THE NEW YORK 236398 ACTORE" TEMPORA SI FASTOSQUE velis evolvere MUNDI. HOR. MEM AOKK LONDON: GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. ANALYSIS OF SACRED CHRONOLOGY. CONTAINING A CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ABLIC APOCRYPHA: ΠΛΑΝΑΣΘΕ, ΜΗ ΕΙΔΟΤΕΣ ΤΑΣ ΓΡΑΦΑΣ, "Ye do err, not knowing THE SCRIPTURES." JESUS CHRIST. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, for their various and matchless excellences, have won the admiration and veneration of the wise and good of all ages and countries that have been blessed with their light. In addition to the praises of Ellis, Bielfield, and Bryant, noticed in the first volume of this work, p. 267, the following are judicious and characteristic. 66 Study the Holy Scriptures: therein are contained the words of eternal life. They have God for their author, Salvation for their end, and Truth without any mixture of error for their matter." Locke. 66 Theological enquiries are no part of my present subject; but I cannot refrain from adding, that the collection of tracts which we call from their excellence, THE SCRIPTURES, contain, independently of a divine origin, more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected within the same compass from all other books that were ever composed in any age or in any idiom. "The two parts of which the Scriptures consist, [the OLD and NEW TESTAMENT] are connected by a chain of compositions, [THE PROPHECIES] which bear no resemblance in form or style to any that can be produced from the stores of Grecian, Indian, Persian, or even Arabian learning. The antiquity of these compositions no man doubts; and the unstrained application of them to events long subsequent to their publication, is a solid ground of belief that they were genuine predictions, and consequently inspired." Sir William Jones, Eighth Discourse, &c. The intimate connexion between the Old and New Testament is thus strongly marked. "The writings of the OLD and NEW SCRIPTURES are to be considered as one work, written it is true, by different persons, at different times, but dictated by THE SAME SPIRIT. They relate the uniform conduct of GoD to his people; and the divine proceedings under the new dispensation bear a strict conformity to those under the Old: they are parallel, and therefore a reference is frequently made to rites and ceremonies, and circumstances and events that are exactly similar in both.” Dr. Gregory Sharpe, Second Argument in favour of Christianity. And most justly does Chrysostom style them, "Books that are MEDICINES OF THE SOUL, not to read which is the cause of all evils." II. But THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, notwithstanding their superlative excellence, are, in many places, dvovonta, "hard to be understood," and dvoεpμnvevra, "hard to be interpreted;" which the ignorant and unstable of all ages and countries are apt "to wrest to their own destruction," "deceived themselves, and deceiving" others, 2 Pet. iii. 16, Heb. v. 11, 2 Tim. iii. 13. "Ye do err," said our |