where the name is the same, the character of a gov ernour in the neighbourhood of Judea the same, and the circumstance of marrying a daughter to a son of an high-priest, the same, it is hard to suppose two different persons; and scarce any one, that thoroughly considers it, can come into this supposition. Your lordship, indeed, mends it in one particular, in allowing but one marriage of a daughter to an high-priest's son; for, if I take you right, you suppose the Sanballat, who would have hindered Nehemiah in his work, to have been a different person from the Sanballat, who was father-in-law to one of Joiada's sons, Neh. xiii, 28. That the latter only was the governour of Samaria, of whom Josephus speaks, Antiq. xi, 7, 8, and who died in the last year of Darius Codomannus; and that the other was not the governour of Samaria, but of some other petty province, in the neighbourhood. But, however, this will not solve the difficulty. For, supposing the Sanballat, Neh. xiii, to be different from the Sanballat, Neh. ii, and vi, (which I must say, is hard to suppose, since, in both places, he is called Sanballat, the Horonite) yet this marriage must have been in the twelfth year of Nehemiah's government, that is, according to your lordship's hypothesis, in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes Longimanus; for in that year Nehemiah went into Persia to the king, and, on his return, found this irregular marriage to have been made, and therefore chased away from the temple the person guilty hereof. Supposing therefore, this son of Joiada (whom Josephus calls Manasseh, and saith he was his grandson) to have been twenty years old, at the time of his marriage, that is, in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, he must have been at his father-in-law's death, one hundred and twenty-one years old, though this was but the first year of his priesthood at mount Gerizim; and, if we suppose the father-in-law to be twenty-two years older than the son-in-law, there will be the same age of Sanballat, as is above objected, against this hypothesis. So that the making of the Sanballat, Neh. ii, and vi, and the Sanballat, Neh. xiii, to be two distinct persons, leaves us just where we were before; and the

objection is not at all lessened by it, but is rather made the stronger, by bringing in the improbable age of Sanballat's son-in-law to be a further addition to it.

Thus far I have laid before your lordship the objections which, I conceive, do lie against your fixing the decree granted Nehemiah for the re-building of Jerusalem, to the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Longimanus; and since you build your whole scheme on the supposition, that this was that year, I think it must be your business, in the first place, to make this good, and to clear it against all objections, that it must be the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Longimanus only, and not of any other Artaxerxes, that Nehemiah obtained this decree. Otherwise, you beg your principle, and, by thus failing in your foundation, can make nothing stand, which you build upon it; for you begin your computation of the seventy weeks, from that year, for this reason wholly, because you suppose, that in that year the decree was granted. But, if that was not the year, in which this grant was made, but it was the twentieth year of another Artaxerxes, then you begin the computation wrong, and if so, you must end it wrong, and all must be wrong, that you do about it. And therefore, I must confess, I cannot but be amazed to find your lordship saying, that this is none of your business, and that it is foreign to the matter before you; for it seems to me, to be the principle on which all depends, and, without the settling of which, every thing else which you do will be foreign, and nothing to the purpose.

However, I must acknowledge, your lordship's scheme is preferable to all others that have been offered, for the solution of this difficult matter. Scaliger's scheme hath not only the same objections against it, from the age Zerubbabel and Joshua must be of, on the second of Darius Nothus (from whence he begins his computation of the seventy weeks) that yours seems to have, from the age of Nehemiah and Sanballat, but also several others. For he doth not end the prophecy at the cutting off the Messias, but at the destruction of Jerusalem; neither doth he begin it from a decree or commandment to re-build Jerusalem,

but only from a decree to finish the re-building of the temple; and further, according to that scheme there will be a very unequal and unlikely distribution of the succession of the high-priest; for, from the ending of the Babylonish captivity to the death of Alexander, there were these six high-priests, succeeding in a direct line, from father to son, Jeshua, Joiachim, Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua. And, if it were in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Mnemon, as Scaliger saith, that Nehemiah had the grant for the re-building of Jerusalem, Eliashib must, at that time have been high-priest, for he is said to have been by Nehemiah, at the doing of that work; and, if we suppose him to have been high-priest, from the beginning of that reign, that is, for twenty years, before (for he was so for several years after as appears by the same book of Nehemiah) then, from the solution of the Babylonish captivity, to the first of Artaxerxes Mnemon, there would have been but two high-priests, i. e. Jeshua and Joiachim, for the space of one hundred and thirty-two years; and then, from thence, there must be four for the remaining term of eighty-one years, to the death of Alexander; at which time according to Josephus, died Jaddua also. There is, I confess, no difficulty in a succession of four in eightyone years; there are many instances of this every where ; but that there should be but a succession of two, for one hundred and thirty-two years in the highpriest's office, which required the age of thirty, at the least, in the person to be admitted thereto, is not so probable, because, in this case, each must have been, at least, ninety-six years old, at his death, and, probably, much more. For, it is much more likely, that Jeshua was above thirty years old, at the solution of the Babylonish captivity; but, if he were no more, it is very unlikely, that, dying at the age of ninety, he should then have a son of no greater age than thirty, to succeed him. I am the longer upon this, because it is a difficulty upon Scaliger's scheme, that I have not seen taken notice of by any other, and makes much for your lordship's scheme; for according to that, this difficulty is wholly removed, and the suc

cession of the high-priests will fall very equal, and free from all exception. And, it is to be observed, that the years of their several high-priesthoods, as set down in the Chronicon Alexandrinum, do not only make a distribution of the successions, which is free from all such exception, but also do exactly agree with Scripture, according to your lordship's scheme; but cannot be so, according to that of Scaliger. For that Chronicon makes Eliashib to die twenty-nine years before Scaliger's scheme brings Nehemiah to Jerusalem, but to have been nine years in the priesthood, at the time of his coming thither, according to your lordship's scheme; and I look on the Chronicon Alexandrinum to have given us the truest account of the years of each high-priest, in that succession of them, which I have mentioned, and to be the best clue whereby we may be safely led through the dark his tory, which we have of the Jewish state, in those times.

And therefore, your lordship's scheme thus far looking fairer than any other, that hath been offered, I could wish you would apply yourself to clear it of the difficulties abovementioned; for, were that done, it would stand for ever. And this prophecy of the time of the coming of the Messias would appear to be so thoroughly fulfilled, in the coming of our Saviour, and the argument for his being the person promised herein, would be made so clear and irrefragable, that it would be no longer capable of any contradiction, either from the Jews, or any other adversaries, of our holy Christian religion. And therefore I heartily wish your lordship would be pleased speedily to publish your scheme, and to take care to clear it from the difficulties abovementioned. If you would be pleased to give me leave to propose, what I am thoroughly persuaded is the truth of the matter, and what I think would fully solve the whole, I would offer it as followeth :

1st. That those passages, which name Jaddua, in the book of Nehemiah, were all inserted, after the book was written, by those who received it into the Jewish canon, most likely, about the time of the highpriest Simon the Just, when that canon was fully fin

ished. The whole, that hath been said by others on this head, your lordship well knows, and, I doubt not, can say a great deal more upon it, fully to clear the thing, and make it thoroughly appear to be the truth, as I am fully persuaded it is; and, when this is cleared, all that is said in the first objection will be cleared also.

2d. As to the other difficulty, which is about the age of Sanballat, it all arising from the inconsistency, which is between the Scripture account, and Josephus' account of the time in which this man lived, if you give up the profane writer to the sacred (as must always be done, where they cannot consist together) there is an end of this matter. And that Josephus, in his bringing down the time of Sanballat to the reign of Alexander the Great, was wholly out, is no hard matter to prove. For it is plain to me, he follows herein the tradition of his countrymen the Jews; whose account, concerning the Persian monarchy, is altogether false and absurd; for they make the whole continuance of it, from the first of Cyrus, to the first of Alexander, to be no more than fifty-two years: that the Darius, in whom it ended, was the Darius, whom we call Darius Hydaspes; that he was the son of Esther, by Cambyses, whom they make to be the Ahasuerus of the book of Esther; that this Darius was called also Artaxerxes (which they will have to be the common name of the Persian kings,) as Pharaoh was of the Egyptian, and that it was in the twentieth year of his reign, that Nehemiah re-built Jerusalem; and that, sixteen years after, was the end of that empire, and the beginning of the Macedonian. And, although Josephus, who had looked into the Greek historians, could not swallow all this absurd stuff; yet it seems plain to me, he came into so much of it, as was the cause of his error, in this matter of Sanballat. For, although he doth not make Cambyses to be the Ahasuerus of Esther, but carries down that story to the time of Artaxerxes Longimanus, yet it is clear to me, he makes the Darius, that next succeeds, to be the Darius, whom Alexander conquered; for he is the last he makes any mention of, in the succession