10. The internal evidence of the genuineness of the book of Daniel is, on feveral other accounts, very ftrong. There was no fufpicion of the forgery of any writing whatever till long after this book was known; and it would be very extraordinary indeed, if fo very difficult an undertaking as this fhould have fucceeded fo well in the firft attempt. For it is not easy to conceive of any undertaking more difficult than the forgery of a book fo large as this, referred to times fo remote from that of its pretended origin. No perfon would naturally think of compofing different parts of any work in different languages, and still less would he have chofen to introduce fo many names of places and perfons, and fo many other circumftances, which he might eafily have avoided doing, as they do not at all contribute to any imaginable purpose of writing it, but would greatly facilitate the detection of the fraud. Let the first chapter of this book be read with this view. This alone has fo many marks of genuineness as I fhould think decifive in its favour. On the whole, this book of Daniel is one of the last of all ancient

writings with respect to which I should fufpect any impofition.

Various objections have been made to the genuineness of the book of Daniel by Porphyry among the ancients, and Collins of the modern unbelievers; but as they have been often and satisfactorily answered, I shall not recite them. The principal of them arises from the occurrence of a few words fuppofed to be of Greek origin, whence they infer that it was originally composed in Greek. But all these words are the names of mufical inftruments, which it is faid the Greeks borrowed from Barbarians, i. e. the people of the East, so that it is most probable they got their names along with them. This may easily be fuppofed to be the case with respect to all of them except one, which certainly has much the appearance of a word originally Greek, viz. Symphonia. But as there are no Grecisms in the phrafeology of the work, which could not have been concealed if fo large a work as this had been originally compofed in the Greek language, it is most natural to fuppofe that this single refemblance of a Greek word came by accident, which

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which will not be the only case of the kind.

I will, however, mention another hypothefis, which may account for the introduction of this one Greek word. It is very poffible that, as Alexandria abounded with learned Jews, who used the Greek language, the Hebrew copy from which ours was taken was written there, and that the copier inadvertently put the word of the Greek tranflation in the place of that particular Chaldee word; and this is the very word that is used in the version of the Seventy. Almost any hypothesis is more probable than that a large work in which there is not a fingle Grecifm in the phrafeology, and which has fo much evidence of its genuineness of other kinds, fhould be a tranflation from the Greek. If any book more than another bespeaks itself to be of oriental origin, it is this very book of Daniel. The compofition of the whole, from the beginning to the end, is most unlike anything that was ever written in Greek. As the language of the place in which Daniel wrote was the Chaldee, while he himfelf was a Hebrew, it is not at all extraordinary

that fome parts of the book, efpecially thofe which related more immediately to the country, or the people, fhould be in their language, while those parts which more immediately refpected his countrymen fhould be in Hebrew. The fame is the cafe with the book of Ezra, who wrote not long after Daniel.

Having thus proved the genuineness of the book of Daniel, I fhall point out fome of the marks of a prophetical spirit with which it is written.

It is evident from the ftructure of this work, that the prophecies contained in it look far beyond the times of Antiochus Epiphanes. That state of things which Daniel calls the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of the faints, is clearly the fame with that which, without being fo called, is described by Isaiah, and feveral of the ancient prophets, as that which was to fucceed the reftoration of the Jews to their own country, from which they were never more to be removed. That thofe prophets do foretel fuch an event, which certainly has not yet taken place, I must here take for granted, having fhewn it in a former discourse. Dd 3

Of

Of this kingdom of heaven, which is reprefented in the Vifion of Nebuchadnezzar by the fone cut out of a mountain without hands, and which fmote the great image, confifting of gold, filver, brafs, and iron (reprefenting the four fucceffive empires that began with the Babylonian), which stone is faid to have become a great mountain, filling the whole earth, it is faid in the interpretation of the vision, Dan. ii. 44, “The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom which fhall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; but it shall break in pieces, and confume all those kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever."

This final and happy ftate of things is more particularly described in Daniel's vifion of the four beasts, which represent the fame four kingdoms. After the deftruction of the laft of the four, which is faid (Dan. vii. 11) to be "flain," and "his body destroyed," and given to the burning flame," it is faid, ver.

13, "I Daniel faw, and behold one like the fon of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came unto the Ancient of days" (who had before been defcribed as in the

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