weeks shall Messiah be cut off,but not for himself; and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city,and the sanctuary; 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 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 determined shall be poured upon the desolate."---Daniel ix, 20 to 27. In Daniel's vision, recorded chapter viii, the ram which he saw with two horns, was expressly said to represent the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat the king of Grecia: "The rain which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king."---Daniel viii, 20, 21. When the notable horn, which was between the two eyes of the rough goat, was broken, there stood up four horns or kingdoms; and out of one of them came forth a little horn which waxed exceeding great, towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the pleasant land. This king or kingdom, was to cause the daily sacrifice to be taken away, destroy the holy people, and cast down the place of the sanctuary-the Jewish temple, or place of worship; and this was to be the end of the vision.-"Therefore the he-goat waxed very great: and when he was strong the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones, toward the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host,and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised and prospered. Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shail the sanctuary be cleansed."-Daniel viii, 8 to 14,

It is very evident that the Roman government was intended by the little horn that waxed great; for it was that which caused the daily sacrifice to be taken away;-it was that which cast down the sanctuary and destroyed the holy people: And as that was the end of all Daniel's visions, and as the one like the Son of Man was to come with the clouds of heaven immediately after the troublesome times in which the daily sacrifice was to be taken away, the sanctuary and the holy peo ple destroyed, there can be no difficulty in determining the period when the Son of Man was to come.

Many learned and able divines have laboured to make Daniel's prophecy stretch to modern governments, but they have never been able to give us any thing like reason in their remarks. That fond and restless desire in man, to take a peep into futurity beyond what heaven designed, has made wise men mad, and turned them away backward. If we would endeavour to understand the scriptures in the way they were intended, we should see more beauty and harmony in them than we do. Daniel's visions extended no further than to the time of "the end," when the prince, represented by the little horn, (the Roman emperor,) was to destroy the city and sanctuary,destroy and scatter the holy people, the Jews,and be succeeded by the kingdom of the Messiah on the earth; represented by the stone cut out of the mountain without hands:-"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold, a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass. His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. This is the dream, and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ru ler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. And after thee

shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things; and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.-And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes part of potter's clay and part of iron; the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay; so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken. And whereas thou saw. est iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure."-Daniel ii, 3F to 45. This image represented four kingdoms which were to succeed one another, and the stone cut out of the mountain without hands,represented the kingdom of the Messiah, which was to succeed the kingdoms represented by the image, and fill the whole earth. These four kingdoms were also represented to Daniel,by four beasts that came up out of the sea :-"These great beasts, which are four, are four kings which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ev e, evenfor ever and ever.”—Daniel vii, 17, 18. In all these visions of Daniel, in which the downfal of the kingdoms of the east was represented, the destruction of the Jewish government was also intimated, and the immediate succession of the Messiah's kingdom pointed out; and "the coming of the Son of Man with the clouds of heaven" to receive and enter upon that kingdom represented by the stone cut out of the mountain, which was to become a great mountain, and fill the whole earth, was also an appendage of the general scene which was to take place in this world. In the three last chapter's of Daniel's prophecy, "one like the similitude of the sons of men," is

represented as giving an explanation of the end of all these visions. He commences with the first year of Darius,the Mede, and shows the regular succession of the kingdoms of the east, with their downfal,until the time when"Michael the Prince"(the Messiah) was to "stand up;" at which time there was to be "a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time." Daniel xii, 1. Which prophecy our Lord applies to the destruction of the city and temple of the Jews:-But more of this in its proper place. After Daniel had traced the downfal of the kingdoms of the east, and "the coming of the Son of Man in his kingdom," he represents the men whom he saw in his last vision, as making the following declaration respecting the end of these wonders:--"Then I Daniel looked, and behold, there stood other two, the one on this side of the bank of the river, and the other on that side of the bank of the river. And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever, that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished,"-Daniel xii, 5, 6, 7. Thus we see, that at the time "when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people," all these things were to be fulfilled: and the coming of the Son of Man was to take place within that time; and about the conclusion of these troublesome times, when "the abomination that maketh desolate" was to be set up. By scattering "the power of the holy people," is meant the same as expressed in the preceding visions, by scattering or destroying the holy people, causing the daily sacrifice to be taken away, and the place of his sanctuary to be cast down; all of which expressions were used to signify the final destruction of the Jewish hierarchy, which was effected by the army of Vespasian, under the command of Titus, their general.

I have been the more special on the prophecy of Daniel, not only because "the coming of the Son of Man" is first mentioned by that prophet, but more especially because the subsequent passages of Scripture, where "the coming of the Son of Man" is spoken of, have a direct reference to the same time and the same event. This, however, is not the sense in which it is generally understood :we hear much said about "the coming of

the Son of Man," as if it was an event yet to take place. We are often told that the Son of Man is to come in the clouds of heaven, to judge the world, receive the righteous into his kingdom, and sentence the ungodly to a place of endless punishment: and that this coming of the Son of Man is to be preceded by the general resurrection of the dead, and the final destruction of this world we now inhabit. However fondly this notion of the coming of the Son of Man may be entertained by the christian world, it has not the authority of one solitary passage of scripture-not one "Thus sayeth the Lord!" The phrase "coming of the Son of Man," in the New Testament, as well as in Daniel's prophecy, is always used to express an event which was to take place in the apostolic age of the church. Mr. Wesley admits that the disciples of our Lord understood him to use the phrase in this sense. We have already seen that the coming of the Son of Man, "with the clouds of heaven," spoken of by Daniel, was to take place at the same time the daily sacrifice was to be taken away, the sanctuary cast down, and the Jewish nation scattered, and their city destroyed. We will now see whether or not the coming of the Son of Man with the clouds of heaven, spoken of in the New Testament, means the same thing. As this subject is all important to a correct understanding of many parts of the scriptures, I do sincerely desire the reader to divest himself of prepossessed opinions, and examine the subject with all that cool, dispassionate candour its solemn and interesting character requires of every child of mortality. The first passage where our Saviour has referred to this "coming of the Son of Man," is recorded in Matthew xvi, 27, 28-"For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." Here our Lord expressly declares, that the SON OF MAN should COME "in the glory of his Father, with his angels, to reward every man according to his works," in the lifetime of some of his disciples. There were some that heard him make the declaration who were not to taste of death until he did come. In this place our Lord evidently alluded to the prophecy of Daniel. The judgment was given to the saints of the Most High, at the time when Daniel saw the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. The Ancient of days did sit. Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and