That is, and after that period, shall the High Priest (or “the anointed one”) be cut off—­[The High Priest is called “Messiah,” witness Lev. iv. 3—­“If the Messiah Priest, (or anointed priest) doth sin,” &c.]—­and have no successor; and the city and the temple shall be destroyed by Titus and the Romans, and until the end of the war, your country shall be swept with the besom of destruction.

The angel finishes the prophecy with these words:—­“And he (the prince that shall come) shall strengthen the covenant with many, for one week.  And in the midst of the week (i. e., the seventieth and last week,) he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.”

This prediction was fully accomplished; for 1.  Titus, “the prince that should come,” was continually offering peace to the Jews, and tried to “strengthen the covenant”—­i. e., their old treaties made with the Romans, and in fact did bring over many. 2.  On account of the distress of the siege, the daily sacrifice did in fact cease to be offered in the temple some time before its destruction; and the angel further observes, that all this was to come upon them for their sins, “for the overspreading of abominations, it should be made desolate.”

This is what appears to be a plain and fair explication of this prophecy; but since Christians, seeing mention made in it of a Messiah to be cut off, have eagerly endeavoured to press it into their service, it remains for me to show, that it is impossible to make this prophecy refer to “the cutting off” of Jesus.

The difficulty that learned Christians have met with, in their attempts to do this, will be easily conceived by any person, when he knows, that more than a dozen different hypotheses have been framed by them for that purpose; but that they have lost their labour, will be obvious from this single observation, that “the anointed one, or Messiah,” who, the prophet says, was to be “cut off,” was to be cut off “After the threescore and two weeks,” i. e., at the destruction of Jerusalem, or within the seven years preceding that event!  Now, we know from the Evangelists, and; from profane history, that Jesus was crucified more than forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem.  In addition to this, nothing need be said, for this circumstance lays flat their interpretation at one stroke.

Those who desire to see a more elaborate discussion of this prophecy, and an ample defence of this interpretation, are referred to “Levi’s Letters, to Priestly;” and those who are desirous of seeing an account of the various, contradictory, perplexed and multitudinous contrivances, by which it has been endeavoured to apply this prophecy to Jesus, are referred to Prideaux, Michaelis, and Blayney.

We have now gone through an examination of the evidence adduced from the prophets of the Old Testament, to prove that Jesus is the Messiah of the Old Testament; and those of our readers who love truth, are, we trust, now made sensible that the religion of the New Testament, if built upon such proofs as these, is, evidently, founded on—­a mistake.