gical capacity appears from his writings to have been as slender as his skill in some other departments was unrivalled. I have already at some length investigated this theory; but, independently of all that was said upon that subject, nothing can be more evident than that the judgment which Daniel saw in his vision, is not the judgment of persons at all (save as they may be connected with the system, and involved in its ruins), but purely the judgment of the system, party, or interest of the little horn, and is, in fact, but a sublime symbolical way of expressing the righteousness of antichrist's destruction.* These remarks will, if I mistake not, throw light upon the remainder of the vision, which is evidently to be interpreted upon the same principles. One claimant for the throne of the world has been disposed of. He had been in possession of the ground, indeed, long before his Rival, in some sense; and might pretend to a de facto right to keep the ground. But right de jure he had none, and that is the only right recognised in heaven. He is accordingly, at the time appointed, swept away; and the stage being now clear, the rival Claimant even the Son of Man, borne upon the clouds -is seen advancing to the Eternal Arbiter, still sitting in his awful throne, and is introduced to him by the angelic officers of state: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him." (Verse 13.) For what purpose is this? That he may be seen putting in his claim to the sovereignty of the world, and getting that claim recognised by Him that sitteth upon the throne. "ASK OF ME," says the Ancient of days, in effect," and I WILL GIVE THEE the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." (Psal. ii. 8.) The prophet sees this done. "And,"

*The part of this sentence which is enclosed in the parenthesis is a sufficient answer to all the cavils with which this argument has been met.

he adds, "there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." (Verse 14.)

Who does not see that this has nothing to do with the second personal advent of Christ? The coming of the Son of Man here is not, be it observed, a coming to men at all, but a coming to God; nor is it any local coming even to Him. It is simply the advancement and the recognition of his claim to rule the world, clothed in state forms,—in the symbolic drapery of an august installation or inauguration. From what locality his rule is to issue, the vision says not a word, nor gives a hint. It is just the rule itself—“ that all people, nations, and languages, should serve and obey"wrested out of the hand of a base usurper, and committed to "Him whose right it is to reign." It is just that in symbolic language which Zechariah expresses in naked terms, referring to the same period : "And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one." (Chap. xiv. 9.) It is the removal of all the Redeemer's public rivals, in consequence of which "the Lord alone is exalted in that day." (Isaiah ii. 11, 17.) Enemies, we shall by and by find, will still exist; but they will not be exalted, or lift up the head. They will be still, and know that he is God. They will yield him feigned submission; but universal submission he shall have. The only difference, then, between his rule now and in the latter day, is in the presence now, and the extinction then, of a public party in opposition to him, together with the native consequences of these very different states of things. Now, it is said to him, "Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies." (Ps. cx. 2.) Then, it is said to him, " O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us; but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. They are dead; they shall not live; they

are deceased; they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all memory of them to perish." (Isa. xxvi. 13, 14.) *

Would you know in what sense "the kingdom is given to the people of the saints of the Most High?" You have but to consider in what sense they were deprived of it before. The vision has to do with them solely in the light of their principles, their "saintship" and devotedness to "the Most High." It is this which was kept down before. Living religion was not in favour, and did not rule the kingdoms of men. It had enough to do to keep its own ground, and often scarcely did that. It was voted out and expelled from the place which it claimed as its own, the place of supremacy in all the affairs of men. When Christians came down from these claims, or modified them,-when they compromised the rights of Him to whom they had sworn allegiance, and who had intrusted his interest and honour to their keeping, they were tolerated, and at times, like an adulterous wife, caressed by the kings of the earth, or the ruling powers, and the whole dominant interest. Then they were not "the

* In thus refusing to recognise here Christ's second coming from heaven to earth, Dr H. Bonar and Mr Wood represent me as imposing some unheard of and violent sense upon the vision. But is it so? The prophet," says Maclaurin, quoted by Scott, "does not represent the Son of Man as coming in the clouds of heaven from heaven to earth, as at the general judgment, but as coming with the clouds of heaven from his former residence [the earth] towards the throne of God, which, according to the Scripture style, is heaven. And this is confirmed by the words immediately following, that 'they brought him near before him,' viz. before the Ancient of days." "This," says Scott in his Commentary, “must point out Christ to us. . . . ascending to heaven, the throne of God, to receive the kingdom covenanted to him.”—(Ps. ii. 7-9.) I refer to these authors to show that the personal descent of Christ from heaven to earth, or his second coming, was not seen by them in this prophecy. While they, however, think the approach of Christ to the Father denotes his historical ascension to heaven, I regard the whole as a scenic exhibition of the right of Christ, and the sublime recognition of that right, to rule the world, which in the latter day will be gloriously realized.

saints of the Most High." Their saintship and fealty to Heaven being in abeyance, they were not themselves, nor as themselves were entertained, by "the world who loves (only) its own." Whenever they stood forth in their real character, they were kept out and kept down. Such, at least, was the rule; and any brief intervals of a better state of things were the rare exceptions, with which the vision has nothing to do. Now, the tables are turned. Saintship and fealty to heaven's King are all in all, while irreligious opposition is more thoroughly put down than before it was rampant. Now, "the heavens do rule" in the kingdoms of men; and saintly and leal-hearted men, Christians indeed, and living for Christ, bring all into captivity to the obedience of their Lord. Living Christianity exercises the sovereignty of the world. Going forth in its life-giving, all-penetrating, all-transforming virtue, it moulds the institutions and affairs of men to its own blessed character, making " God's will to be done on earth even as it is done in heaven."

Having thus, at considerable length, examined and compared these celebrated visions of the kingdom of Christ, I would appeal to the impartial judgment of the reader, whether they do not confirm and illustrate all that I have said of the time and the nature of Christ's kingdom-that it was set up on his ascension to the right hand of power, or, as Daniel expresses it, "in the days" of the fourth or Roman kingdom; *that the difference between the "two states" of the kingdom-before the millennium and during that period —is a difference merely of prosperity and extent—the difference between the presence and the removal of certain gigantic

He that shall here expound 'in the days,' to mean after the days,' shall give me leave not to believe him, unless also he can persuade me that the Stone which smote the image was hewed out of the mountain after the image was dashed in pieces and vanished.”—(MEDE, p. 745. ) "In diebus regum illorum-non posteaquam deleti erunt.”—(BENG in Apoc. xi. 15.)

obstructions to its progress and supremacy in the world, and the removal of which, at the appointed time, will be attended with no change of constitution, form, or dispensation, but will merely set free its latent energies, and make way for the development of its internal resources to the benediction of a miserable world? As the birth of a man, all puny though he then be, is the manifestation of his life "in its primary sense," and the manhood to which he ultimately attains is but the same life developed and matured; so the millennial state of the kingdom of Christ will be but the full expansion and bright development, the unrestrained and most benign rule of a kingdom, the Sovereign of which is already on his throne-the statutes of which are already proclaimed—the foundations of which are already laid-and the conquests of which are proceeding apace. The little leaven may leaven the whole lump of humanity; the grain of mustard seed may grow to be a tree sufficient to overshadow the whole earth; but the mass is the same, and the tree is the same, at every stage. The whole is there from the first. Not a new element is added. Expansion and development, growth and maturity, are all the difference.

3. I had nearly omitted to notice an important particular in Daniel's vision, intimating the gradual nature of the destruction which is to come upon the Papal antichrist. "And the judgment," says the prophet, "shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it UNTO THE END." (Ch. vii. 26).* When one reads of the Stone "smiting

'The phrase 'unto the end," "py, says Mr Wood, "is a Chaldee expression for 'everlasting,' as may be seen from the use of it in ch. vi. 26. Thus the meaning of the passage is, 'They shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy him everlastingly;' and Mr Brown's whole edifice crumbles into dust." (P. 298.) I hope it will survive this criticism at least. The word rendered "the end" is just the Chaldee form of a well-known word signifying "the end" of any thing. In the very next verse but one to that in which Mr Wood insists on understanding it of eternity, Daniel says, "Hitherto is the end of the mat