Dream, and in the Kingdom which was to succeed, what plainer declaration could have been delivered, of the Everlasting Kingdom of Christ.

In the first year of Darius the Mede, I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And I set my face unto the Lord God, and prayed, and made my confession, and said, We have sinned and committed iniquity, but to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him; neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws which he set before us. O Lord, I beseech thee, let thine anger be turned away from the City Jerusalem, thy holy mountain. Forgive, O Lord, for thine own sake, not for our righteousness, but for thy great mercies."

And whiles I was speaking, and praying, the man Gabriel touched me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am come forth to give thee skill and understanding. SEVENTY WEEK'S are determined upon thy People and upon thy holy City, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in EVERLASTING RIGHTEOUSNESS, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint THE MOST HOLY.

Know therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto THE MESSIAH the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks; and after that, 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 he shall confirm the Covenant with many, for one week.

The seven, and threescore and two, and one week, are seventy weeks, which means in the language of the Prophets, seventy weeks of years, that is 490 years.This time is reckoned from the year when the Jews returned from the captivity with Ezra, to restore and build Jerusalem, which was the year 457 before Christ, and in the thirty-third year of Christ, that is, exactly 490 years after the restoration of Jerusalem,—Jesus Christ our Saviour, the Messiah foretold by all the Prophets, was crucified, was cut off, not for himself, to finish the transgression, and make an end of sin, and to redeem all that believe in him, unto everlasting life.

In the same explicit manner did the Prophet Daniel foretell, the conquests of Alexander the King of Macedon in Greece, and the subsequent destruction of the Kingdom of Græcia by the Romans, the iron empire;-alluding to various Kings that should arise by their individual peculiar characters, and to many remarkable events, as they afterwards came to pass.Some of these prophecies yet remain to be fulfilled, and until they come to pass, are probably not designed by God, to be understood,

I heard but understood not. Then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things. And he said, Go thy way Daniel, for THE WORDS ARE CLOSED

UP AND SEALED TILL THE TIME OF THE END.

CHAPTER 115.

THE BOOK OF EZRA.

THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWS.

"

JEREMIAH had expressly foretold that the Jews should serve the King of Babylon' seventy years. The Book of Ezra commences at the precise expiration of that

period in the year before Christ 536. We have read in Daniel that Babylon had just then been taken by Cyrus the Persian, the Assyrian Kingdom destroyed, and Darius the Mede appointed by Cyrus to rule over it. This Cyrus had been pointed out by name by the Prophet Isaiah two hundred years before his birth, as he who should destroy the Empire of Babylon. Cyrus restored the Jews to their own Country of Judea, and permitted them to rebuild the Temple, and Ezra was appointed their governor.

And thus commences this Book.

Now in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, King of Persia, thut he made a Proclamation throughout all his Kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia, The Lord God of Heaven hath given me all the Kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him an House in Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the House of the Lord God of Israel, he is the God, which is in Jerusalem.

Thus was Cyrus the Instrument of God's Providence, for the preservation of the true worship of the only God until the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Daniel was in Babylon at the time it was taken by Cyrus, and it was probably through him that Cyrus had learnt of the Prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, by which he was pointed out to restore the Jewish Nation and rebuild the Temple.

Then rose up the chief of the Fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the Priests and the Levites, with all

them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the House of the Lord in Jerusalem. And all they that were about them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods and with beasts, and with precious things. And Cyrus, the King, brought forth the vessels of the House of the Lord which Nebuchadnezzar had brought out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the House of his Gods-even these did Cyrus, King of Persia bring forth, and numbered them unto Zerubbabel, the Prince of Judah.

Ezra then numbers up all the Children of the Province that went up out of the Captivity, of those whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away unto Babylon, and came again unto Jerusalem, and Judah every one unto this City-and they amount together to forty-two thousand. A great many of the Jews remained in Babylon.

CHAPTER 116.

THE REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.

AND in the second year of the Jews coming unto the House of God at Jerusalem, began Zerubbabel to set forward the workmen in the House of God. And when the Builders laid the foundation of the Temple of the Lord, they set the Priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites with cymbals to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David, King of Israel,—and the People shouted with a great shout, but many of the chiefs of the fathers who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice, and many shouted aloud for joy.

But they were interrupted in the work by the Samaritans, the People whom the Kings of Assyria had brought from Babylon, and settled in the City of

Samaria and the surrounding Country of Judea. They first demanded to be admitted to build the Temple with the Jews, and being refused, they made application to Artaxerxes, King of Persia, to stop the building, and Artaxerxes issued his decree to that purport to the Samaritans, and they made the Jews to cease by force and power. And the work ceased unto the second year of Darius, King of Persia.

Then upon Artaxerxes's death, the Prophets Haggai and Zechariah, prophecied against the Jews that were in Judah. And they rose up with Zerubbabel and proceeeded in the building. And King Darius, the successor of Artaxerxes, made a decree, let the work of this House of God alone, let the Governor of the Jews, and the Electors of the Jews, build this House of God in his place; moreover of the tribute beyond the river, forthwith expences shall be given to these men that they be not hindered. And the House was finished in the sixth year of Darius the King.

Now after these things in the reign of another Artaxerxes, King of Persia, that is fifty-eight years after, in the year before Christ 457:-Artaxerxes, through the favour of Esther, his Queen, who was an heiress, and of whom we shall read more in the Book of Esther, sent up Ezra to go from Babylon to Jerusalem, with the King's decree to all the Treasurers that were beyond the River, that whatsoever Ezra should require of them for the service of the House of God, should be done speedily. And thus said the decree: And thou Ezra after the wisdom of thy God, set Magistrates and Judges which may judge all the People that are beyond the River, all such as know the laws of thy God, and teach ye them that know them not. And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the