original one in a physical; many divines and learned men have considered it, a priori, a natural and probable presumption that the time of his nativity coincided either with the spring or the autumn; nor in fact has there been in general any other opinion about it. The whole course of our reasonings was in favour of the vernal, and not of the autumnal quarter of the year; for which conclusion there is this further argument also; viz. that if the nativity of Christ, as the era of a new system of things analogous in any sense to the old, must coincide with the time of the year at which that began, it is much the most probable supposition in itself, and much the most consistent with the Mosaic narrative, that the era of the physical creation begins and proceeds from the spring; than that it does so from the autumn.

At the time of the birth of Christ, in whatever year we may suppose it to have fallen out, the vernal equinox, as it is called, may be said in popular language to have coincided with March 24: and March 24, as far as we have hitherto discovered, is distinguished by no preeminence in the course of our Saviour's history: but instead of March 24, a day twelve days later, April 5. If then April 5, B. C. 4, was the true date of the nativity, either the opinion that our Lord was born at the vernal equinox, must be given up; and with it all regard to the analogy above mentioned; or April 5, in some sense or other, must still have been the day of the vernal equinox; or such a day as even then might justly be considered analogous to the day of the vernal equinox.

In consequence of the difference between the length of the solar or tropical, and that of the civil or Julian year, which difference amounts to eleven minutes and three seconds of time annually; the vernal equinox is

liable to a constant precession; which, in the course of one hundred and thirty years, amounts as nearly as possible to four and twenty hours; or an entire day and night*. Hence if March 24. was the date of this equinox at the time of our Saviour's birth; not March 24. but some day considerably earlier than March 24. must have been the date of this equinox, some hundreds of years before. April 5. then might have been that day once; and it is easy to determine the exact time when.

a

By referring to the table of vernal equinoxes in Dr. Hales' Analysis of Chronology a, it will be seen that B. C. 4. stands almost exactly as the intermediate point of time, sixty-five years after the date of the vernal equinox had begun to be March 24. and sixty-five years before it began to be March 23. From this point of time let us reckon back twelve periods of one hundred and thirty years each; answerable to the rate of precession through twelve entire days and nights: and the beginning of the first of those periods will coincide with the time when the vernal equinox fell between April 5. and April 4; sixty-five years after it had begun to fall on the former, and sixty-five years before it began

* This precession of the vernal equinox is not to be confounded with the precession of the equinoctial points of the earth's orbit. The former is owing to the difference in length between a year, which is supposed to consist of three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours exactly, and one, which consists of eleven minutes and three seconds less than that; the latter to an actual retrograde movement of the plane of

the ecliptic, and therefore of its intersection with the plane of the equator; by which the longitude of the fixed stars, and the place of the sun, in the signs of the zodiac, at the ingress into the vernal or any other quarter of the year, in one year compared with another, are both necessarily affected - but the length of the tropical year, and consequently the difference be tween that and the length of the civil, is not affected.

a Vol. i. 157.

to fall on the latter. The year before Christ, to which this time corresponds, may be thus determined.

The rate of precession, which I assume to amount in every year to eleven minutes and three seconds, accumulates in one hundred and thirty years, not to twentyfour hours exactly, but to twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, and thirty seconds; which is three minutes and one half in defect. In the course of twelve times 130, or 1560 years, this defect will amount to fortytwo minutes in all; and these forty-two minutes, at the rate of eleven minutes to every year, are as nearly as possible equivalent to four years of precession. It follows, then, that in twelve periods of one hundred and thirty years, the rate of precession will amount to twelve days and nights, minus forty-two minutes; or what is the same thing, to 1560 minus four years; that is, to 1556 years in all. Add these to B. C. 4: and the result, B. C. 1560, will as precisely express the exact point of time when the vernal equinox fell between April 5 and April 4, as B. C. 4 does that, when after twelve revolutions of one hundred and thirty years each, it fell between March 24 and March 23.

To what purpose however is this conclusion? If it can be proved that B. C. 1560, when this was the case, was the true year of the Exodus, and therefore of the first institution of the passover; I think every one will allow it to be something significant. Our Saviour might be born, in the fulness of time, on the day which the connection of the final end of his birth with the original appointment of the passover had fixed long before; and consequently not on March 24, the date of the vernal equinox B. C. 4, but on April 5, the date of the same time B. C. 1560; if that year was the year of the Exodus from Egypt.

That B. C. 1560. was the year of the Exodus may

be shewn, as it appears to me, both a priori and a posteriori, with a strength and cogency of proof which, under the circumstances of the case, are much more. than we might have expected; and which, as we may almost undertake to pronounce, will apply to no year whatever except that-a priori, by demonstrating its agreement with the course and succession of events from the creation to the time of the departure from Egypt-and a posteriori, by shewing its agreement with the course and succession of events from that time to the birth of Christ.

When entering however upon the statement of this proof, it is not to be expected that we should descend into all the minutiae of detail, or all the prolixity of discussion, which a survey of the chronology of the world for a period of four thousand years or more would appear at first sight to require. To do this would take up a volume by itself. It will be sufficient for the present purpose if we ascertain only the principal dates; that is, if we fix the eras of cardinal successive events, by which, and within which, all minor and subordinate particulars, if it were necessary, might be calculated or distributed and that as concisely as possible.

But before we begin, it is requisite to premise that the only foundation for our calculations, which I propose to acknowledge, is the Hebrew text; in comparison of which I cannot admit the superior claims either of the Septuagint or of Josephus. I am persuaded, that for the early history of the world, from the creation downwards, there is no sure nor authentic source of information but this; and that when we forsake it for any other guide, we are liable to involve ourselves in perplexity and error. I do not think any good argument can be alleged that the world is of greater antiquity, as

referred to the Christian era, than the Hebrew computation of time makes it to be; yet between that and the computation, which has been admitted by many of the learned in preference to it, there is more than a thousand years' difference; and on some principles more than fifteen hundred. On this question, however, our present limits necessarily preclude us from entering. Suffice it to say, that in the review of the Antediluvian or the Postdiluvian chronology, which I am about to exhibit; I shall take the Hebrew verity as my guide, and, except where there is good and implicit reason so to do, I shall not venture to depart from it.

It is a singular circumstance that, for the first three centuries after the Christian era, almost unanimously; and for many centuries at intervals, even lower down, with a great inclination in favour of the same opinion; it was the tradition of the fathers of the church, that the six days employed on the creation were typical of as many thousand years of the world's future existence; and that the seventh day or sabbath, which ensued at the end of the work of creation, was typical of a seventh and final millennium, to ensue at the end of all. Into the origin of this tradition we need not inquire; but its existence almost coeval with Christianity itself, and for a long time afterwards, may be asserted as a fact, which no one who is conversant with the writings of the most ancient of the fathers will think of denying.

The prophecy which some of the same authorities ascribe at one time to Enoch, at another to Elias: Sex millia annorum mundi: duo millia Inane; duo millia Lex; duo millia Christus: Six thousand years of the world; two thousand to the Void; two thousand to the Law; two thousand to the Christ is a clear proof how they