saic law; and the proof of the position is found in the circumstance, that the promise was made to Abraham and to his seed as to one, not to his seeds or posterity generally, as to many; (so the Jews interpret it ;) the one man, thus designated, being Christ. It follows, therefore, that it was to Christ in Abraham, and not to Abraham in person, that the promise, in its ultimate interpretation, was made. But, according to the Scripture doctrine of paternity, Christ was in Isaac, and Christ was in Jacob, quite as much as in Abraham. (See Hebrews vii. 9, 10.) It is therefore of no importance to which of the representatives and heads of the family of Abraham the promise is repeated. The same God speaks in it of the same Christ, and as long as the promise is repeated, so long the dispensation of the promise lasts. But in the passage before us, God orally declared the Abrahamic promise for the last time. It was never afterwards repeated to the chosen race by this mode of revelation. It is moreover wonderfully remarkable, that this last repetition took place on the last night of the sojourn of the Patriarchs in Canaan. On the day following the tribe of Israel crossed the borders of Egypt. We find, therefore, with admiration, but without surprise, that in this "covenant, well ordered in all things," the dispensation of the promise, (that is, of the divine utterance of the promise) which

began with the call of Abram into Canaan, from Ur of the Chaldees, terminated on the last night of the sojourn in Canaan of Isaac his grandson.

Upon this view of the subject, another conclusion follows inevitably. It is from the end and not from the beginning of this dispensation of the promise that the interval between it and the law must be computed. To assume that in the passage we have quoted from the Galatians, St. Paul speaks only of the first enunciation of the promise to Abram is to ignore altogether the frequent subsequent repetitions of the same promise to himself and to Jacob. Whereas the entire argument of the apostle goes to show that God and his Christ were the only parties to the promise at any time, and consequently, that all the repetitions of the promise were of exactly the same value, inasmuch as they were all made by the same God of the same Christ. The four hundred and thirty years therefore mentioned by St. Paul, as the interval between the Abrahamic promise and the Mosaic law, dates from the last repetition of that promise to Jacob at Beer-sheba on the last night of his sojourn in the land of Canaan. This is very evident. Let us now turn to other passages of Holy Writ which mention the same interval.

"Now the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty

years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the self-same day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt." Exodus xii. 10, 11.

It is not possible for language to be more explicit than this. The passage is found at the termination of the history of the bondage in Egypt; the duration of the sojourn of Israel there is a natural conclusion of the narrative. We are well aware of the interpolation which this text has suffered in the Samaritan Pentateuch, and some other authorities of the third and fourth centuries before the vulgar era, and whereby it is made to read “the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Canaan and in Egypt, &c." This gloss we apprehend, convicts itself of forgery, by the circumstance that it converts the passage into arrant nonsense. The natural termination of the history in the sojourn in Egypt, is the duration of that sojourn as we have already explained :-but thus interpolated, the passage does not give the duration of that sojourn at all; but the chronology of another event, altogether foreign and irrelevant to the matter in hand.

When we add to these that no copy of the Hebrew original has this reading, and that, as Bunsen has well observed, the very nature of the addition excites a strong suspicion of its falsehood, there is no occasion to detain the reader further with the well

known motives of the interpolators. Enough has been advanced to establish the truth of the Hebrew reading. It is only the adoption of the gloss by many otherwise high authorities on Biblical criticism, which has rendered needful that which we have said upon it.

If the Bible is to decide this question, and not man's chronological and statistical speculations, the enquiry is at an end. This period of 400 years was distinctly prophesied to Abram, almost at the commencement of his sojourn in Canaan, Gen. xv. 13. The same period is also formally repeated in the inspired adoption of this prophecy by Stephen, Acts vii. 6, as well as by St. Paul in the passage already quoted from Galatians.

Thus clearly is it revealed in the word of God, that the children of Israel sojourned in Egypt for exactly four hundred and thirty years, and because it is thus revealed, and for no other reason, we at once assume it, and take our stand upon it boldly and decidedly. If it be objected to us, that by doing this we shall presently involve ourselves in inextricable difficulties, we reply, that we shall not for that reason tamper with the truth of God. We receive this fact as He has revealed it. We shall proceed, step by step, through the whole subject; and when the threatened difficulties arise, we will endeavour to deal with them. A tangible and pre

cise fact like this, moreover, of times so remote from history is far too precious to be allowed to pass away before the chronological chimera of this critic, or the statistical spectre of that philosopher. We repeat that which we have already said before, that the writings of believers in revelation are the armoury whence its infidel assailants have drawn their deadliest weapons.

"And Jacob broke up [his encampment] at Beersheba and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the waggons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him," Gen. xlvi. 5.

meant

The word here translated "waggon," originally, " young bullock," which being the universal beast of burden in the ancient world, afterwards gave its name to the vehicle to which it was yoked. The subject of draught-oxen is very common in the reliefs of Egypt, but the carriages are not on wheels, but on runners.

It was in such carriages, drawn by oxen, that the household stuff of the patriarchs was conveyed into