doubt arose from his not understanding the prophecy, and, therefore,