came out herself to welcome me to Cleator. She told me she was glad to see me, and extremely

from the root which signifies to be, and denotes the one eternal self-existent Being, from whom all other things derive their being, and on whom they must depend ;--As the word does likewise signify 'makes to be what was promised or foretold,' and by such meaning declares, as often as the word is repeated, that Jehovah our God is not only self-existent, and the Creator of the world, but Him in whom all divine prophecies and predictions centre; it follows, in my opinion, that we should utter this awful name in our addresses to God, and not, like the Jews, through a superstition omit it, and use another instead of it." This passage is to be found in an excellent Preface to the octavo edition of his admirable Dissertation on the Book of Job, in reply to that part of the Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated, in which the author, my Lord of Gloucester, sets himself to prove, that this book is a work of imagination, or dramatic composition, no older than Ezra the priest, whom he supposes to be the writer of it, in the year before Christ 467, or the year 455, in the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, when Daniel's seventy weeks begin; that is, the period of 490 years, that were to be fulfilled before the passion of our Saviour. And further, according to the author of the Legation, that this allegorical drama or poem,' was written to quiet the minds of the Jewish people under the difficulties of their captivity, and to assure them, as

VOL. III.

L

obliged to me, for riding so many miles out of my way, to travel up with her to London; but as she

represented by the person of Job, of those great temporal blessings which three prophets had predicted.

Now in the Preface to the book aforementioned, in answer to all this and fully and beautifully answered it is, you will find the passage relating to the word Jehovah, and more than I have quoted from it.

As to Pythagoras the Samean, mentioned in this note, on account of his saying, "Be simply thyself;" he was famous in the 60th olympiad, as Jamblicus informs us; that is, his Elikia, or Reign of Fame, began in the first year of this olympiad, which was the year before Christ 540; for 60 x 4 gives 240 777 leaves 537 +3, the plus years of the olympiad ; i. e. 2, 3, 4 540. And he died in the 4th year of the 70th olympiad, that is, the year before Christ 497: for 70 × 4 = 280

777 remains 497: there are no plus years to be added here, as it happened in the 4th or last year of the olympiad. This philosopher was contemporary with, and a near friend to, the renowned Phalaris, who was murdered in the year before Christ 556, when the Belshazzar of Daniel ascended the throne of Babylon. And as Pythagoras lived to the age of 90, according to Diogenes, he must have been born in the beginning of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar; the year this conqueror took Jeru, salem, and its king Zedekiah, which was Olymp. 47. 3. and of consequenee before Christ 590: for 47 x 4 =

had never been further from home than Harrogate, and was afraid of going such a journey by herself,

188

777, remains 580 + 1

=

590. This was 54 years before Thespis invented tragedy,* and 11 years before the birth of Eschylus, the reformer of tragedy. Cyrus was then in the 10th year of his age.

It is likewise evident from hence, that Pythagoras must have lived through the reigns of Cyrus, Cambyses, and the greatest part of the reign of Darius Histaspes, who slew Smerdis the Magi, and is called in scripture Ahasuerus, the king of Persia, who married Esther, and ordered Haman the Amalekite to be hanged on the gallows he had erected for Mordecai the Jew, in the year before Christ 510.

Note, David was before Pythagoras 519 years.

Reader, As to the word Elikia, which I have used to express the reign or time of flourishing of Pythagoras, I have an observation or two to make in relation to it, which I think worth your attending to.

Clemens Alexandrinus says, Stromata, p. 40, ‘Añò Μούσεις επὶ τὴν Σολομῶντος ἑλικιαν ἔτη τὰ πάντα εχακόσια δέκα : that is, The years from Moses to Solomon's Elikia are

* Olymp. 61. 1. Selden's Comment on the Arundel

Marble.

she had written to me, in hopes curiosity and my great complaisance to the ladies, might induce me

From this passage it is plain, that the Elikia of Solomon is not meant of his nativity, but of the beginning of his reign, when he was 33 years of age.

It is then very surprising that Dodwell should insist upon it, that Elikia always signifies nativity. It is the more wonderful, as Dodwell quotes this passage from Clement; and as it is impossible to make out 610, without coming to the 33d of Solomon, as I have reckoned it.

Nay, in another place of the Stromata, Clement says, Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah lived after the Elikia of Lycurgus; where he can only mean the time when that lawgiver flourished; for, from the Destruction of Troy to the Akmé of Lycurgus, was 290 years: and from Solomon, in whose time Troy was taken, to the time of the prophets, was 360 years.

Thus does learning accommodate things. Dodwell wanted to fit a passage in Antilochus to his own calculation and so 312 years from the Elikia of Pythagoras, that is, says Dodwell, from the nativity of the philosopher, he meant taking the word in that sense, to the death of Epicurus, brings us exactly to the time. Who can forbear smiling? A favourite notion is to many learned men a sacred thing. Dodwell settles his passage in Antilochus to his mind, by perverting the word Elikia.

This, to be sure, in prophane things, can do no great

to take Cleator in my way to town, though so much about: but as so many weeks had passed since she

harm but when the practice is brought into things sacred, it is a detriment to mankind. Some divines, for example, to support a notion as unreasonable as it is dear to them, tell us that the word Isos signifies strict equality, not like: and that when St. Paul says îσα Oευ, we must construe it, Jesus Christ was strictly equal to the most High God. This is sad construction, when Homer, Euripides, Æschylus, make the word Isos to import no more than like. Isanemos, swift as the wind; Isatheos phos, like a God; Isanerios, like a dream.

And when a divine is positive that os and kathos, as, and even as, words occurring in the New Testament, signify a strict equality, and not some sort of likeness; this is miserable perversion, and hurts the Christian religion very greatly; as they endeavour, by such a given sense, to prove that the man Christ Jesus is to be honoured with the same divine honours we offer to God the Father Almighty, by the command and example of Jesus, who was sent from God, and was a worshipper of God; who lived obedient to the laws of God, preached those laws, and died for them in the cause of God; who was raised from the dead by God, and now sits on God's right hand; intercedes with God, and in his Gospel owns his Father to be his and our only true God. This is sad accommodation. Though the words never signify more than a degree of likeness in the Greek classics,