the Gate of God giving forth the pre-determinations and decrees of God with regard to the whole course of earthly political power.

These Voices of God from the Gate of God, through the judge of God, it is the object of this book to describe. The intensity of their interest to our day and generation, when fairly and fully interpreted, cannot well be exaggerated. Daniel is

peculiarly the prophet of the latter days. Augustine speaks the language of all Christian antiquity, as well as of all the prophetic foreshowings, where he says: "As the world approaches its end errors will increase and impiety and infidelity will abound ;” and Daniel is pre-eminently the man of God to instruct and stay the heart of faith in evil times. Such was his office to God's erring people in his own day; such was the effect of his prophecies in the period of the Seleucid deceivers and oppressors; and such his Book is meant to be to us as the shadows of the coming judgment gather upon the world. Nowhere does the Spirit of prophecy and miracle stand out more illustriously in the eyes of men than here. Nowhere is there a more marvellous demonstration to mankind of the power, providence and presence of God in human affairs than in this Book. By astounding wonders, themselves luminous with celestial and moral teachings, the attention is drawn to the prophet's utterances, and by the accurate fulfilment of his predictions through the entire roll of the ages since, those miracles are ever more and more confirmed. And it is hard to conceive what

sort of divine manifestations could be better adapted to encourage and establish God's people in these latter days, to fortify them against the materialistic and deceptive philosophies in vogue, to nurture that fulness of faith which alone can withstand the Antichristian storms whose tempestuous darkness is already thickening around us, or to enable suffering devotion to look beyond all present adversities and perturbations to that heavenly light and eternal calm which kept the spirit of the prophet, and which are at length to take possession of this afflicted and misruled earth.

Unfortunately, however, these Voices from Babylon have not been receiving the sort of attention to which they are entitled. Modern theology in general has so dwindled and sunk away from the original and proper faith of God's Word that the spirit of this Book has become estranged and uncongenial, if not offensive, to it. Criticism, instead of endeavoring to bring out its sublime teachings, has labored rather to encourage unfounded suspicions of its genuineness, to reduce its terms and imagery into conformity with a few flat and self-invented prepossessions, or to deplete it by way of apology for its presence in the holy Canon. Even when taken in hand by earnest believers, the treatment has mostly been either so superficial and partial as to belittle while attempting to expound and exalt, or so polemico-scholastic as to destroy all proper exegesis, or so very deferential to the shallow rationalism of the worshippers of human progress as to stifle the very soul of the

prophet's crowning presentations. What the world and the Church need with regard to this Book is, that it be released and emancipated from all such imposed clogs and fetters; that the great Daniel be made to speak for himself in the majesty of his own inspired words; that those sublime foreshowings vouchsafed to him by the God of heaven be recalled and restated as they were, and were meant and received at the beginning; and that the invincible demonstrations which forced their way to victory over the pagan soul of Nebuchadnezzar be let forth again in all their divine reality upon the proud, skeptical and God-defying spirit of this evil age.

The treatment of these sacred Voices in the following Lectures is but little in the vein of most of the commentaries and treatises on the subject. Whilst the best and worst of modern criticism and exegesis on Daniel have been consulted, and much of real worth has thus been found and appropriated, the purpose has rather been to restate the contents of the Book in the direct import of its own terms, and thus to revive and vindicate the older and truer conceptions of the Church with regard to these magnificent prophecies.

There can be no question that all doctrines legitimately claiming the authority of Holy Scripture must ultimately rest on the grammar of the languages in which the sacred revelations are given. What is against the laws and usages of those languages as employed by the Holy Ghost can never be the true meaning. Grammatico-historical criti

cism cannot therefore be dispensed with in ascertaining the teachings of Biblical writers. All right interpretation of the divine Word is unavoidably bound to it. No mere theological or traditional arguments are competent to establish an article of faith, or to refute what claims to be one, without being able to ground itself clearly upon a "Thus saith the Lord " grammatically determined. Due attention has accordingly been given to this requirement, and a new critical translation of the Book of Daniel, embodying all known results of any worth in that department, is appended to these Lectures.

But something more, and of equally indispensable necessity in all right exposition of the sacred writings, is required. "No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation." 2 Pet. i. 20. As no such prophecy is from the individual will or wisdom of the writer, so neither is the composition in which it is given an isolated thing to be treated by itself alone. As the sacred writers were all moved by "the same Spirit," their several productions are only so many parts of one organic whole. Though each has his own particular standpoint, surroundings and objects, which must never be lost sight of, yet no individual presentations are disconnected from what others have written on the same subject. The utterances of one dare not be put over against the utterances of another, nor the one be exalted to the depreciation of the other; but all must be taken together, as equal in authority and dignity and as mutually explanatory..

There is also a correspondence, analogy, interior coherence and harmony of Scripture with Scripture as to the substance of every subject, which, if once truly reached at one place, evokes a common response and attestation from every other place, and thus begets a clearness of conviction beyond all that the most elaborate discussions can impart. Nor can any interpretation be the true mind of the Spirit which will not fairly construe with the analysis of all the passages relating to the same topic.

It is upon this basis and method of ascertaining the purport of God's revelations, rather than on mere scaffoldings of individual textual criticism, or on any artificial system of theological architecture, that the main reliance is here placed.

The critically-revised translation is principally the work of the author's friend and co-laborer, Rev. R. F. WEIDNER, A. M., whose special studies in ancient Oriental languages and Biblical criticism well qualify him for such work. That he has done good service in this case will be recognized and acknowledged by all competent to judge of such matters. The Index to the whole has likewise been chiefly prepared by him.

Thus constructed and thus completed, this book is offered to the public, with the earnest prayer that it may be blest of God to the instruction and edification of many souls, and to the praise and glory of His own great and ever-adorable Name!

PHILADELPHIA, Epiphany Season, 1879.