book was to remain sealed. This sealing or shutting up was to continue for certain weeks: that is, as we find by the context (chap. ix.) till the time of MESSIAH THE PRINCE-till he should make an end of sin-[sin-offerings, for so the word signifies]-by the one offering of himself (Heb. x. 12, 14); or in other words, till an end should be put to the sacrifices offered under the law: and we find the same thing intimated twice afterwards (Dan. chap. xii.) by the expression "the time of the end,"-that is, the time of CHRIST, whose coming put an end to the Mosaic institutions. The book then that was opened in the Apocalypse, had its seals loosed at a period answerable to the prediction respecting the time in which Daniel's prophecies were to be opened; and, the fulfilment answering to the prediction, the evidence becomes complete, that the Prophet Daniel was the book that was thus opened.

The inference from all this is obvious. The writers of the Apostolic Epistles have, in various parts of their writings, spoken of some of the sealed things of Daniel, without any veil or mystery whatever on the contrary, they speak of them as well known, even to those to whom they address their Epistles ;-as for example,"yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the "Lord so cometh as A THIEF IN THE NIGHT". Paul in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians,

v. 2; and again in his second Epistle ii. 5, " Re"member ye not, that when I was with you, I told

you these things ?"-What things? Things respecting "the man of sin, the son of perdition, “who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that "is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he “as a god sitteth in the temple of God showing himself that he is a god," ver. 3, 4: now the body or community here personified as the son of perdition, is the very king of whom Daniel predicted,

he shall do according to his will, and magnify himself above every god, and speak marvellous things against the God of gods," &c. Dan. xi. 36; and the things respecting this man of sin and the manner of his destruction were among those that were sealed up-" But thou Daniel, "shut up the words, and seal the book, to the time "of the end," ch. xii. 4. This being the fact, the sealed book must have been opened before Paul wrote his Epistles; or, in other words, the Apocalypse had been given to the churches before that time, which was the point to be proved; for it is plain, from John's words, that up to the period when he saw the seals removed, neither Peter nor Paul, nor any one in heaven or on earth, or under the earth, had been "found worthy to open "the book, nor to inspect it," Rev. v. 4;—an assertion which would not be true, had Paul written his Epistles before that time.

While on this subject I shall take the opportunity to offer a few farther observations by no means foreign to the ultimate intention of the present publication. If the Book of Daniel was to continue sealed till the time of the end of the Jewish dispensation-if no human powers, however ingeniously exerted, could unfold or explain the sealed parts till the MESSIAH should give the true meaning of them-how should it be possible that, by following Jewish interpretations, the Christian Church should ever attain a right understanding of their import? Need we wonder, then, that Commentators should miss their aim, when, treading in the steps of the Jewish Doctors, they continue to consider Jerusalem as the holy city-the temple as the sanctuary-the Jewish High Priest as the Prince of the Host-Antiochus Epiphanes as the polluter of the sanctuary, the taker away of the daily [service], the author of the transgression of desolation; and the Roman armies under Titus, as those intended by the destroyer of the city and the sanctuary ? Ought we not rather to be surprised that they could ever think it possible that light should be expected on this subject from those who have " eyes, but see not, and ears but hear not unto "this day," (Rom. xi. 8); or that they could overlook the numerous intimations given in the Scriptures respecting the substitution of another

tabernacle-another sanctuary, or holy place. another holy city, for those which existed under the Jewis dispensation?

Of little avail will it be to admit these truths generally, if we do not follow them to all their consequences. "The Priesthood being changed

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(Heb. vii. 12), there is made, of necessity, a "change also of the law" and of every thing connected with it. The first covenant had a worldly sanctuary (Heb. ix. 1), and in this a place called, by eminence, "the holiest of all," (ver. 3), into which the High Priest entered alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people (ver. 7): the Holy Spirit signifying that the way into the true holiest of all, was not made manifest while the first tabernacle was standing, which was only a figure for the time then present, until the time of the reformation by CHRIST. Now, if the Mosaic institutions were to continue only till the time of the reformation by CHRIST, and if Jerusalem, the temple, &c. had no other sanctity than the legal holiness derived from these institutions, is it not absurd in those who call themselves Christians, to continue, with blind Jewish predilection, to apply to that "Jerusalem, which is in bondage "with her children," (Gal. iv. 25), events which were to happen subsequently to the coming of HIM, to whom Moses and all the Prophets bore

witness, as the end of the law?-Have we not "a HIGH PRIEST who is set on the right hand of the "Throne of the Majesty of the Heavens; a Minister "of the SANCTUARY and of the TRUE TABERNACLE "which the LORD pitched, and not man?”(Heb. viii. 1, 2.) Hath not CHRIST Come a High Priest of good things by a greater and more perfect tabernacle than the one made with hands? (Heb. ix. 11). He hath not entered into "the holy places "made with hands, the figures of the true, but "into Heaven itself." (xi. 24.) Instead of the Jerusalem which is in bondage, have we not the Jerusalem which is above, and free? (Gal. iv. 26.) In one word-Has not the time come in which the true worshippers worship THE FATHER in the Spirit and Truth of all the figurative institutions of Moses (John iv. 23), being free from all bondage to the former weak, beggarly, worldly elements or rudiments? (Gal. iv. 3, 9.)

From these few observations, it is evident that things spoken of the city, the sanctuary, the sacrifice, the oblation, &c. and referring to periods subsequent to the anointing of the Most Holy (Dan. ix. 24), have no relation to the city which formerly was called holy, or to the worldly sanctuary and to the ritual of Moses. They are mere adaptations of old terms to the time of the New Testament dispensation.

As to the term "Prince of the Host," it never