"The far more serious ground of alarm is that, if the horizon of Daniel's Messianic kingdom was merely Maccabaic or temporal, it suggests a similar construction for kindred passages in the Gospels, and raises the question how far the horizon of these latter was eternal- Considering the vast number of features in the Gospels and the Apocalypse, which seem to identify Christ's second coming with the fall of Jerusalem, and to shut up the completion of the promises within the range of a renovation of society, or the establishment of better sentiments and reformed institutions in the world, have we any longer a Gospel to preach, not merely of "the coming age," but of life eternal ? Does the whole story resolve itself into the Idea bursting its mould, and developing a new one; the thought of God fulfilling itself in many ways ? I can neither think such questions trivial, nor follow those who resolve them in a merely temporal sense." (Rowland Williams, p. lix)

"To the first of these theories it has been objected that the second advent of Christ was not so much the destruction  of Jerusalem, as an event connected with that destruction ; and that the sublime description of his coming with all the holy angels with him in power and great glory scarcely finds an adequate fulfilment in the scenes, terrible as they were, which accompanied the overthrow of the Jewish state and polity.

It must be conceded that the objection is not without weight; and that after making due allowance for Oriental phraseology and rhetorical figure, something more was intended by the coming itself and the unearthly scenes with which it is said to be accompanied, than the destruction of Jerusalem and the subsequent establishment of Christianity.  However momentous the ruin of their city might have been to the Jews, it could not have materially affected the Gentile converts to whom the warnings relating to the advent were principally addressed ; and it is evident that S. Barnabas, in the epistle ascribed to him, and such of the apostolical fathers as wrote after the event, did not see in the destruction of Jerusalem the coming of Christ in his kingdom."

An argument for the accomplishment of the eschatological prophecies recorded in the gospels at the period of the destruction of Jerusalem, may be seen in the author's " Apocalypse fulfilled in the Consummation of the Mosaic Economy and the Coming of the Son of Man." On the supposition that our Lord's predictions, as delivered to us, can be adequately explained of the phenomena with which that event was accompanied, a harmony may be maintained between them and the facts themselves. On the contrary hypothesis, that the historical events of that time do not answer to the scope and magnificence of the terms employed, the expectations of our Lord and his disciples must be considered to have been tinged by the Messianic ideas of their contemporaries."

The foundation of all the mistakes of these learned men (Wetstein, Grotius, Hammond, Le Clerc, and Whitby) is their interpreting the coming of Christ of the destruction of Jerusalem : whereas the context, as it hath been shown, plainly evinces, and they themselves at other times acknowledge, that it is to be understood of his coming to judge the world."—NEWTON, on the Prophecies.

"No reasonable ground appears to us for doubt, in the face of such testimonies, that there was an original Daniel, whose remarkable life and superlative wisdom laid the foundation of the present narrative. But an acceptance of the reality of Daniel's personal existence does not involve any conclusion as to the authorship and age of the book in which, for the most part, his history is recorded. Evidence of a powerful, and as we think, unanswerable kind, points to a later period than that of the Babylonian Captivity as the time of authorship, and brings down the date of the book in its present state to an age subsequent to the events therein described. This, while it does not invalidate the general history, is likely to have some influence upon the way in which its particulars may be interpreted. It transforms the book from a declaration by anticipation of things yet future into an historical relation of past occurrences.1 It excludes the predictive element altogether. It assigns limits for its interpretation beyond which criticism dares not pass, and demands that its meaning shall be sought in the past, and not in the future. As a preliminary, then, of the utmost importance towards a correct interpretation, it will be necessary to state the arguments on which we build the theory of a late authorship for the book of Daniel. If these shall be found trustworthy we may reject schemes of interpretation which have repeatedly been found fallacious, for those pointed out by criticism and the necessities of the case. And in so doing we shall be guilty neither of rashness nor of a want of due regard to the Sacred Record. " To suppose that we can serve God's cause by shutting our eyes to the light; much more to suppose that we can serve it by asserting that we see what we do not see, because we wish to see it, is simply intellectual atheism."  (pp. 3,4)

"It has been usual to interpret this celebrated passage of the death of Christ, and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The prophecy, however, refuses to be coerced into the desired shape. It neither sanctions the anachronous introduction of the catastrophe inflicted by the Romans into visions which are descriptive of the Syrian desolations, nor does it permit the clause Ve-ayn-lo—and there it not to him—to be twisted into an idea of vicarious substitution foreign to its meaning. The absence, moreover, of any allusion in the New Testament to so remarkable a passage as " Messiah cut off but not for himself," is inexplicable on the supposition that the words had reference to our Lord's vicarious sacrifice; and this silence is more unaccountable because the clause is found in a context put by St. Matthew into the mouth of Christ (Math. xxiv. 1.1). Added to this, insurmountable exegetical difficulties impede. if they do not entirely subvert, the traditional theory. On the supposition that our Lord is " Messiah cut off" (Isaiah liii. 8, uses a different word), who, it may be asked, rebuilds the street and wall at the close of the threescore and two weeks (the Machiach who is cut off being identical with the Hashiach who rebuilds) ; or did the sacrifice and oblation taken away by Titus cease only for three and a-half years ? What divine punishment came upon him who was called "Deliciae humani generis," for the destruction of the city and the sanctuary ; and how could it be said of him that his end  should be in the flood, and that decreed destruction should be poured out on the desolator, (margin.) Even on the supposition that the united term of the sixty-nine weeks, dated from the insignificant commission of Ezra, B.C. -157, could be accommodated to the epoch of the cutting off of Messiah, a longer space than the seventieth week is required for the interval between the sacrifice of Christ and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem. The application therefore of Messianic exegesis to this passage appears at once isolated and anachronous. The preceding and subsequent visions are concerned with events anterior to the reign, and ending with the destruction of Antiochus; the elimination therefore of the intermediate vision from the chronological horizon occupied by the rest, disturbs the unity of the piece, and carries the prophecy beyond the limits whereby the preceding and following visions are circumscribed. " We object (says Davidson) to the Messianic interpretation that it does not harmonize well with the connection in which the passage stands. The tenth and eleventh chapters maybe regarded as a further development of the contents of the eighth : for they give a brief history of the Persian and Macedonian dynasties, till the death of Antiochus Epiphanes In consequence of this parallelism between the eighth chapter on the one hand, and the tenth with the eleventh on the other, it is probable that the ninth should bear the same relation to the eighth as the twelfth does to the tenth and eleventh But if ix. 25-27 be explained of the time and death of Jesus Christ, the piece stands in an isolated position ; it differs in that case both from what precedes and follows. " (p. 169)

  "We are not ashamed to confess our inability to reconcile the proximity under which these phenomena are announced with the actual course of events. We seem to be painfully conscious of the existence of a serious discrepancy between the latter-day anticipations of the New Testament and what might be considered their due and legitimate fulfillment: a conviction arising not from a superficial or deceitful handling of the sacred text, but from a reverent and careful examination, extended over many years, of this particular question ; and we think it the part of exegetical consistency to endeavour to grapple with it, before we stereotype with too great confidence traditional opinions which appear unable to stand the test of searching and out-spoken criticism. " (p. 288)

"The non-fulfillment, however, of these Messianic expectations within the time appointed for their accomplishment need not detract from the perfection of that inimitable teaching whose "remedial, and reconciling, and sanctifying, and self-sacrificing, and sorrow-assuaging, and heaven-aspiring words were addressed to the universal human heart;" neither should it be suffered to weaken the obligation, or impair the authority, of a single moral precept which commends itself by its intrinsic worth as the perfect law of love and liberty to mankind." (p. 295)