If these observations are founded in truth and nature; it will follow, that the author of the Book of Daniel has entertained us with incredible stories, which happened under an imaginary monarch. So much error and so much fiction are incompatible with an inspired, or even with a contemporary, writer. But if the prophecies were framed three or four centuries after the Prophet’s death, it was much easier for the counterfeit Daniel to foretel great and recent events, than to compose an accurate history or probable romance of a dark and remote period.
The question is curious in itself, important in its consequences, and in every light worthy the attention of a critical divine. This consideration justifies the freedom of my address, and the hopes I still entertain, that you may be able and willing to dispell the mist, that hangs, either over my eyes, or over the subject itself. On my side, I can only promise, that whatever you shall think proper to communicate, shall be received with the candor which I owe to myself, and with the deference, so justly due to your name and abilities,
I am, Sir,
with great esteem,
your obedient humble servant,
——
P.S. You will be pleased, Sir, to address your answer To Daniel Freeman, Esq. at the Cocoa Tree, Pall Mall: but if you have any scruple of engaging with a mask, I am ready, by the same channel, to disclose my real name and place of abode; and to pledge myself for the same discretion, which, in my turn, I shall have a right to expect.
I had neither leisure nor inclination to enter into controversy with this stranger (for which there was the less occasion, as he had disputed no principle or opinion advanced by me in the Sermons); but, as I knew, whoever he was, that he would complain, or rather boast, of being wholly unnoticed by me, I sent him this answer.
ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING LETTER.
Thurcaston, August 29, 1772.
Sir,
Your very elegant letter on the antiquity and authenticity of the Book of Daniel (just now received) finds me here, if not without leisure, yet without books, and therefore in no condition to enter far into the depths of this controversy; which indeed is the less necessary, as every thing, that relates to the subject, will come, of course, to be considered by my learned successors in the new Lecture. For, as the prophecies of Daniel make an important link in that chain, which, as you say, has been let down from heaven to earth (but not by the Author of the late Sermons, who brought into view only what he had found, not invented) the grounds, on which their authority rests, will, without doubt, be carefully examined, and, as I suppose, firmly established.