out thirty years older than the Alexandrine. May not the former have been the system of the five Elders spoken of in the Talmud *, and alleged to have preceded the version of the Seventy?

With regard to the existing manuscripts of St. Luke's Gospel, it will, I think, be found that the transcribers followed the opinions of the chronographers of their respective ages. The Codex Beza-the only one that omits Cainan--of however little critical authority it may be, is nevertheless an indisputable witness in point of antiquity; in which respect all critics agree that it is exceeded by no existing manuscript, and is probably the most ancient of all. This manuscript, in fact, as an original authority, follows next in chronological order to those of Irenæus and Julius Africanus, and obviously belongs to an age in which neither the church nor the chronographers recognised the postdiluvian Cainan; as, I doubt not, all the more recent manuscripts of Luke's Gospel are of dates when Cainan had been interpolated into the patriarchal chronology from the Alexandrine or Basilian copies of the Seventy by the Byzantine school of chronographers. It is a subject deserving the attention of critics, whether the manuscripts of St. Luke do not, in this respect, go with the sense of contemporary chronologists.

The Cainan of Luke iii. 36 may, however, be a repetition from verse 37; as Levi and Matthat of verse 24 are certainly repetitions from verse 29, if the ancient testimonies of Irenæus, Africanus, Augustin, and others, may be relied upon. On the other hand, if this Cainan was really in St. Luke's original manuscript, still his relationship with Salah is not defined, and the elliptical language of the original may be liable to explanation, as Matt. i. 6. Čainan and Salah may both have been sons of Arphaxad, and Salah might have married the widow of Cainan, and begat Eber. The one would then have had a legal‡ and the other a natural claim to a place in the genealogy, while Cainan would of necessity be excluded from the chronological generations. Such might, however, have been the basis on which the Seventy grounded their chronological interpolation, an interpolation opposed alike by the unanimous testimony of both Jewish and Christian authorities. The above is, however, thrown out only as a probable origin for the interpolation, as we know, from Gen. x. 13, that Arphaxad had other sons than Salah; and it seems preferable to an opinion mentioned by Stranchius (l. iv. c. v.), that Cainan and Salah are two names for the same person. If, however, either conjecture be admitted, it becomes of no chronological import whether or not Cainan the son of Arphaxad had place in the original manuscript of St. Luke; and it is

* Yeates' Essay, p. 26. + Horne, vol. II. part I. c. ii. sect. ii. That the law of legal succession was a patriarchal institution adopted into the Law, like many others, appears from Gen. xv. 2, 3, &c.

most certain that no person can prove, from the original text of that Gospel, that Arphaxad, Cainan, and Salah, were father, son, and grandson. We have an important catalogue of Egyptian kings in the First Book of Josephus (a contemporary of St. Luke) against Apion; regarding which, hieroglyphic discovery has proved that the consanguinity of many of these Pharaohs was very different from that which had been conjectured from the elliptical language of Josephus: neither could the genealogies of Matthew and Luke be explained with certainty without the parallel history of the Old Testament.

Thus, as, on the one side, we have the authority of the Alexandrine codex of the Seventy, confirmed by Demetrius Phaleræus, for the chronological existence of this generation in the third century before the Christian æra, in harmony with the majority of manuscripts of Luke's Gospel-of which, however, it is evident that even the original would not, chronologically speaking, be decisive on this question; so, on the other, we have the Hebrew and Samaritan Pentateuchs, the Hebrew Books of Chronicles, the Vatican system of the Seventy, the testimony of Philo and Josephus, the Targum of Onkelos, the Syriac version, the evidence of Irenæus, of Theophilus, of Clemens, of Africanus, of Origen, Eusebius*, Epiphanius, Jerome, with the most ancient manuscript of Luke's Gospel, written in an age when the church rejected the generation in question. It is not difficult to perceive on which side the preponderance of proof lies. But the test which I finally rely upon for the utter chronological exclusion of this generation, is the circumstance that the seventy families, or nations, of the dispersion-of which the seventy families of the house of Israel formed the antitype (Deut. xxxii. 8), as already fully set forth—are complete without it; and that, were this generation inserted into Genesis x., one of the most beautiful, most uniform, and most important characters in the machinery of sacred history and chronology would be annihilated, the beautiful and all-pervading analogy of the Septuagesimal type destroyed. And this test being in harmony with every other internal criterion proposed in the present treatise, I adopt it as final+.

It is almost needless to repeat, that the circumstance of Josephus, Theophilus, Clemens, Africanus, and Eusebius, being all zealous advocates for the computation of the Seventy interpreters, renders their testimony against the second Cainan doubly forcible.

+ It has been inferred above, that, if the postdiluvian Cainan ever existed, it was as the brother of Salah; the one holding the legal and the other the natural place in the genealogy—a circumstance which might have been known to the Seventy interpreters, and formed the basis of, and given colour to, their chronological interpolation. But if this be the truth, it is clear that one of the generations in question is, chronologically speaking, but a repetition of the other; and, accordingly, if we refer to the Alexandrine codex of the Seventy

I have now concluded the department of the subject founded on "internal evidence," and I trust satisfactorily answered Mr. Cuninghame's objections to the sacred Hebrew numbers, coming under this head; in the course of which it will, I hope, be admitted that a sufficient number of tests have been brought forward to justify the fearless admission in my former essay, that the results "ought not to be insisted on unless it could be proved from internal evidence that the present Hebrew computation is the original;" and my expressed opinion, "that all the objections usually brought forward against the sacred Hebrew numbers in reality operate in their favour, while they recoil in full force against all the protracted computations." Enough has, moreover, I trust, been advanced to prove that the validity of the sacred Hebrew computation is far from depending for its defence, on weapons "derived from the armoury of human (see Table, column 6), the oldest copy in which the postdiluvian Cainan is recognised, we shall find the very numbers repeated in generation as well as residue-the first standing 130 years, and the latter 330, in both cases-a coincidence, or rather an absurdity, which has no parallel in Scripture, or any where else. This, of itself, forms an important internal criterion, which I should have included in the text had it occurred to my recollection.

Another, equally strong, is discoverable in the circumstance of the Seventy having retained the Hebrew residues while they adopted the Samaritan generations, thereby adding a century to the life of each patriarch between Shem and Terah: for, had this not been done, the 130 interpolated years of Cainan's generation would have raised the death of his father Arphaxad nearly a century above the birth of Peleg, thereby destroying the synchronism between the times of Arphaxad and those of Peleg, in whose days the earth was divided -an event which every ancient authority refers alike to the days of all the seventy heads of families mentioned in the tenth chapter of Genesis, including Syncellus, who, as already mentioned, by an oversight makes Arphaxad die thirty-nine years before Peleg was born, forgetful of the chronological compensation necessary to counterbalance the 130 interpolated years of Cainan. Thus is the retention of the Hebrew residues by the Greek interpreters conclusively accounted for, and that retention identified with the admission of Cainan into the chronology. Finally: it has been noticed, in a former part of this disquisition, that the Eusebian is the only known copy of the Septuagint which uniformly preserves the original principle of retaining all the Hebrew postdiluvian residues; the Vatican exhibiting the Samaritan residues from Arphaxad to Eber, but the Hebrew residues from Peleg to Nahor; while the Alexandrine, the Syncelline, Mr. Cuninghame's Aldine copy, and others, confound the Samaritan and Hebrew in the former case, but agree with the Vatican in the latter. But the interpolated Cainan does not appear in the Vatican copy, and hence the long Hebrew residues were not required. The Alexandrine copy, however, has this generation, and therefore assigns to Arphaxad a long residue, although it exhibits short ones in the cases of his two immediate successors; in all which characters Mr. Cuninghame's Aldine table agrees with it. Thus is the retention of the long residues pinned down to the history of Arphaxad, in connection with the postdiluvian Cainan. A glance at columns 5 and 6 of the general table will make all this very apparent.

*

A great part of the remarks on the postdiluvian Cainan come more properly under the head of "external " than of" internal evidence"-a departure from the prescribed scope of the present essay required by Mr. Cuninghame's course of proceeding, and the necessity of at once disposing of this part of the subject.

science," which, however convincing in themselves, can be recognised, in such an inquiry as the present, only so far as they are found to consist with tests of a far higher order.

In the course of the foregoing disquisition it has been my earnest wish neither to overlook nor lessen the force of any of Mr. Cuninghame's arguments and objections, which I have, on the contrary, endeavoured to place in the most striking point of view. As regards the temper of the weapons which I have opposed to him-all of them now for the first time unsheathed by any writer-I invite inquiry; conscious, that, if defects are discovered, it will not be in the weapons themselves, but in the writer's mode of wielding them; and that every new objection brought against the integrity of the sacred Hebrew text and numbers will but furnish an argument to demonstrate its own futility.

I indulge the hope that, as requested at the outset of this paper, the reader will attend to the facts adduced, rather than to the manner in which they have been stated; to the quiddity (to adopt the language of the schools), rather than the quality, of the text; the present composition having been written during illness, and afterwards revised amidst many drawbacks on the writer's attention. This will also, I trust, be my excuse, should any errors be discovered in the incorporation of so much difficult matter: these, however, I hope are few.

This dissertation having already exceeded the reasonable limits of a paper, I reserve my reply to Mr. Cuninghame's remaining arguments for a future Number of the Morning Watch; in which, life and health being spared, I promise to repel his assault on my astronomical positions, causing the celestial catapulta to rebound;-to refute his reasoning drawn from the custody of the sacred volume, and the assumed Divine sanction of the Greek numbers* ;-to prove that the Hebrew text has been so guarded by an overruling Providence, in every age, as to have rendered any premeditated and systematic corruption impracticable; to produce original evidence of the existence of the present Hebrew numbers in the days of the Seventy interpreters; to demonstrate, from internal characters, apart from the history of the Judges, that the 480 years of 1 Kings vi. 1, is a true and original reading;—and, finally, to shew that the interests of the church are identified with the sacred Hebrew system, so far as matters of chronological criticism can uphold religion. August 22, 1831.

ISAAC CULLIMORE.

* I should have before remarked, that those who assume so high a sanction for the computation of the Seventy ought not to leave us in ignorance as to which version of that computation is the inspired one. Is it the Aldine (on which Mr. Cuninghame's arguments are founded)? the Eusebian? the Vatican? the Alexandrine? the Basilian? the copy of Josephus?-But I must not go on for a page would scarcely set forth all the candidates for this distinction.

439

PROGRESS OF THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION-WARNINGS BEFORE THE JUDGMENTS.

IN the present period of suspense, we cannot pursue this subject with propriety, in its political aspect; but we would prepare the minds of our readers for whatever may ensue by calling their attention to the Word of God, and the warning therein contained of the coming judgments, that they may mark the signs of their approach.

"Nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences, and fearful sights, and great signs shall there be from heaven. And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and waves roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory" (Luke xxi. Matt. xxiv. Mark xiii.)

When the Eternal Word became flesh and dwelt among us, He revealed all the will of the Father. He gave to his church a complete code of instruction, both for doctrine and for practice; to which the Holy Spirit has made no addition; his office being to take of the things already revealed by Jesus, and shew them to the church. In the last discourse of our Lord, he declares this plainly; asserting it in various forms, and summing it up (John xvii.) in these wonderful words: "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.....I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me....These things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word....And the glory which thou gavest unto me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one." Every discourse of our Lord is shaped with reference to all times of the church, up to the period when he shall come again; and the Holy Spirit, ever present with the church, teaches her to apply to her own use, at any given time, those portions of our Lord's discourses which suit that particular time, without invalidating the applicability of the whole discourse to the whole time of our Lord's absence.

The discourse at the porch of the temple recorded in Matt. xxiv. Mark xiii. Luke xxi. of course referred primarily to the destruction of those magnificent structures which the disciples were admiring, saying, "Master, see what manner of stones, and what buildings are here." But looking at the contents of the discourse, independent of its circumstances, we might say