time of Arphaxad's birth, unavoidably antedates the Exodus, the foundation of the temple, and all the intermediate events, by two years.

2. Age of Ishmael when caft out.

USHER, adopting implicitly the opinion of St. Je. rome, that Ishmael was 18 years old when ejected, with his mother, from Abraham's family, perplexes the chronology and hiftory of the fojourning in Canaan and Egypt. His age, at the birth of Ifaac, was 14 years*.

3. Age of Ifaac at the Death of Sarah.

THE Primate, misled by the Authority of Jofephus †, again deviates from the Mofaical chronology, by referring the transactions on Moriah to the 25th of Ifaac's age. He was born in the goth of his Mother's life. She died at the age of 127. Both hiftorians (Mofes and Jofephus) connect the return of Abraham and Ifaac from the altar, with the time of Sarah's death. Jofephus, in particular, emphatically remarks, "Sarah died after a fhort interval;" whence it is reafonably inferred, that Ifaac's age was then 37. By a decifive notation of time, in both the hiftorians, this arrangement is authenticated; "Ifaac was 40 years old when he took Rebecca to wife." Mofes adds another circumftance, ftill more determinate; "Ifaac brought her [Rebecca] into his mother Sarah's tent,

*Compare Gen. xvi. 16. with ch. xvii. 24. and with ch. xxi. 5. † Ant. I. 13. 1. Gen. xxii.

and

and was comforted after his mother's death." By retaining a pious remembrance of an endeared parent, not without a mixture of grief, during the space of three years, Ifaac exhibited an amiable fpecimen of filial regard. But the fuppofition, that such grief was prolonged 15 full years, violates probability.

"ON the day that Isaac was weaned Abraham made a great feaft; and Sarah faw the son of Hagar mocking. Wherefore she said unto Abraham, caft out this bondwoman and her fon.-Abraham fent her and the child away." By what rule of interpretation is that weaning feaft deferred to the fourth of Ifaac's life, and the expulfion of Ifhmael to his 18th year? From no character of time, expreffed in the hiftory, does it seem probable, that thefe incidents were fubfequent to the first year of Ifaac's age. Jofephus very properly obferves this connection. "When Sarah had born Ifaac, fhe was unwilling that Ifhmael fhould be brought up with him, and perfuaded Abraham to fend him and his mother to a distant country *.

BUT to reconcile the whole period of fojourning, 430, with the 400, (that part of it mentioned Gen. xv. 13.) Bedford, Kennedy, and others, date the commencement of the lefs number from the fifth of Ifaac, with which they connect the weaning feaft, (exactly 400 years before the Exodus). For want of hiftorical evidence, this poftulate, as at variance with probability, has been rejected. From the fame term, the fifth of Ifaac, are computed the 400 years of

affliction *, and the mocking of Ifaac by Ishmael is specified, by Usher, Bedford, Kennedy, &c. as the first act of persecution. This glofs is, in all its parts, equivocal, and inappofite. For, the text to which they refer implies, that Abraham's feed fhould fojourn in a land, not their own, 400 years. It is not affirmed that they fhould, all that time, be in bondage and affliction. Ifaac, the father of that feed, could not be a ftranger, in a land not his own, before his birth, in the 25th year from the entrance of Abraham into Canaan. Hence to the egrefs the interval is 405. In the prophecy the round number is expreffed, and the odd years omitted. It was not necessary that the fum fhould have been defined with more precifion. This folution by St. Auftin the Primate mentions without approbation. But it is much lefs exceptionable than the hypothefis, that Sarah, from the age of ninety, fuckled Ifaac five years.

4. Genealogies from Jacob.

IN this, as in the fubfequent ages, the Annals exemplify many inftances of their author's negligence, want of fkill, and fallacious conclufions, in the article of genealogy. Thofe beyond the limits of this period are reserved for their proper dates.

FROM the birth of Jacob, progreffively, the order of fucceffion is not fpecified by the years of the fathers at the birth of their fons; and henceforth the greatest perplexities, in adjufling hiftory to the course of nature,

Ger. xv. 13.

occur,

occur. The Archbishop rightly computes this patriarch's marriage with Laban's two daughters from his 77th year; and, from the fame term, his 14 years of flipulated fervice. The pedigree is continued in the line of Judah, his fourth fon by Leah, who could not be born before the 81ft year of his father. The father's age, when he ftood before Pharaoh, was 130; and 130-8149. This remainder is the age of Judah in the fecond year of the famine. The time of his marriage with Shuah of Canaan, though involved in artful uncertainty by the fubtilty of chronologers, is determined by infallible notations in the facred hiftory, without the aid of imaginary transpositions.

THE 130th year of Jacob was the 39th of Jofeph. Jofeph's age, when fold into Egypt, was 17, and Judah's 27. "At that time Judah went down from

his brethren, and turned in to a certain Adullamite." There and then he took Shuah to be his wife, by whom, at diftinct births, he had two fons. and each, at the age of puberty,

Both in fucceffion,

married the fame

woman; but both being fuddenly cut off by the hand of heaven, died childlefs. Suppose the elder brother to have married at the age of 16, and to have died before the expiration of one year, the computation is brought down to the 43d of Judah's life. After the decease of the younger, the widow must have tarried a competent time, before she could reasonably suspect Judah's intention to retract his promise of his only remaining fon for her third hufband. Sufpicion, at laft, growing up into defpair, fhe tried the arts of guile, and fatally

fucceeded.

fucceeded. "Judah begat Pharez and Zara of Thamar." Incongruous it is to imagine, that these twins were born before the 48th year of Judah. Yet, in the next year after, Pharez, with his two fons Hezron and Hamul, accompanied Jacob into Egypt. Here is a phyfical impoffibility! Easy it is to establish the veracity of the facred hiftorian. But it is firft requifite to exhibit the feeble, elufive, and contradictory, arguments urged by the Metropolitan, for adjusting this section of the hiftory to the courfe of nature.

In his Treatife of Sacred Chronology*, he affumes the poftulate, that Judah at the age of 16, in the year of Jacob's return from Syria, married Shuah. This fundamental pofition, as repugnant to the teftimony of fcripture, which connects the time of this marriage with the year when Jofeph was fold into Egypt, is inadmiffible. He proceeds, " In the three fucceffive years, Judah became the father of as many fons, at the age of 19," (as by him computed). "Er, the first born, having entered his 15th year, married Thamar; and Onan, the fecond, at the fame age, efpoufed his brother's widow the year after. At the expiration of two years more, and 15 before the descent into Egypt, were born the twin brothers, Pharez and Zara. Thus about the beginning of that year which brought Jacob with his family into Egypt, might Hezron be born, and before its termination, Hamul; or, if they likewife were twins, the nativity of both may be referred to the end of that year." The Moft Reverend Primate expreffes his

* Part I. c. 10.

perfuafion,