FROM THE SACRED SCRIPTURES BY REVELATION TO MAN Magnum et Sanctum Verbum Dei BY ADMIRAL J. H. SELWYN Foundation Member of the Victoria Institute, London, PREFACE. BECAUSE, in these latter days, many, and those educated men have attempted, and are attempting, to decry Holy Scripture, and the Word of God, substituting therefor their own vain imaginings, both as to the Creation of the world and its inhabitants, and as to the relation of man to his Maker, it has become necessary that the sources of such mistaken ideas should be closely looked into, and, as far as possible, eliminated from the pure current of Truth. The most fertile source of error is undoubtedly a corrupted chronology, and the object of this work is primarily to correct and bring into strict and arithmetical accordance all corrupted dates, and secondly, by means of the corrected dates, to arrive at uncorrupted statements of events. The time over which the work to be done extends, is more than five thousand eight hundred years, and, if perfection is to be attained, involves the necessity of being able to start from the Creation and the Nativity simultaneously, meeting accurately at any predetermined date in the whole history. To most historians this would perhaps seem a colossal task if not a Utopian demand, but a little consideration will show that it may be readily secured in Biblical Chronology by the fact, that if the date iv Nativity be clearly proved, that of the Creation of Man is necessarily described by the same figures B.C. Therefore the readers of this work will not be at all surprised to find that much attention has been given to the establishment of the date 3958 as that of the birth of our Saviour, beyond the reach of doubt, from the Scripture first, and next by monumental evidence (easily available in the two great Protestant countries, Britain and the United States), agreeing with and confirming, the classical chronology. The Tables which are spread through the work give repeated synopses of the matter contained, and form an amply sufficient index for all those who have already acquired a thorough knowledge of the Scripture as it now exists. For those who have not yet done so, it is hoped that the tables will prove a summary of events, sufficiently easy to be memorized; but the work could not be made more full of indexes and references, without losing its essential feature of portability, for most of those to whom it has a special value, such as pastors and teachers as well as students. The case of Shamgar, the son of Anath, calls perhaps for some explanation. To him five years of rule have been assigned as most probable, for one year, neither accords with his killing of six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad, which could certainly not have been done in a short time, or openly, nor with Judges v. 6. Nor could the total of the Judges' rule have otherwise been brought into perfect harmony with the deaths of Eli, Samuel, and Saul, the dates of which are well fixed inferentially from the established occurrences which precede and Were we to take the whole term of six thousand years from the Creation to the Millennium, it would be quite easy to divide it into twelve epochs of five hundred years each, but we should not, by so doing, succeed in making the termination of each, coincident with any great event to which an absolute date could be attached. Therefore the prominent events, though less symmetrical, will form the most natural division of the work. The digressions, otherwise perhaps tedious, mark the lessons inculcated by the events of each epoch, and be come more and more necessary as we approach the last centenary of the six thousand years allotted to man's work on earth. With the last thousand years the Millennium begins as an entirely new dispensation, the elimination of all error, and the prevalence of truth, in the Empire of Christ upon and over all nations. For He must reign until all things are put under His feet. The letters A. M. represent "Anno Mundi,” or Year of the World. The letters B. C. represent the words " Before Christ. The letters A. D. represent the words “ Domini," or Year of the Lord. The letters A.U.C. represent Annc Anno Urbe Condita," or Year of the building of Rome. |