above named, fulfilling the type on the day of atonement, when every one in the congregation of Israel was commanded to afflict himself on that day, on pain of being cut off. Levit. xxiii.

Thus we have reached the close of this part of our subject, having traced the history of the Jews, from Nehemiah's return to the second coming of Christ at the end of the Seventy Weeks. And what have we seen? Evil, nothing but evil on the part of the creature: grace, wonderful grace, on the other hand, on the part of the Lord. That which appears to me to be especially sweet and profitable in these meditations on this 9th chapter of Daniel, is the application of the very same truth to ourselves, as individuals, which belongs to the Jews as a nation. How often, alas! do we find that we have but little heart for the blessing which the Lord graciously lays at our feet, just as Israel had at the first coming of Christ; the consequence of which is that, like Israel at present, we get awhile into deadness, darkness, and distance from God; and in the end, like the Jews in the latter day, under Antichrist, plunged into a sea of trouble and sorrow; all the result of our folly and sin in not walking in happy child-like obedience to God. Blessed, however, to know that such is not to be the end of the path, either of the saint in this dispensation (however perverse in his ways), or of Israel hereafter, but that full blessing is reserved by the Lord for both one and the other.

Such is the moral to be drawn from this prophecy, which so fully displays the aboundings of grace over the aboundings of sin. Happy is it to trace the gracious ways of the Lord with his people the Jews, and to know that the God of Israel of old is our God and our Father, the One with whom our souls have to do, who, notwithstanding all our short-comings, will surely perfect his own blessed work in our hearts.

Well may we say, as we trace the Lord in his ways both with Israel and with the Church, in the words of St. Paul, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever. Amen."

PART I I.

THE CYCLE OF SEVENTY WEEKS

IN CONNECTION

WITH ISRAEL, AND WITH MAN UNIVERSALLY.

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years." Gen. i. 14.

Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name; If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever." Jer. xxxi, 35, 36,

PART II.

THE CYCLE OF SEVENTY WEEKS IN CONNEXION WITH ISRAEL, AND MAN UNIVERSALLY.

THE THREEFOLD PERIOD FROM MOSES TO CHRIST.

(See Plate 2, Figure 1.)

HAVING thus entered in a general way into what I believe to be the Lord's mind in this wonderful prophecy, I now proceed, in the next place, to speak of some views which, in his goodness, as I fully believe, he has presented to my thoughts in pursuing this subject. And the first thing which I shall endeavour to show is, that Seventy Weeks, though only once noticed in Scripture, and that, as we have seen, in connexion with the future restoration and glory of Israel, appears, if we take a wider view of the subject, and trace the moral history of this people from Moses to the first coming of Christ, to have been what may be termed A GREAT DISPENSATIONAL PERIOD, whereby the Lord was pleased to measure his ways with the nation from the very beginning.

While considering the prophecy of Daniel, I was led very strongly to suspect that such might be the case, and that for two reasons. First, seeing that by the ancient appointment of God, time, in connexion with Israel, was divided into two great septenary periods, namely, weeks of years, in the first place; and weeks of weeks, or forty-nine years, in the next, (Lev. xxv. 8;), it struck me as probable that something of the same kind might be found to exist, not only with regard to the law, but also with regard to the history of Israel: that is, that perhaps the whole period from Moses to Christ might turn out to be divided according to this septenary principle. Secondly. Having discovered that the first and second coming of Christ to the Jews, reckoning from Nehemiah's return, both stand in the way I

The first offer

of blessing to Israel.

have shown, at the close of a period of Seventy Weeks, it struck me as likely that the same thing might be proved to be true with regard to other great facts in their history. I accordingly examined the subject more closely, and was led to the conclusion that my conjecture was right, inasmuch as I found that THREE DISTINCT OFFERS OF BLESSING were made by the Lord to his people; THREE OPPORTUNITIES GIVEN, had they the heart only to embrace them, of entering into the joy of the kingdom-each offer occurring, as I shall endeavour to show, at the close of this great dispensational cyclical period, as it will henceforth be my object to prove the term of Seventy Weeks to have been. Forty-nine years, it is said (with what truth I cannot determine,) is a climacteric in the lifetime of man, at the termination of which some great change is supposed to befal his animal system; and so, in accordance with this, four hundred and ninety years (that is, forty-nine years ten times repeated,) may be viewed as a great NATIONAL CLIMACTERIC, at the termination of which a remarkable crisis occurred, as we shall see, in the annals of Israel.

And now, as to these three great events-these three offers of blessing to Israel. The first of them occurred when SOLOMON, having completed the temple, assembled the princes and elders to bring the ark of the testimony into its place, and solemnly to dedicate the house which he had built in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord God of Israel. The reign of king Solomon was a crisis of the deepest moment and interest in their history; and may we not say in that too of the world at large, when the wisest and greatest of all the children of men, the type of Messiah himself in his glory, was anointed to reign, as the vicegerent of God over his elect nation, the only nation on earth ever called by his name? But this all soon passed away, it being speedily proved that the heart of the king was not perfect with God— that the flesh, even in Solomon, profiteth nothing; and that though a type, it is true, of the promised Messiah, he was not the Messiah himself; inasmuch as after having reached the height of human glory and wisdom, he fell, was seduced by his wives into folly, and became actually a worshipper of idols. For this, therefore, after his death his kingdom was divided, the time of Israel's blessing was delayed for a season, while, at the same time, the long-suffering of God was displayed in his giving his