CHAP. 1.] THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD.

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truth herein, yet the text speaking obscurely or dubiously, there is ofttimes no slender difficulty at what point to begin or terminate the account. So when it is said, Exod. xii., the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was 430 years, it cannot be taken strictly, and from their first arrival into Egypt, for their habitation in that land was far by any but a madman, I aske againe did Christe suffer for Judæa only, or for the whole world? least of all for Judæa, which for his unjust death was exterminate and continues accursed. Soe that henceforth wee shall need no synechdoche to make good the prophetick speech of him that could not lie: who sayde, sic erit Filius hominis in corde terræ tribus diebus et tribus noctibus: and this was truly fulfilled usque ad momenta, and therefore I dare believe it, and noe Jew or Turk can contradict itt. (Hee that made the several natures of day and night in this sense; sayd hee would lye in the grave 3 of these dayes and 3 nights.)-Wr.

This is ingenious, and to its author it seems abundantly satisfactory, proceeding on the hypothesis that as our Lord suffered for the whole world, the duration of his suffering must be understood with reference to the whole earth. The Dean adds to the two nights and one day which elapsed in Palestine, the corresponding two days and one night, which elapsed at the antipodes of Judea. But this is liable to objection. It is just as truly synechdochical as the interpretation of Sir Thomas :— only that it takes two points on the earth's surface instead of one for the whole. Besides the ingenuity is needless. The Jews were in the habit of speaking synechdochically in that very respect that they speak of each part of a day and night (or of 24 hours) as a day and night—vúk☺ŋμɛpa. So that if Jonah was in the deep during less than 48 hours, provided that period comprised, in addition to one entire 24 hours, a portion of the preceding and of the following 24 hours, then the Jews would say that he had been in the deep 3 day-nights or 3 days and 3 nights. As if we should say of a person who had left home on Friday afternoon and returned on Sunday morning, that he was from home Friday, Saturday, and Sunday-this might be thought to imply considerable portions of the day of Friday and of Sunday-but certainly it would not be necessary to the accuracy of such a report that he should have started immediately after midnight of Thursday, and returned at the same hour on Sunday. And yet he would otherwise not have been from home on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday-but only during parts of those days. With the Jews common parlance would only require that our Redeemer should have been in the heart of the earth, from the eve of the (Jewish) sabbath, however late, to the morning of the first day, however early, in order to justify the terms in which they would universally have spoken of the duration of his abode there-as comprising three days and three nights. We may observe too, that three days are uniformly spoken of as the time of our Lord's abode in the grave, whether it is spoken of typically or literally. Thus he says of himself, "I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I am perfected."

less; but the account must begin from the covenant of God with Abraham, and must also comprehend their sojourn in the land of Canaan, according as is expressed Gal. iii., "The covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which was 430 years after cannot disannul." Thus hath it also happened in the account of the seventy years of their captivity, according to that of Jeremy, "This whole land shall be a desolation, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years."* Now where to begin or end this compute, ariseth no small difficulty; for there were three remarkable captivities and deportations of the Jews. The first was in the third or fourth year of Joachim, and first of Nabuchodonozor, when Daniel was carried away; the second in the reign of Jeconiah, and the eighth year of the same king; the third and most deplorable in the reign of Zedechias, and in the nineteenth year of Nabuchodonozor, whereat both the temple and city were burned. Now such is the different conceit of these times, that men have computed from all; but the probablest account and most concordant unto the intention of Jeremy is from the first of Nabuchodonozor unto the first of King Cyrus over Babylon; although the prophet Zachary accounteth from the last. "O Lord of hosts, how long! wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years ?"+ for he maketh this expostulation in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, wherein he prophesied, which is about eighteen years in account after the other.

Thus also although there be a certain truth therein, yet is there no easy doubt concerning the seventy weeks, or seventy times seven years of Daniel; whether they have reference unto the nativity or passion2 of our Saviour, and

2 nativity or passion.] The learned thinke they have reference [that is of their determination] to neither of them. For most of the learned conceive, that those 70 weeks, or seven times seventy [viz. 490 years] ended with the destruction of the citye; which was 70 yeares after the nativitye, and 38 after the passion of Christe: and then 'twill bee noe hard matter to compute the pointe from whence those 490 yeares must bee supposed to begin: which wee shal find to bee in the 6th yeare of Darius Nothus; at what time the temple being finished by Artaxerxes commaund, formerly given Ao. Regni 20°. the commaund for the build

especially from whence or what point of time they are to be computed. For thus it is delivered by the angel Gabriel: Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people;" and again in the following verse: "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks, the street shall be built again, and the wall even in troublesome times; and after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off." Now the going out of the commandment, to build the city, being the point from whence to compute, there is no slender controversy when to begin. For there are no less than four several edicts to this effect, the one in the first year of Cyrus, the other in the second of Darius, the third and fourth in the seventh and in the twentieth of Artaxerxes Longimanus: although as Petavius accounteth, it best accordeth unto the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, from whence Nehemiah deriveth his commission. Now that computes are made uncertainly with reference unto Christ, it is no wonder, since I perceive the time of his nativity is in controversy, and no less his age at his passion. For Clemens and Tertullian conceive he suffered at thirty; but Irenæus

ing of Jerusalem also was given by this Darius Nothus, Ao. Mundi 3532, which agrees exactlye with Scaliger's irrefragable computation. But to see this difficult question fully decided, and in a few lines, I can give no such direction, as that which Gregorye hath lately given us in his excellent tract de Eris et Epochis, cap. xi. which was publisht this last year 1649, and is a work worthye of a diligent reader.-Wr.

On referring to Rev. T. H. Horne's analytical view of Daniel, I find the following brief summary of this period. Its commencement "is fixed (Dan. ix. 25) to the time when the order was issued for rebuilding the temple in the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes (Ezra vii. 11), seven weeks, or forty-nine years, was the temple in building (Dan. ix. 25); sixty-two weeks, or four hundred and thirty-four years more, bring us to the public manifestation of the Messiah, at the beginning of John the Baptist's preaching; and one prophetic week or seven years, added to this, will bring us to the time of our Saviour's passion, or the thirtythird year of the Christian æra,-in all 490 years."-Introduction, &c. vol. iv. p. 1, ch. vi. § 4.

3 Know, &c.] Dan. ix. 25.

4 the one in the first year, &c.] A.M. 3419; 3430; 3492; 3505.—Wr. These dates however differ from those assigned by the most eminent of our more recent chronologists.

a father nearer his time, is further off in his between forty and fifty.

Longomontanus, a late astronomer, endeav this secret from astronomical grounds, that i of the sun; conceiving the eccentricity inva apogeum yearly to move one scruple, two thirds, &c. Wherefore if in the time of H is, in the year of the Julian period 4557, it degree of Gemini, and in the days of Tycho in the year of our Lord 1588, or of the w same was removed unto the fifth degree of proportion of its motion, it was at the creat beginning of Aries, and the perigeum or ne Libra. But this conceit how ingenious or su not of satisfaction; it being not determinable in what time precisely the apogeum absolveth Petavius* hath also delivered.

Lastly, however these or other difficulties that we cannot satisfy ourselves in the exact co yet may we sit down with the common and nor are these differences derogatory unto the sion of Christ, unto which indeed they all do for the prophecies concerning our Saviour we delivered before that of Daniel; so was tha unto Eve in Paradise, that after of Balaam, t and the prophets, and that memorable one o sceptre shall not depart from Israel until Shilo time notwithstanding it did not define at all. therefore soever, either from the destruction from the re-edifying thereof, from the flood, creation, he appeared, certain it is, that in 1 time he came. When he therefore came, is no able as that he is come: in the one there is c the other no satisfaction. The greater query is, come again; and yet indeed it is no query at is never to be known, and therefore vainly end professed and authentick obscurity, unknown the omniscience of the Almighty. Certainly things are wrapt up in the hands of God, he tha

*De Doctrina Tempor um, 1. 4.

CHAP. II.] THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD.

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the knowledge thereof forgets his own beginning, and disclaims his principles of earth. No man knows the end of the world, nor assuredly of any thing in it: God sees it, because unto his eternity it is present; he knoweth the ends of us, but not of himself; and because he knows not this, he knoweth all things, and his knowledge is endless, even in the object of himself.

CHAPTER II.

Of Men's Enquiries in what season or point of the Zodiack it began, that, as they are generally made, they are in vain, and as particularly, uncertain.

CONCERNING the seasons, that is, the quarters of the year some are ready to enquire, others to determine, in what season, whether in the autumn, spring, winter, or summer, the world had its beginning. Wherein we affirm, that, as the question is generally and in respect of the whole earth proposed, it is with manifest injury unto reason in any particular determined; because whenever the world had its beginning it was created in all these four. For, as we have elsewhere delivered, whatsoever sign the sun possesseth (whose recess or vicinity defineth the quarters of the year) those four seasons were actually existent; it being the nature of that luminary to distinguish the several seasons of the year; all which it maketh at one time in the whole earth, and successively in any part thereof.4 Thus if we suppose the sun created in Libra, in which sign unto some it maketh autumn; at the same time it had been winter unto the northern pole, for unto them at that time the sun beginneth to be invisible, and to show itself again unto the pole of the south. Unto the position of a right sphere, or directly under the equator, it had been summer; for unto that situation the

thereof.] According as he makes his access too, or recess from the several [parts] of the earthe: now in that his accesse to the one is a recess from the other, it followes, that those from whom he partes have their autumne, those within the tropicks, over whose heads he passes, have their summer, and those on the other side beyond the tropicke towards whome hee goes have their new spring beginning in exchange of their former, causd by his absence.- Wr.