A. M. 1536. A. C. 2168; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 2136. A. C. 3275. GEN. CH. 5. AND 6. TO VER. 13. adheres to the Greek in opposition to the Hebrew; and that the fathers of the first ages of the church, though they were very good men, had no great extent of learning; understood the Greek tongue better than the Hebrew; and for that reason gave the preference to the Septuagint computation. In this manner do the advocates for the Hebrew text defend its authority: and, since it is confessed, there has been a transmutation somewhere, if that transmutation was designedly and on purpose done, (as the adverse party agrees,) it is indifferent whether it was done by way of addition or subtraction: only as it is evident, that the Greeks did compute by numerical letters, whereas it is much questioned, that the Hebrews ever did, the mistake or falsification rather seems to lie on the side of the Greek translators, the very form of whose letters was more susceptible of it. It might be some entertainment to the reader, could we but give him any tolerable view of the religion, of the book of Genesis, that the world would last 6000 years, because the letter Aleph, which stands for 1000, occurs six times in the first verse; because God was six days about the creation; and because with him a thousand years are but as one day!' after this, they taught that there was to be "a seventh day, or a the Messiah should be sent in the last times, it appears that the millenary sabbath of rest." Now it being certainly foretold that Rabbis inferred his advent to be about the middle of the sixth millenary, or the 5500th year of the world; and to find a pretence for rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, it occurred to them to world might be known, by subtracting a century from Adam's alter the generations of the patriarchs, by which the age of the age until the birth of Seth, and adding the same to the residue of his life, and doing the same thing with respect to the generation of many others of Adam's descendants down to Abraham. By this device their computation showed that Jesus Christ was manifested near the middle of the fifth, instead of the sixth, millenary of the world, which according to them was to last 7000 years; and they said, We are still in the middle of the time, and the time appointed for the Messiah's advent is not yet come. Those Rabbis, however, were obliged to leave the ages at which Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech had their several sons, as they found them. "Had these been curtailed, like the rest, and the century taken from each added to the subsequent life of the patriarch as is done in other cases, Jared would have sura The names for the Septuagint computation, which the learned vived the deluge 66 years; Methuselah 200 years; and Lamech Heidegger, in his History of the Patriarchs, (as he takes them 95 years. Not daring, therefore, to shorten the lives of these from Baronius,) has reckoned up, are such as these: Theophi-three patriarchs, the Jews were forced to let the original amounts lus, bishop of Antioch, St Cyprian, Clemens Alexandrinus, of their generations remain unaltered." Hippolytus, Origen, Lactantius, Epiphanius, Philastrius, Orosius, Cyril, the two Anastasii, Nicephorus, and Suada; to whom he might add several more, as Heidegger suggests, while those among the ancients who contended for the Hebrew calculation, were only St Austin and St Jerome, but men of great skill and proficiency in the Hebrew language.-On the Age of the Patriurchs, Essay 10. This is a true state of the controversy, wherein the arguments for the Hebrew computation do certainly preponderate; though the names, the venerable a names, on the contrary side, have hitherto been more numerous. ¿ 1 Heidegger's History of the Patriarchs. 6 Such may have been the case 100 years ago: but it certainly is not so now. Dr Hales has proved, with the force of demonstration, that there was originally no difference between the Hebrew genealogies and those of the Greek version; that the computation of Josephus was, in his own time, conformable to both; and consequently that the chronology either of the original Hebrew, or of the Greek version of the Scriptures, as well as of the writings of Josephus, has been since adulterated. That the wilful adulteration took place in the Hebrew rather than in the Greek copies, is rendered highly probable by the reasons which follow. According to Dr Hales, who has bestowed much pains on the question, the Masorites, who published the edition of the Hebrew Bible which is now in use, deducted a century from the age at which each of the patriarchs-Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahaleel, and Enoch-had their respective sons whose genealogy is decided by Moses. Their motive for this conduct he states from Ephrem Syrus, who lived about the period at which the change was made, and of whom the learned Cave says (Hist. Lit.)—"From his earliest years he exercised himself in monastic philosophy, and with all his energy so perfected himself in the studies of the more learned sciences, that with ease he could understand the most difficult theorems." Such a man was not likely to write at random of a fact, of which he had the best possible opportunity of ascertaining either the truth or the falsehood. That Ephrem had such an opportunity is unquestionable; for he died A. D. 378; and the corruption of the Hebrew chronology, though it began as early as A. D. 130, appears not to have made any considerable progress for two centuries, Eusebius having found, in the Hebrew copies which he consulted, different accounts of the same times, some following the longer, and others the shorter computations. Now Ephrem affu ms, that the Jews "subtracted 600 years from the generations of Adam, Seth, &c., in order that their own books might not convict them concerning the coming of Christ: he having been predicted to appear for the deliverance of mankind after 5500 years. The reader will look in vain for this prediction in the books of the Old Testament; but the Cabbalists found in the first chapter "The tradition of the Jews respecting the age of the world was found also in the Sybilline Oracles; in Hesiod; in the writings of Darius Hystaspes, the old king of the Medes, derived probably from the Magi; and in Hermes Trismegistus, and was adopted by the early Christian fathers. Its prevalence therefore throughout the Pagan, Jewish, and Christian world, whether wellfounded, or otherwise, was a sufficient reason for the Jews to invali. date it, by shortening their chronology." This probability is heightened by the testimony of Justin Martyr and Irenæus, who were both eminent Christian writers of the second century, the former a Samaritan by birth, and well skilled in the Hebrew tongue, as well as in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Now, in his celebrated conference with Trypho the Jew, Justin expressly charges the Rabbis with having expunged many passages out of the Septuagint version; whilst Irenæus affirms of the same Rabbis, that if they had known the use that was to be made of their Scriptures, they would not have hesitated to burn these Scriptures? The Septuagint version was indeed their abhorrence, because it was generally referred to by the Christian writers; and, in order to bring it as much as possible into disrepute, they instituted, in the beginning of the second century, a solemn fast on the 8th of Tebeth (December) to curse the memory of its having been made! Had it been in their power, there cannot be a doubt, but that, with these dispositions, they would have destroyed that version entirely; but this was not in their power, whilst it was easy to alter the chronology of the Hebrew text, so as to make it suit their own purposes. "In the course of the Jewish war," says Dr Hales, "until the final destruction of Jerusalem, and expulsion of the Jews from Judea in the reign of Adrian, vast numbers of the Hebrew copies must have been lost or destroyed, besides those that were taken away by the conquerors among other spoils; and the few, that were left, were confined in a great measure to the Jews themselves, as the Hebrew language was not generally understood like the Greek. Whereas, of the Greek copies, even i all, that were possessed by the Hellenistic Jews, not only in Palestine, but throughout the world, had been destroyed, which was far from being the case, yet the copies of the Septuagint, in the possession of the Christians everywhere, rendered any material adulteration of the Greek text, at least in so important a case as that of the genealogies, well nigh impossible." The Jews did however all that they could to deprive the Christians of the arguments with which it furnished them in proof of Jesus of Nazareth being the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. They set up three other Greek versions in opposition to the Septuagint, A. M. 1536. A. C. 2468; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 2136. A. C. 3275. GEN. CH. 5. AND 6. TO VER. 13. polity, and learning, of the antediluvian people: but the sacred history, in this respect, is so very short, and the framed on the Hebrew text curtailed in the manner which has been already mentioned. The first was that of Aquila, published about A. D. 128-two years before the Seder Olam Rabba; the second by Symmachus; and the third by Theodotion. Aquila was originally a pagan priest, and afterwards a Christian; but being excommunicated for the irregularity of his conduct, he became a Jew, and the most rancorous enemy of the gospel of Christ. By Epiphanius he is charged with wresting the Scriptures, in order to invalidate their testimonies to the claim of our Lord to the character of the Messiah: and, in an unpublished Greek tract in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, it is said "Wherever you find in the Hebrew (for even there he also obliterated) or in the Greek, the testimonies concerning Christ disguised, know that it was the insidious contrivance of Aquila." hints suggested therein, so very few, and so very obscure withal, that, during this period, we are left, in a grea measure, in the dark. However, we cannot but observe, that it is a mistaken notion of some authors, who affirm that at the beginning of the world, for almost 2000 years together, mankind lived without any law, without any precepts, without any promises from God; and that the religion from Adam to Abraham was purely natural, || and such as had nothing but right reason to be its rule and measure. The antediluvian dispensation indeed was, in the main, founded upon the law of nature; but still it must be acknowledged, that there was (as we showed before) a divine precept concerning sacrifices; that there was a divine promise concerning the blessed Seed; and that there were several other precepts and injunctious given the patriarchs, besides those that were built upon mere reason. As That he might be able to perform these exploits, Aquila, when he became a Jew, put himself under the tuition of the famous The law of sacrifices (which confessedly at this time Rabbi Akiba, who, for forty years was president of the Sanhedrim, and had 40,000 pupils, which qualified him to become one obtained) was partly natural, and partly divine. of the most subtile and formidable as well as most malignant sacrifices were tokens of thankfulness and acknowledg adversaries of Christianity. It was under the auspices, and by ments, that the fruits of the earth, and all other creathe instigation of this famous Rabbi, that in the year 130, was published or "sealed," says Dr Hales, "the Seder Olam tures, for the use and benefit of man were derived from Rabba, or Jewish curtailed system of chronology; and as God; they were a service dictated by natural reason, Aquila's version agrees with it, there can be little doubt, but and so were natural acts of worship: abut, as they carried that in this exploit, he was aiding to his master. These facts with them the notion of expiation and atonement for the were undoubtedly known to Usher and other eminent chronolo-souls of mankind especially as they referred to the gers; but, as Dr Hales observes, "the superstitious veneration for what was called the Hebrew verity, or supposed immaculate purity of the Masorite editions of the Hebrew text, which generally prevailed among the most eminent divines and Hebrew scholars of the last age, precluded all discussions of this nature." "But the inspection of various editions since, and the copious collations of the Hebrew text with a great number of MSS. collected from all parts of the world, by the laudable industry and extensive researches of Kennicott, De Rossi, and other learned men, have proved that the sacred classics are no more exempt from various readings than the profane." Errors many and great have crept into the chronology of the Scriptures as well in the original Hebrew as in the Septuagint version; nor have the antiquities of Josephus by any means escaped the confusion with respect to dates, which disfigures the Sacred Oracles from which those antiquities were transcribed. It is, however, chiefly by the means of some genuine dates and numbers which still fortunately subsist in the work of Josephus, that our author has been enabled to restore the Scripture chronology to its original state. This he has done by strictly following the analytical method of investigation, which, he truly observes, is at least as applicable to chronology as to natural philosophy. The leading elementary date, by reference to which he has adjusted the whole range of sacred and profane chronology, "is (I quote his own words) the birth of Cyrus, before Christ 599, which led to his accession to the throne of Persia, B. C. 559; of Media, B. C. 551; and of Babylonia, B. C. 536; for, from these several dates carefully and critically ascertained and verified, the several respective chronologies of these kingdoms branched off; and from the last especially, the destruction of Solomon's temple by Nebuchadnezzer, B. C. 586, its correcter date, which led to its foundation, B. C. 1027; thence to the Exude, B. C. 1648; thence to Abraham's birth, B. C. 2153; thence to the reign of Nimrod, 2554; thence to the deluge, B. C. 3155; and thence to the creation, B. C. 5411. And this date of the creation is verified, by the rectification of the systems of Josephus, and Theophilus, who was bishop of Antioch, A. D. 169, and the first Christian chronologist." By the same patient and analytical investigation, Dr Hales has ascertained the genealogies of the antediluvian patriarchs, to have been very different from what they are represented to have been in the present Hebrew; and though it would undoubtedly be presumptuous to say that his system is without errors, it appears to approach so near to perfection, that the following computation, which differs widely from those of the Hebrew, Samaritan, and Septuagint texts at present, must, think, be acceptable to the reader. It may be considered as the original computation of Messias, and signified the future sacrifice of Christ, they were certainly instituted by God, and the practice of them was founded upon a divine command. It is not to be doubted, but that Adam instructed his children to worship and adore God, to commemorate his goodness, and deprecate his displeasure; nor can we suppose, but that they, in their respective families, put his instructions in execution; and yet we find, that in · Edward's Survey of Religion, h. 1. Josephus rather than that of Dr Hales, and therefore the true computation of Moses. a This seems inconceivable, though it is an opinion that has been held by men of the highest eminence in the church, as well for learning as for piety. Whilst men possessed no notion of property, what could lead them to offer gifts to God? And though they must have been all conscious of guilt, is it possible that they could hope to propitiate the Creator by taking away the life of his, not their, guiltless creatures. For complete proof of the Divine institution of all kinds of sacrifice, the reader may have recourse to Magee's Discourses and Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement and Sacrifice.—Gleig's Edit. A. M. 1536. A. C. 2468; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 2136. A. C. 3275. GEN. CH. 5. AND 6. TO VER. 13. the days of Enos, (besides all private devotion) a public | men, at first, stood towards one another, and the several form of worship was set up; that the people had the rites of their religion, which God had appointed, fixed, and established; and that, very probably, as Cain built cities for his descendants to live in, so Enos might build temples, and places of divine worship, for his to resort to. a The distinction of clean and unclean animals was another divine injunction under this dispensation. God refers Noah to it, as a thing well known, when he commands him to put into the ark seven pairs of clean, and two of unclean creatures: and though, in respect of man's food, this distinction was not before the law of Moses, yet some beasts were accounted fit and others unfit for sacrifices from the beginning. The former were esteemed clean, and the latter unclean: and it seems safer to make a positive law of God the foundation of this distinction, than to imagine that men, in such matters as these, were left to their own discretion. The prohibition of marrying with infidels or idolaters, was another article of this dispensation, as appears from God's angry resentment when the children of Seth entered into wedlock with the wicked posterity of Cain. And, to mention no more, under this period were given those six 'great precepts of Adam' (as they are generally called) whereof the Jewish doctors make such boast; and of these the 1. was of strange worship, or idolatry; the 2. of cursing the most holy name, or blasphemy; the 3. of uncovering the nakedness, or unlawful copulation; the 4. of bloodshed, or homicide; the 5. of theft and rapine; and the 6. of judgment, or the administration of justice in the public courts of judicature. So that, from the very first, God did not leave himself without a witness' (as the apostle terms it) but, in one degree or other, made frequent manifestations of his will to mankind. That government of one kind or other, is essential to the well-being of mankind, seems to be a position e founded in the nature of things, the relation wherein a These conjectures are without all foundation. The pious family of Seth undoubtedly worshipped God in public as well as in private, from the very beginning; though it was not till the days of Enos that they began to call themselves by the name of the Lord," or to assume the denomination of "the sons of God," to distinguish themselves from the profane race of Cain. See Hales's Analysis, &c., vol. ii. p. 34.; Bishop Gleig's Edit. ¿The commandments given to the sons of Noah are the same with these. They are an abridgment of the whole law of nature; but have one positive precept annexed to them; and are generally placed in this order. 1. "Thou shalt serve no other gods, but the Maker only of heaven and earth. 2. Thou shalt remember to serve the true God, the Lord of the world, by sanctifying his name in the midst of thee. 3. Thou shalt not shed the blood of man created after the image of God. 4. Thou shalt not defile thy body, that thou mayest be fruitful and multiply, and, with a blessing replenish the earth. 5. Thou shalt be content with that which thine is, and what thou wouldst not have done to thyself, that thou shalt not do to another. 6. Thou shalt do right judgment to every one, without respect to persons. 7. Thou shalt not eat the flesh in the blood, nor any thing that hath life, with the life thereof." This is the heptalogue of Noah, or the seven words, which, as the Jews tell us, were delivered to his sons, and were constantly observed by all the uncircumcised worshippers of the true God.-Bibliotheca Biblica, Occasional Annotations, 15. vol. 1. e To this purpose Cicero (On Laws, b. 3. c. 1.) tells us, that qualifications in them, which, in a short time, could not but appear. The first form of government, without all controversy, was patriarchal; but this form was soon laid aside, when men of superior parts came to distinguish themselves; when the head of any family either outpowered or outwitted his neighbour, and so brought him to give up his dominion, either by compulsion or resignation. Government, however, at this time, seems to have been placed in fewer hands, than it is now: not that the number of people was less, but their communities were larger, and their kingdoms more extensive, than since the flood; insomuch, that it may well be questioned, whether, after the union of the two great families of Seth and Cain, there was any distinction of civil societies, or diversity of regal governments at all. It seems more likely, that all mankind then made but one great nation, living in a kind of anarchy, and divided into several disorderly associations; which, as it was almost the natural consequence of their having, in all probability, but one language; so it was a circumstance which greatly contributed to that general corruption which otherwise perhaps could not so universally have prevailed. And for this reason we may suppose, that no sooner was the posterity of Noah sufficiently increased, but a plurality of tongues was miraculously introduced, in order to divide them into distinct societies, and thereby prevent any such total depravation for the future. The enterprising genius of man began to exert itself very early in music, brass-work, iron-work, and every science, useful and entertaining, and the undertakers were not limited by a short life. They had time enough before them to carry things to perfection: but whatever their skill, learning, or industry performed, all remains and monuments of it have long since perished. pers, *Josephus indeed gives us this account of Seth's great knowledge in astronomy, and how industrious he was to have it conveyed to the new world. Seth, and his descendants;" says he, " were persons of happy temand lived in peace, employing themselves in the study of astronomy, and in other searches after useful knowledge; but, being informed by Adam, that the world should be twice destroyed, first by water, and afterwards by fire, they made two pillars, the one of stone, and the other of brick, and inscribed their knowledge upon them, supposing that the one or other of them might remain for the use of posterity." "But how strangely improbable is it, that they, who foreknew that the destruction of the world should be by a flood, should busy themselves to write astronomical observations on pillars, for the benefit of those who should live after it? Could they think, that their pillars would have some peculiar exemption, above other structures, from the violence 3 Universal History, b. 1. c. 2. 5 Antiquities, b. 1. c. 2. Stillingfleet's Sacred Origins, b. 1. c. 2. "Without government, neither family, nor nation, nor mankind, nor the world, nor the universe, could last." Sencca asserts that, "it (government) is the chain by which the state is held together, it is the vital breath which these numerous thousands of citizens inhale, who would, of their own accord, immediately sink into nothing but an inert mass and easy prey, were that spirit of order withdrawn." I-K 2 A. M. 1536. A. C. 2468; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A M. 2136. A. C. 3275. GEN. CH. 5. AND 6. TO VER. 13. under his name: but besides that this piece is now generally given up for spurious, there is no need for us to suppose, that St Jude ever quoted any passage out of this, or any other book of Enoch. 3 Enoch was a prophet, we are told, and as such was and outrage of the waters? If they believed that the flood would prove universal, for whose instruction did they write their observations? If they did not, to what end did they write them at all, since the persons who survived, might communicate their inventions to whom they pleased? The plain truth is, 'Josephus, who fre-invested with authority, 'to cry aloud, and spare not,' quently quotes heathen authors, and Manetho in particular, to this story of Seth's pillars from the pillars of Hermes mentioned in that historian: for, as the Jews had an ancient tradition concerning Seth's pillars, Josephus, in reading Manetho, might possibly think his account misapplied, and thereupon imagine, that he should probably hit on the truth, if he put the account of the one and the tradition of the other together; and this very likely might occasion his mistake. 2 The eastern people have preserved several traditions of very little certainty concerning Enoch. They believe, that he received from God the gift of wisdom and knowledge to an eminent degree, and that God sent him thirty volumes from heaven, filled with all the secrets of the most mysterious science. St Jude, it is certain, seems to cite a passage from a prophecy of his; nor can it be denied, but that in the first ages of Christianity, a there was a book, well known to the Jews, that went 1 Shuckford's Connection, b. 1. a Joseph Scaliger, in his annotations upon Eusebius's Chronicon, has given us some considerable fragments of it, which Heidegger in his History of the Patriarchs, has translated into Latin, which the curious, if they think proper, may consult: but the whole seems to be nothing but a fabulous collection of some Jew or other, most unworthy the holy patriarch. Tertullian, however, has defended it with great warmth, and laments much, that all the world is not as zealous as himself, in the maintenance of its authenticity. He pretends, that it had been saved by Noah in the ark, from thence transmitted down to the church, and that the Jews, in his days, rejected it, only because they thought it was favourable to Christianity.-Miller's History of the Church; and Saurin's Dissertations. The great objections against this book are, that neither Philo, nor Josephus, (those diligent searchers into antiquity,) make any mention of it; and that it contains such fabulous stories as are monstrous and absurd. But to this some have answered, that such a book there certainly was, notwithstanding the silence of these Jewish antiquaries: and that after the apostle's time, it might be corrupted, and many things added to it by succeeding heretics, who might take occasion from the antiquity thereof, and from the passage of Michael's contending with the devil about the body of Moses, to interpolate many fables and inventions of their own.-Raleigh's History of the World.-That there is still extant a very ancient book called The Prophecies of Enoch is a fact which will admit of no controversy; but it is not from that work, but from another Jewish book called The Assumption of Moses, which, though now lost, was extant in the time of Origen, that the passage about Michael's contention with the devil appears to have been quoted by the apostle St Jude. Of The Prophecies of Enoch Mr Bruce gives us the following account: Amongst the articles I consigned to the library at Paris, was a very beautiful and magnificent copy of The Prophecies of Enoch in large quarto; another is amongst the books of Scripture, which I brought home, standing immediately before the book of Job, which is its proper place in the Abyssinian Canon; and a third copy I have presented to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The more ancient history of that book is well known." The church at first looked upon it as apocryphal, and it was never admitted into any ancient canon of Scripture that I have seen or heard of. | "We may observe that Jude's appealing to the apocryphal | books did by no means import, that either he believed, or warranted, the truth of them." No man ever supposed that St Paul warranted the truth of all that Aratus the poet had written, or to reprove the wicked, and denounce God's judgments against them; and as he was a good man, it was easy for St Jude to imagine, that he would not sit still, and see the impieties of the people grow so very exorbitant, without endeavouring to repress them, by setting before them the terrors of the Lord.' He could not discharge the office of a good man, and a prophet, without forewarning them of the Lord's coming, with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that were ungodly among them: and because this was his office and duty, the apostle infers, (as by the Spirit of God he might certainly know,) that he did so, though he might not make that inference from any passage in his prophecy; because it is a known observation, that many things are alluded to in the New Testament, which were never perhaps in any book at all. Of all the strange matters that occur in this period of time, there is nothing which looks so like a prodigy as the longevity of those men who at first inhabited the earth; nor is any event so apt to affect us with wonder, * Jude 14, 15. Heidegger's History of the Patriarchs. even that he believed that we are the offspring of God in the very sense in which that poet probably taught that we are; but he appealed to him as sufficient authority among the Athenians in support of his own doctrine, that all men have sprung from one origin. It was an argument ad hominem, such as "our Saviour himself often makes use of. You, says he to the Jews, deny certain facts, which must be from prejudice, because you have them allowed in your own books, and believe them there. And a very strong and fair way of arguing it is; but this is by no means any allowance that these books are true. In the same manner you, says St Jude, do not believe the coming of Christ and a latter judgment; yet your ancient Enoch, who, you suppose, was the seventh from Adam, tells you this plainly, and in so many words long ago. And indeed the quotation is word for word the same, in the second chapter of the book. All that is material to say farther concerning the book of Enoch is, that it is a Gnostic book, containing the age of the Emims, Anakims, and Egregores, (descendants of the sons of God, when they fell in love with the daughters of men), who were giants." The editor of Bruce's Travels says, I know not on what sufficient authority, that, "the book in question was originally written in Greek by some Alexandrian Jew;" but I suspect that he confounds with The Prophecies of Enoch, The Assumption of Moses, of which fragments may be found perhaps in different authors, and which was certainly written in Greek. The question, however, is of no importance; for it appears from the summary of its contents given by the editor, that The Prophecies of Enoch, received into the Sacred Canon by the Abyssinian church, are indeed, what he calls them-an absurd and tedious work.—Bruce's Travels, vol. 2. p. 412. ed. 3.; Bishop Gleig's Edit. 6 There are many instances in the New Testament of facts alluded to, which we do not find in any ancient books. Thus the contest between Michael and the devil is mentioned, as if the Jews had, some where or other, a full account of it. The names of the Egyptians, Jannes, and Jambres, are set down, though they are nowhere found in Moses' history. St Paul tells us, that Moses exceedingly quaked and feared on Mount Sinai; but we do not find it so recorded anywhere in the Old Testament, In all these cases, the apostles and holy writers hinted at things, commonly received as true, by tradition, among the Jews, without transcribing them from any real book.-Shuckford's Connec tion, b. 1. A. M. 1536. A. C. 2468; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 2136. A. C. 3275. GEN. CH. 5. AND 6. TO VER. 13. as the disproportion between their lives and ours. We think it a great thing, if we chance to arrive at fourscore, or an hundred years; whereas they lived to the term of seven, eight, nine hundred, and upwards, as appears by the joint testimony both of sacred and profane history. The only suspicion that can arise in our minds upon this occasion, is, that the computation might possibly be made, not according to solar, but lunar years; but this, instead of solving the difficulty, runs us into several gross absurdities. stitution, the temperament of the world wherein they lived, or (what is most likely) the particular vouchsafement of God, to give them this mighty singular advantage above us. Others have ascribed it to the excellency of the fruits, and some unknown quality in the herbs and plants of those days: but the earth, we know, was cursed immediately after the fall, and its fruits, we may suppose, gradually decreased in their virtue and goodness, until the time of the flood; and yet we do not see, that the length of men's lives decreased at all during that interval. Some have imputed this extraordinary length of life in the antediluvians to the sobriety of their living, and simplicity of their diet; that they eat no flesh, and had no provocations to gluttony, which wit and vice have since invented. This indeed might have some effect, but not possibly to the degree we now speak of; since The space of time, between the creation and the flood, there have been many moderate and abstemious people is usually computed to be 1656 years, which, if we sup-in all ages, who have not surpassed the common period pose to be lunar, and converted into common years, will of life. amount to little more than 127; too short an interval, by much, to stock the world with a sufficient number of inhabitants. From one couple we can scarce imagine, that there could arise 500 persons in so short a time; but suppose them a thousand, they would not be so many as we sometimes have in a good country village. And were the floodgates of heaven opened, and the great abyss broken up, to destroy such an handful of people? were the waters raised fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, throughout the face of the whole earth, to drown a parish or two? This certainly is more incredible than the longest age which the Scriptures ascribe to the patriarchs; besides that, this short interval leaves no room for ten generations, which we find from Adam to the flood; nor does it allow the patriarchs age enough, (some of them, upon this supposition, must not be above five years old,) when they are said to beget children. It is generally allowed, and may indeed be proved by the testimony of Scripture, that our first fathers lived considerably longer, than any of their posterity have done since; but, according to this hypothesis, (which depresses the lives of the antediluvians, not only below those who lived next the flood, but even below all following generations to this day,) Methuselah, who was always accounted the oldest man since the creation, did but reach to the age of seventy-five, and Abraham, who is said to have died in a good old age, was not completely fifteen. The patrons of this opinion therefore would do well to tell us, when we are to break off this account of lunar years in the sacred history. If they will have it extended no farther than the flood, they make the postdiluvian fathers longer-lived than the antediluvian, but will be puzzled to assign a reason, why the deluge should occasion longevity. If they will extend it to the postdiluvians likewise, they will then be entangled in worse difficulties; for they will make their lives miserably short, and their age of getting children altogether incongruous and impossible. From the whole, therefore, we may conclude, that the years whereby Moses reckons the lives of the antediluvians, were solar years, much of the same length with what we now use; and that therefore there must be a reason, either in their manner of life, their bodily con a Manetho, who wrote the story of the Egyptians; Berosus, who wrote the Chaldean history; those authors, who give us an account of the Phoenician antiquities; and among the Greeks, Hesiodus, Hecateus, Hellanicus, Ephorus, &c., do unanimously agree, that in the first ages of the world, men lived 1000 years. -Burnet's Theory, b. 2. c. 4. Others therefore have thought, that the long lives of the men of the old world proceeded from the strength of their stamina, or first principles of their bodily constitution; which, if they were equally strong in us, would maintain us, as they think, in being, as long; but though it be granted, that both the strength and stature of their bodies were greater than ours, and that a race of strong men, living long in health, will have children of a proportionably strong constitution; yet, that this was not the sole and adequate cause of their longevity, we have one plain instance to convince us, namely, that Shem, who was born before the deluge, and had in his body all the virtue of an antediluvian constitution, fell 300 years short of the age of his forefathers, because the greatest part of his life was passed after the flood. The ingenious theorist whom I have quoted, for this reason, imagines, that before the flood, the situation of the earth to the sun was direct and perpendicular, and not, as it is now, inclined and oblique. From this position he infers, that there was a perpetual equinox all the earth over, and one continued spring; and thence con cludes, that the equality of the air, and stability of the seasons were the true causes of the then longevity; whereas the change, and obliquity of the earth's posture, occasioned by the deluge, altered the form of the year, and brought in an inequality of seasons, which caused a sensible decay in nature, and a gradual contraction in human life. 'Burnet's Theory of the Earth, b. 2. c. 4. This is a perfectly groundless fancy warranted neither by Scripture nor by philosophy. "At the creation, the two great lights, the sun and the moon, were ordained, among other uses, to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years, Gen. i. 14. But seasons and years are produced by this obliquity. If, then, seasons and years existed before the deluge, so must the obliquity. But that they did, is evident from the history; for the duration of time, from the creation to the deluge, is measured by the years of the generations of the patriarchs from Adam to Noah, Gen. v. And when God promised Noah, that while the earth remained, seedtime and harvest, or (spring and autumn), cold and heat, or (winter and summer), and day and night should not cease,' plainly signifying, that the world should go on after the deluge |