to have been laid open to the spirit of Daniel. A revelation which, plain and evident as it is to ourselves, was yet wholly misunderstood by the nation of the Jews at large; but which, in the most distinct manner possible, forthshadows the power over the earth entrusted to Christ in Heaven, even by God the Father. The passage is so singularly clear and well defined, that it seems astonishing that the Jews should have missed, not only the spiritual, but the Divine and God-like character of the Messiah; even had all other evidence of the Great Truth been deficient. He has described a prophetic dream, which descended on him by night, during the first year of the reign of Belshazzar. Four great beasts arise out of the sea, figurative of four successive great and powerful kingdoms. Their qualities are severally portrayed, by which they might be reduced to historical certainty. The prophet deeply meditated on them in spirit, until another object arose to view. "I beheld," he exclaims, "till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the judgment was set, and the books were opened."* The judgment of the four beasts is then passed; and the vision continues. "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.

*Dan. vii. 9.

near before him. And 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."

A clearer idea- (for the scene passes in a dream, and therefore offends not against the canon laid down by our Saviour)—a clearer idea of the Father delegating all power and dominion to the Son can scarcely be conceived, than is represented to the prophet in this passage. The expressions used can with difficulty be applied to any other interpretation; and it really appears an extraordinary infatuation in the nation of Israel that they could receive them in any other light, than as pertaining to at least a divine Person, if not the very Being whom we recognize in faith as the Son of God. There could be no question at all that they referred to the Messiah. The language is far too lofty and awful to be applied to any lesser Personage; and the Jew who received* Daniel as a prophet, must have believed the revelation to have centred in the Messiah.

But what must have been the idea in the mind of Daniel? The Ancient of Days, invested with all the symbols which would represent Jehovah — the God of Israel to his mind, did sit, and behold one like the Son of Man did come before him, surrounded

* The later Jews have cast him out of the list of the prophets, and placed his writings amongst the hagiographa, the least canonical books of the Old Testament; in which rank he now stands in all the Hebrew copies of the Bible. The reasons given are various; but as Jennings remarks-the real reason is the clearness of his predictions on the time of the Messiah's coming-which time has long passed.

with the glories of heaven, and an everlasting dominion was given to him; a dominion which should not pass away, over all people, nations, and languages of the earth. What thought, spiritualized as his mind must have been, could have come over it, but that the Messiah, to whom such extended might was conceded, must have partaken of Divinity, and that the kingdom which would arise under him, would not be one of earth and temporalities; but a kingdom over the soul, one meet for the Atonement and the Redemption of the fallen race. How could it have been, that he, to whom a vision of such remarkable import had been given, could see the Messiah springing solely from the sons of men, a partaker of their frailties, and an avenger to their passions; a man like unto themselves; the prince of a passing, Israelitish dominion? Surely it could not ;the thought, we conceive, must have rested on his mind that the Being who came before the Eternal, clothed in a human form, to prefigure his Incarnation, must, when invested with all the prerogatives of Godhead have been a visible emanation of the Deity himself. This is the true form;-that in which the Christian receives the vision. We see in it the oft repeated declaration of Christ, that "all things are delivered unto him of the Father," and in the force of the prophet's assertion, add one more proof to the frequent declarations of Scripture of the perfect, and unlimited supremacy of Jesus over the earth.

If however any lingering doubt should have hovered over the mind of the prophet of the truth of the inference we have supposed; if it should have appeared just possible to him in that vision,

66

that the Son of Man who appeared, was an angel and not the Deity, the doubt must surely have been dispelled in a subsequent vision on the banks of the river Hiddekel. He had been mourning over the evil destinies of his people three weeks; he had eaten no pleasant bread," neither had he drank wine; nor had he, in his sorrow, anointed himself with oil. His soul was in perfect communion with God; it was abstracted from self. He had gone forth from the tumults of the city, and stood by the side of the great river. In such a frame of mind a vision of great power is revealed. He thus records it. "Then I lifted up mine eyes and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude."* The dread character of this Divine Being is sublimely figured in the effects caused by his Presence, even though invisible to the outward senses. The prophet is accompanied by certain men - fellow-mourners probably - who meditated like himself on the misfortunes of Israel. A chill, sudden and indefinable; the presentiment of supernatural presence, steals through the hearts of these men. They dread they know not what; their senses are paralyzed; they quaked and trembled greatly with fear, "so that they fled to hide themselves." "Therefore," he adds, "I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no

* Dan. x. 5.

66

strength in me; for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength." Wherefore this excessive fear and shuddering on the part of the prophet? From the certainty of the Divine Nature of the present Being. From the awe which must be felt in that consciousness, even in the breast of the most favored prophet. Yes. But we should say more than this. It was the resemblance between the man clothed in linen," and "the Son of Man" whose image he had before beheld in the night visions before the throne of the Ancient of Days; the conviction which fell upon his soul, that it was He whom he had seen in Spirit, who now stood palpably before him; and that in the innate majesty of the Person he beheld the revealed glory of God. Hence the sudden and utter failing of his strength; hence the trembling and faintness which came over him; not as before an angel, a messenger sent from God-but as before the fearful presence of the Deity Himself.

But in regard to the identity of the person with Christ, we turn to the Revelations of St. John, and in his description of Jesus, clothed as the High Priest of the Christian Church, and find almost an iteration of the language of the prophet. "I saw in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire. And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters." It is impossible to refuse assent to

* Rev. i. 13.