descended, and his three immediate descendants, who lived before the apostasy. We behold the chain of prophets unbroken, and a natural agency for the bringing up of Abraham in the true faith, amongst a nation and family of idolaters (Josh. xxiv. 2). For, according to the Hebrew text, the deaths of the four ancient patriarchs stood as follows: That of Arphaxad in the 88th year of Abraham, thirteen years after the call; that of Salah in the 18th year of Isaac's life; of Shem, in the 50th of Isaac; and of Eber, in the 19th of Jacob, four years after the death of Abraham. If, on the other hand, we adhere to the Samaritan and Greek, all those personages died many centuries before, and for the most part, if not all, previous to the dispersion and apostasy (see the Table); thus breaking the chain of inspired persons, leaving their long residues unexplained, and destroying one of the most exquisitely beautiful features in the history of the Noachic and Abrahamic churches.

In further confirmation of these views, a powerful argument may be adduced from the appellative," Hebrew," applied to the people and language of Israel. We find the term first used in Gen. xiv. 13, where Abraham is denominated "the Hebrew;"a term which some learned men derive from the name of Eber, his sixth ancestor in ascent; while the majority, seeing no reason why Eber, rather than any of the intervening patriarchs, should have the distinction of giving his name to the posterity of Abraham, derive it from the Hebrew root y aber, "to pass over," because Abraham passed over the river Euphrates to come into the land of Canaan*. At first sight, it would certainly seem that Peleg, the head of the family of the dispersion from which Abraham was descended, had a better claim to have his name perpetuated in the house of that patriarch, than his father Eber, who was the head of a distinct family; and that some other derivation of the name "Hebrew" should be resorted to. I think, however, that Gen. x. 21 is conclusive for the derivation from Eber; for Shem is there styled "the father of all the children of Eber," plainly in reference to the chosen line of Israel, in which alone, of all the descendants of Isaac, of Abraham, of Terah, and of Eber, the name was perpetuated -a derivation, if it can be historically accounted for and explained, infinitely more conclusive than any critical etymology.

This last-mentioned etymology and explanation are adopted by Mr. Horne (Introduction, vol. ii. pp. 1, 2). Mr. Bellamy, who, in his "History of all Religions," adopts the same etymology, has applied it in a very beautiful and comprehensive manner; namely, with prospective reference to the Jewish Passover, and ultimately to "Our Passover," whereby God's promise to Abraham was fulfilled. This explanation is so satisfactory, that I think it may well be received, conjointly with the historical etymology, which the inspired record does not permit us to dispense with.

Here again the Hebrew account of time assists us: for we find that Shem and Eber survived the longest of any of the ancient patriarchs; the former to the fiftieth year of Isaac, and the latter to the nineteenth of Jacob, as above. But Eber was the youngest of the four ancient patriarchs, and, after the death of Terah and the vocation of Abraham, the next ancestor of the great patriarch, then in being the house of Abraham were therefore in reality "the children of Eber," according to the literal language of Scripture and the system of the sacred genealogies. And hence Abraham is properly styled "the Hebrew," in Gen. xiv. hence also Shem, who was still alive, became the immediate "father of all the children of Eber," his third descendant*: and when we reflect that these ancient patriarchs formed the link which connected the Noachic and Abrahamic churches, and that Jehovah is called "the God of Shem" (Gen. ix. 26), "the God of Abraham," "the God of Isaac," and "the God of Jacob," the sacred and historical connection is drawn still closer+.

:

If, on the other hand, we adopt any of the protracted systems, we shall find that Shem and Eber died centuries before the house of Abraham had existence, and therefore, that the etymology of the name "Hebrew," and the appellative of Shem, set forth in Gen. x. 21, bear no relation to sacred history; while the Hebrew text is in these instances, as in all others, consistent with itself and with the whole tenor of the patriarchal annals.

There is a circumstance detailed in Gen. xlvii. 8, 9, which forcibly bears on the co-existence of the ancient patriarchs with the house of Abraham: "And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not

* According to the Hebrew, Arphaxad died in the 88th year of Abraham, Salah in the 118th, Shem in the 150th, while Eber survived Abraham four years. It follows, that, as Eber was the geneological father, so Shem became the geneological grandfather of Abraham, during the thirty-two years which Shem survived Arphaxad and Salah.

am here beholden to the same learned friend who directed my attention to the Heathen traditions of the wanderings of Noah, for an important illustration of the present subject. It is contained in a passage preserved from Molo, in the tenth book of Eusebius, de Pr. Evang.; which runs, that "after three generations from the person who was saved in the Deluge Abraham was born"- μετα τρεις γενεάς ̓Αβρααμ γενεσθαι. This record is in strict harmony with the present result of the Hebrew numbers-Noah, Shem, Eber, Abraham; but has no bearing upon the patriarch's natural descent, his generation being the tenth from Noah.

The certainty that a more ancient and a superior order of priesthood did exist in Melchizedek, king of Salem, to whom Abraham paid tithes-whoever Melchizedek was-ought to satisfy us that the church on earth was always maintained by a succession of holy persons; and that the connection between the Noachic and Abrahamic churches was complete and unbroken, as the Hebrew system

attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage."

Here, I think, it is plain that Jacob's allusion to the longevity of his fathers cannot refer to the lives of his immediate ancestors, Abraham and Isaac, which were not widely different from his own; neither to remote ancestors, whose lives but little exceeded those of Abraham and Isaac, and who died before, or during the period of the dispersion of nations and settlement of states and kingdoms. But when we reflect that the long-lived patriarchs, Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, and Eber, were the contemporaries of Abraham and Isaac, and Eber the contemporary of Jacob himself, the difficulty vanishes. Thus does the Hebrew system alone answer every condition to be found in patriarchal history.

From Jacob's communication to Pharaoh I also collect that the long lives of the priestly line of Shem were not common to the Egyptians and the rest of the world, and were common to that branch of Shem's posterity only from whence the house of Abraham descended. This, I think, further evinces that these lives had reference exclusively to the economy of God's church, and by no means to the natural economy of the universe, as the defenders of the Seventy infer. Further: ample proof has been already adduced to shew that the generations and lives of the house of Israel, during their sojourn in Egypt, were like those of other men in every age, with the exception only that the ravages of disease and death were withheld in an extraordinary degree from the chosen line during that interval (Exod. i. 19; Ps. cv. 37). As, however, the generations of the chosen race of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were protracted in an extraordinary manner, and against the course of nature, we find the same principle was continued in the priestly house of Levi, through Kohath and Amram, to Aaron and Moses; as well as in the favoured house of Judah, through Pharez, Hezron, Aram, and Amminadab, to Naashon, the prince of the tribe of Judah at the time of the exode; and further, through Salmon, Boaz, Obed, and Jesse, to David, when the nation and polity of the Israelities assumed a settled form. We again recognise lives much longer than the course of nature in the times of the captivity; as in the cases of Ezra, of Nehemiah, and of the priests who returned from Babylon*; in which I think the Divine economy for the more secure transmission of religion and truth is very apparent: while, reverting from these instances to the patriarchal ages, viewed through the medium of the Hebrew chronology, the prevalence of the very same economy may be recognised throughout every age of the patriarchal and Mosaic churches.

*See Newton's Chron. edit. 1728, pp. 358-360, 368. Ezra lived at least 150 years, and Nehemiah and many of the priests 120.

It remains to notice Mr. Yeates's objection, that it is inconsistent with the Divine economy to suppose that during the life of Shem, "the Blessed of the Lord," Abraham should have been preferred, and God's covenant made with him in preference to his great ancestor. In reply to this it seems only necessary to remark, that the covenant was made with the seed of Shem, in conformity with the blessing of Noah (Gen. ix. 26); and that, had the covenant been made directly with Shem himself, it must have been with a prospective reference to Abraham, the youngest patriarch of the chosen line then alive: in which case it would assuredly have been confirmed with Abraham; as was afterwards the case with Isaac and with Jacob in Abraham's life-time, neither of them being, however, as yet in existence at the date of the covenant with Abraham. We may therefore, I think, either view a covenant with Shem, when Abraham was in being, as superfluous, or view that with Abraham as the renewal or confirmation of a previous covenant with his great ancestor, as those with Isaac and Jacob were renewals of that with Abraham. It follows, that any objection on this ground to the co-existence of Shem and Abraham falls to the ground.

The last point of difference in the Patriarchal Table is the generation of the postdiluvian Cainan, which appears between Arphaxad and Salah in the Alexandrine and Syncelline copies of the Seventy, but is absent from the Eusebian and Vatican, as well as from the copy of Josephus, the Samaritan and Hebrew texts, and all the versions and copies of the latter. As, however, this Cainan appears in the genealogy of St. Luke's Gospel in all the existing copies, the Cambridge manuscript or codex of Beza excepted, Mr. Cuninghame uses this as an argument "for rejecting the Hebrew postdiluvian chronology, and receiving the Greek. "I am not ignorant," says he, "that Dr. Hales, and other learned men who reject the Hebrew chronology, do yet agree with it in excluding the generation of Cainan; but if St. Luke's Gospel is a part of the inspired word of God, all their arguments cannot impugn the authority of this Evangelist."

Now, I cannot help thinking that Mr. Cuninghame should have sought to confute the arguments opposed to his opinion, rather than have identified the Evangelist's claim to inspiration with a reading depending for its genuineness on the honesty or correctness of transcribers, and, to say the best of it, of very doubtful authority. As this is a question of a very important nature, inasmuch as it affects the integrity of the Hebrew text, which we have seen rises triumphant over all the other objections advanced by Mr. Cuninghame, I will endeavour to state its merits, that the reader may judge whether the impugners of the original text have any strong-hold remaining on the ground of internal evidence.

That the postdiluvian Cainan is as old as the Seventy interpreters, I have already fully admitted in my former papers. The testimony of Demetrius to the originality of the patriarchal generations of the Alexandrine codex, already adverted to, affords ample proof of this, so far as the Seventy are concerned. When to this testimony we add that of all the existing manuscripts of St. Luke's Gospel, the Codex Bezæ or Cambridge manuscript excepted, the case in favour of the postdiluvian Cainan is made out on the strongest evidence of which it is susceptible.

If, on the other hand, we examine the strong-hold of the advocates of the Greek numbers-namely, their unanimous adoption by both Jewish and Christian chronologers during the first four centuries of Christianity, until the publication of the "Vulgate" by Jerome (i. e. by Josephus, Theophilus, Clemens, Julius Africanus, Eusebius, &c.)-we shall find that not one of these writers recognised the generation in question in their accounts of time, although all were zealous in their endeavours to raise the sacred antiquities, in opposition to their heathen antagonists. It follows, on their own shewing, that, to be consistent, those who receive the Greek reckoning ought to reject the second Cainan, particularly if they pay any regard to the opinion of the church.

But the proofs on this head are not confined to chronographers. Philo Judæus, who wrote at the time of the Christian æra, does not recognise Cainan. He does not appear in the Targum of Onkelos, which follows the Hebrew numbers, and which the best critics refer to the early part of the first century; nor in the ancient Syriac version of the Pentateuch, which, there is little doubt, is as old as the beginning of the second century. He was not in Irenæus's copy of Luke's Gospel in the second century, nor in that of Julius Africanus in the beginning of the third; neither did Origen recognise this generation, nor admit it into his Hexaplar copy of the Seventy; nor Epiphanius, nor Jerome in the Vulgate translation from the Hebrew. The second Cainan is, moreover, absent from the Vatican codex of the Seventy, as is evident by his non-appearance in 1 Chron. i. 18 of that copy, of which the early chapters of Genesis are obliterated. It is true, that Bishop Walton has Cainan in his edition of the Vatican but he is absent from the first edition by Cardinal Carafa, from whence Walton's is taken; and Carafa is understood to have supplied the wanting parts of Genesis from other manuscripts, that agreed with the Roman codex throughout*. The century by which that copy exceeds the Alexandrine in the generation of Nahor, seems to stand in the place of Cainan's generation, and, according to the astronomical data in my former papers, the generations of the Codex Vaticanus come

* Horne, vol. II. part I. c. v. sect. i.