commencement, unto 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 he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week.” When did this period begin? It began at the command to rebuild the temple, which was in the year of the world 3679, and must therefore end in the year of the world 4162. But mark, this prophecy relates not to the birth of Christ, but to his manifestation and death. He was baptized, and attested to be the Son of God, and anointed as the Holy One, when a voice from heaven came at his baptism, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him;" and the Spirit like a dove settled upon Him; and Jesus then, we are told, was thirty years of age. Deduct, therefore, from the year 4162, when Daniel's 490 years, or 70 weeks, expired, 30, which was Christ's age, and you find that the date of Christ's birth must have been, A.M. 4132, at which A.D. began; "After threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off; and He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week; and in the midst of the week"-in the midst of that last week of seven years-"he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease." Add now the 7 years to 4162, the close of the 483, and it brings you down to the year of the world 4169, or 37 years after the birth of Christ; that is, 7 years after his baptism. We assume that his baptism, or manifestation, was the anointing, or setting forth, or proclamation of Christ. Then one week more He was to confirm the covenant; in the midst of that week He was to be cut off; and accordingly we find that in the very midst of that

week, namely, at the last of the four passovers in April, at full moon, on a Friday, the death of the Messiah occurred; that is, at the end of three and a half years of the seven. During the whole week, in the midst of which He was cut off, He confirmed the covenant himself with the Jews; preaching to Abraham's children; telling them He was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. From the day of his baptism to the day of his death, i.e. three and a half years, He opened the door of the Gospel to the Jews; and then after his death to the day that Cornelius, the first of the Gentiles, was converted, and the Gentiles were admitted to the covenant, was three and a half years more, making it precisely 490 years to the conversion of Cornelius; the first door opened to the Jews, the second door was opened to the Gentiles. And hence if we date from creation to the beginning of the 70 weeks, 3,679 years (the 70 weeks make 490 years); add to this, from the birth of Christ, 37 years-included, you observe, in Daniel's 490 years-add 1828, and you come down to the year 1860; add 8 years more, and that would make 6,000 years; these constituting the great working week of the world, previous to the dawn of the everlasting rest that remaineth for the people of God; that is, on the hypothesis that these calculations are correct.

To my mind it seems satisfactory; and probably true. At the same time I must repeat, when I preach and speak on doctrinal truths, I do not say this is probably true; that Christ is God; that there is but one name by which we can be saved; that there is but one only atonement; that there is but one cleansing fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness; that there is but one power that can change man's heart, the Spirit of God; that there

But on

is a judgment-seat; that there is a heaven; that the whole of mankind shall be divided into two great masses, the sheep and the goats, the people of Christ and they that are not; -on these topics I speak with no reserve or hesitation; I assert they are absolutely, demonstrably true. "He that believeth not shall be lost; he that believeth shall never see death.” these dates-I repeat it again, because I have been misconstrued and misinterpreted-I speak with hesitation and reserve. I give data. My conclusions are highly probable, I dare not say inspired. I venture, not to prophesy; nor to assert that these dates I have absolutely, and perfectly, and beyond doubt solved. I have placed them before you-here is my solution; if you are not convinced, reject it; if you are, accept it; and at all events, whether you believe these dates or not, all things seem to indicate that the Saturday afternoon of the world's long week is come; that the first rays of approaching day begin to tint the mountain tops; and that if ever there was a period when, "Prepare, O Israel, to meet thy God," was a duty, or when the first sounds of the approaching Bridegroom were heard, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh," it is now, not in my judgment only, but in the judgment of most wise, learned, and pious men, who at least have not disobeyed the Savi our's word, that if we be judges of the weather, and say, To-day it will be fine, to-morrow it will not be so, we ought much more to read, and mark, and soberly, cautiously, and prayerfully, without dogmatism, interpret the signs of the stirring age in which it is our lot to live.

LECTURE XII.

PROPHETIC DATES AND THEIR SOLUTION.

WE revert to the investigation of the remaining dates in prophecy. If I prove nothing else, I at least prove this, that there is a wondrous harmony pervading and linking them all.

It is a gratifying fact, that wherever I have stated these things-and I have taken the opportunity in various ways of doing so-secular men, men who have no great sympathy with evangelical and vital truth, have turned their attention to the subject, and have expressed themselves, at least, struck with the consistency of the solution, and the high probability that the solution I have offered may be right.

We read in Daniel vii. that there is to spring up what is called a "little horn "-that is, a power, a dominating, reigning power-that "shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time, and times, and the dividing of time." At the end of this portrait it says: "But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it unto the end."

This horn, or power, with the mouth speaking great words against the most High, wearing out God's people

by persecutions of all sorts, that thinks to change times and laws, is literally and exactly the picture of the Papacy, or the great Western Apostacy of Rome. The prediction is, that it is to endure dominant, powerful, crushing, for a "time, times, and half a time;" that at the end of that period it is not to be struck down at once, but "the judgment shall sit;" its dominion—that is, its dominant ascendency and power— shall be taken away, and it shall be consumed gradually till the end. Now this falls in exactly with what St. Paul tells us, of the same apostasy, in Second Thessalonians, "That wicked one, whom the Lord shall consume," the very words of Daniel, "with the spirit of his mouth," is now wasting away.

The latest proposal of the supposed-to-be imperial author of "The Pope and the Congress" is, that the Pope, instead of a kingdom, shall be assigned a house and a garden; in fact, a manse and glebe, as clergymen have in Scotland. What a tremendous consumption is this, in the condition of him whom kings and monarchs quailed before, if he did but frown, or utter a word of displeasure! This period, of time, times, half a time, is proved to be what I have constantly adduced as the solution of it; a time, 360 years; times, twice 360 years; and half a time, the half of 360 years-making exactly 1260 years. I should not be so sure of this solution did I not find the same chronological period expressed in different terms. For instance, in Revelation xi. 2, "The holy city "-meaning thereby the new Jerusalem, the people of God, the bride-"shall they tread under foot forty-and-two months." Take the month for 30 prophetic days, multiply 42 by 30, and you have 1260 prophetic days or literal years. Then,