considered these millennia to be divided. Now it is a singular coincidence that, according to the Bible chronology, which certainly was not constructed expressly to produce it; the birth of Christ, if placed B. C. 4, is stated exactly at the close of the fourth millennium: for if A. M. 1, the year of the creation, answers to B. C. 4004. A. M. 4001, at the close of the fourth millennium, answers to B. C. 4, the assumed date of the birth of Christ. The coincidence would be still more critical if Christ was born, as the world was created, in the spring; for then it would be difficult to say whether he was born at the end of the fourth, or at the beginning of the fifth millennium, each of which coincides alike with B. C. 4; were it not that we have rendered it probable that he was born between the two.

This division of the millennia of the world is closely connected with the doctrine of the Σαββατισμὸς, or millenary reign of Christ on earth; upon which, however, I cannot pause now to enter, further than to say, that in my opinion it is too clearly recognised in scripture, and in a variety of ways direct and indirect, to be lightly disbelieved or called in question. I will observe only, that the division itself is strongly implied in the use of those expressions, τέλη τῶν αἰώνων —συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος-αἰών, οι αἰῶνες, joined with a verb, participle, or pronoun describing either the past, the present, or the future. It is, in general, an inaccurate version to render these expressions by the ends, or end, of the world, or worlds; for as ævum, or ævom, (sæculum,) in Latin would be denoted by alov in Greek; (whence, though the term is obsolete in that language, it must have been originally derived ;) and both would imply a period of not less than one

b Hebrews iv. 9.

hundred years; so is alwv, in the latter particularly, a collection of such periods-a certain number of great periods making up a still greater conjointly. In most instances, then, and especially when coupled with the substantives τέλη οι συντέλεια, with the participles of time, or with other words expressive of the past, the present, or the future; it should be rendered accordingly by periods of ages, or the like; and it will always denote the appointed term or duration of time, measured by centuries, for which one œconomy should last, or had lasted, before it should be succeeded, or had been succeeded by another. On this principle, it has always appeared to me that, under the name of the aives past, the inspired writers of the New Testament frequently meant to describe the period from the creation to the beginning of the Christian dispensation; and under the name of the air present or to come, that they intended the duration of that dispensation itself: and at the close of that, by whatever else it may be succeeded, first and properly the duration of the sabbatic millennium, or the millenary reign of Christ on earth. Vide Matt. xiii. 39. 40. 49. xxiv. 3. xxviii. 20. Mark x. 30. Luke xviii. 30. xx. 35.

Now if Christ, from the call of Abraham to the conclusion of the prior dispensation by his advent in the flesh, was in all things the final end contemplated by it; and if the Christian was throughout the antitype of the Mosaic economy; it is reasonable to conclude that, as they agree and correspond together in so many other respects, so they should be found to agree and correspond in their beginnings and their duration also: and if the first call of Abraham took place A. M. 2001, as the birth of Christ took place A. M. 4001, this will actually be the case between them.

I date the call of Abraham not from his call into Canaan, which was a second call, but from his call into Haran or Charran, which was the first; the former after the death of Terah, the latter before it c. Between these two calls there was a certain interval of time which scripture has left indefinite; and in this indefiniteness consists the whole of the difficulty with which, in the present part of our subject, we have to contend. For, from the time of the departure out of Charran, to the time of the Exodus, every thing is clear; as the following statements will prove.

I. From this departure to the birth of Isaac there wered twenty-five years.

II. From the birth of Isaac to the birth of Jacob there were sixty years.

e

III. From the birth of Jacob to the descent into Egypt there were f one hundred and thirty years.

IV. From the descent into Egypt to the Exodus there were two hundred and fifteen years.

It thus appears that, from the time of the call of Abraham into Canaan to the time of the Exodus, there were just four hundred and thirty years; which period of time was so critically divided between these two extreme points, that the first two hundred and fifteen years of it were spent in Canaan, and the next in Egypt. Nor would it be difficult, by the help of the data referred to in the margin h, to shew how this residence in Egypt might have been filled up, between the descent, and the birth of Moses; and between that, and the Exodus. But for the sake of brevity we need not now do this. We may proceed merely to observe, that if

c Acts vii. 2, 3, 4. Josh. xxiv. 2, 3. Gen. xi. 31, 32. xii. 1. 4. xxi. 5. e xxv. 26. Acts vii. 6. Gal. iii. 17. Exod. vi. 16. 18. 20. vii. 7.

d Gen. xii.

f xlvii. 9. g Exod. xii. 40. Gen. xv. 13. h Gen. xli. 46-54. xlv. 6. xlvi. 11. 1. 22. 26. Acts vii. 23.

the Exodus, as we assumed, took place B. C. 1560. A. M. 2445, the call of Abraham into Canaan, just four hundred and thirty years before, took place B. C. 1990. A. M. 2015. Let us suppose that before this he had been fourteen years resident in Charran *. His original call out of Chaldæa must have taken place B. C. 2004. A. M. 2001: a very exact coincidence.

The interval, between the creation and the first call of Abraham to Charran, comes now to be considered. If we are right in our principles, it must have been one of two thousand years.

From the birth of Seth, when Adam was one hundred and thirty years old, to the age of Noah at the birth of Shem, (which it is asserted was five hundred years,) and from thence to the flood, the specified intervals amount to 1656 years and from the time of the flood to the birth of Terah the father of Abraham, the specified intervals amount to 222'. If the flood then befell A. M. 1657. the birth of Terah happened A.M. 1879.

* The interval in question is recognised virtually by Origen, in the following passage, Operum ii. 31. A. Selecta In Genesim : ὥσπερ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ̓Αβραὰμ οὐκ ἐλογίσθη εἰς ζωὴν τὰ ἑξήκοντα ἔτη τὰ πρὸ τῆς θεογνώσεως αὐτοῦ, *, T. λ. If Abraham was sixty when God first revealed himself to him, and seventy-five when he was commanded to leave Haran, after his father's death, and to go into Canaan; his call from Ur of Chaldæa into Haran was fifteen years prior to his final

departure thence into Canaan. And so in fact it is stated in the Chronicon of Julius Pollux, p. 84, a work which we have had occasion to quote heretoforei. A similar statement occurs in Syncellus also, i. 185. 9-17. It seems to have been contained likewise in the apocryphal Book of Tharah: see the Codex Pseudepigraphus, i.336341. cv. Cf. also, the extract from Gregorius Abulpharajius, Ibid. 422.

i This Chronicon, in its present state, terminates with the reign of Valens, A. D. 378. But there is internal evidence at page 324. that the author of it lived later than the date of the council of Chalcedon at least, in the first of Marcian, A. D. 451. k Gen. v. 32. xi. 10. ix. 28, 29.

1 xi. 10-24.

j Gen. v. 3.

At seventy years old it is said that he had begotten Abram, Nahor, and Haran m; where, though Haran is mentioned last, I think it is morally certain that he was the eldest son of Terah; first because he died before his father; secondly because he was married before his death, and the father of three children, Lot, Milcah, and Iscah or Sarah; the last of whom was but ten years younger than Abraham himself". In like manner I think it most probable that Abram was his second son, and Nahor his youngest; for Sarah the wife of Abraham was probably older than Milcah the wife of Nahor.

And hence we may best understand the assertion, that Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran, when he had lived seventy years. They were all begotten before he was seventy; and perhaps the youngest of them, Nahor, when he was seventy; but none of them after. The age of the padogonia, just before the birth of Terah, was as early as twenty-nine; and in no case since the flood had it exceeded thirty-five: so that it cannot be credible that Terah should have lived twice this last term of years before he had begotten his eldest son. This eldest son himself died at an age when he was old enough to have a daughter, who was sixty-four years old at the death of Terah, when Abraham was seventy-four. The note of time, then, used absolutely to mark the age of Terah at the birth of his three sons, which cannot without a palpable absurdity be understood of his age at the birth of them all, nor without almost the same of his age at the birth of his eldest; must be understood of his age at the birth of his youngest; in which sense only the assertion would strictly be true.

And hence, also, we may justly infer that the statement of the whole age of Terah °, as it stands in the

m Gen. xi. 26.

n xi. 27, 28, 29. xvii. 17.

o xi. 32.