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CHAP. IX.

having its commencement 532 years, or one PART II. entire. Victorian, or Dionysian, cycle, before time actually did commence, has been substituted; by which means, our retrospective view of that admirable system is, by man's artifice, contrived to terminate in obscurity and nothing. A distinct apprehension of that system, demands a distinct perception of its first procession and succeeding progress; but, by fixing that first procession by a rule of hypothesis, and not of reality, we adapt historical facts to an imaginary and not to a true scale of time. Such is the celebrated JULIAN PERIOD, invented by the learned Julius Scaliger in the sixteenth century; which was presently adopted by all the learned world, and still remains the most general scale to which the events of ancient history are referred. That eminent scholar conceived the idea, of multiplying into each other the numbers, of the solar cycle, 28; of the lunar cycle, 19; and of the indiction, 15; which yielded him the number, 7980. Of this number, he made a scale of years; fixing the year of the Creation, to the year 533 of his scale. It is manifest, therefore, that the 532 years preceding the year assigned -to the creation, are mere arithmetical fictions; having no more relation to reality than the chaotic ages, or epochas of Nature, of the mineral

CHAP. IX.

PART II. geology. The mind, thus habituated to refer the course of time to an origin which has no reference to historical fact, but merely to the first term of an artificial arithmetical calculation, views it falsely in principle, and without any character of its true nature. Instead of tracing it to its real commencement, and perceiving both time and history to proceed from thence in parallel and equal courses, and with exact and perpetual correspondence between all their parts, it is taught to leave history and creation behind, and to fix its view upon an imaginary point in unreality and non-existence. And from thus considering time without any real origin, a notion of obscurity is necessarily excited, and combined with the notion of past time; and thus, man's artifice defeats the gracious purpose of God, which was, to impart to him a distinct and clear idea of the origin and progress of time.

To recover the benefit thus wantonly lost, was the object of the meritorious labours of a learned German of the middle of the last century; who was justly sensible, both of the evil of the prevailing system, and of the value of that which was so inconsiderately neglected. In introducing his new scheme, he thus expressed himself: "Many, and almost innumerable, systems of

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CHAP. IX.

chronology are before the learned world, of PART II. "which, if we may venture to speak the truth, "not one has hitherto been proposed which is "free from doubt and uncertainty; the reason "of which is the want of a fundamental chrono"logy, in which the first year of the world and "all the succeeding years might be accu"rately described according to the courses "of the sun and moon. This, Scaliger in"tended to effect by means of the Julian "Period. But, since that period does not begin with the creation of the world, but very long before it ; since it does not consist of complete solar years, but merely of Julian years; and since it is not historical, but merely hypothetical; it is evident, that it cannot serve "for a basis of chronology. In this uncertainty," "I perceived the means of obtaining a true "fundamental chronology in the golden period "of the Jubilee, which God Himself has shown us in the sacred Scripture. However surprising this may appear, it will nevertheless "be clearly demonstrated, in the following pages; that this period begins with the first year of the world; that it proceeds equally by the courses of the sun and moon; and, "that, by means of epacts which it most accurately describes, it indicates the new "and full moons through all the ages of the

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PART II.

CHAP. IX.

world, and therefore constitutes a foundation "for universal chronology'."

Without inquiring into the success of this learned writer's important undertaking, it is quite evident; that, whether our intellectual efforts are or are not able to discover the relations of past events with those distinct characters of time, yet time itself has ever proceeded with those distinct characters, and in the constant order here described by the learned and laborious German..

1 " PRÆLUSIO CHRONOLOGIE FUNDAMENTALIS, qua 66 omnes anni ad solis et lunæ cursum accuratè describi, et "novilunia à primordio mundi ad nostra usque tempora et "amplius ope epactarum designari possunt: in CYCLO IOBELEO "BIBLICO detecta, et ad Chronologiam tam Sacram quam "Profanam applicatæ," à IOHANNE GEORGIO FRANK, &C. Goettinga, 1774.

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CHAPTER X.

CHAP. X.

LET us now review this "revealed history of the PART II. creation," to which Bacon introduced us, with relation to the mode of first formations; by the standard of Newton's conclusions on the one hand, and by the conclusions of the mineral geology on the other.

This history records; 1. That all the first formations of mineral, vegetable, and animal matter, were severally effected, in order of succession, by a mode uninvestigable by any scheme or science of man, namely, the mode of CREATION by GOD. 2. That each of those operations was immediate; the formations resulting in their full perfection, without any instrumental mediation, from the actual exercise of the divine wisdom, will, and power. 3. That although the Divine Intelligence thought fit to create and set in order His first formations in successive moments of time, yet He produced them without any agency of time. 4. That, by His Almighty Fiat," He caused the first formations, and disposition, of all the mineral matter of this globe, in one immediate simultaneous

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