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"John bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, (which testimony is the spirit of prophecy,) and of all things that he saw." 1 But this Revelation d d not relate to things future? Yea, verily. For St. John was commanded thus "Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be

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True, St. John did not at first understand what was thus revealed to him of the past, the present, and the future. "And he wept much, because no man was found worthy to open, and to read the book, neither to look thereon." But, at that auspicious moment, "one of the Elders said unto him, weep not: behold, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to OPEN the book, and to LOOSE the seven seals thereof. 3 Blessed be God!

We now affirm, brethren, that, with this representation corresponds the general tenor of God's word, historic and prophetic, in determining, with the utmost precision, the age of the world, from the creation and fall of man, down to the consummation of all things.

To show this therefore, is the task now before us, in the execution of which, we premise,

1. That, in God's word is to be found a GOLDEN CHAIN OF MEASUREMENT to the entire sabbatical day of God's rest, the successive links of which, though of unequal lengths, are all immutably bound together by

1. Rev. i., 2.

2. Rev. i., 19.

3. Rev. v., 2-5.

him who "hath determined the times before ap pointed." 1 These determined times taken collectively, embrace a long period, only one portion of which, as brought to view in the prophetic vision of Daniel in the third year of Cyrus king of Persia, evidently implies. "The thing revealed," it is said, "was true, but the time appointed was long." 2

This golden chain we shall now divide into two parts, as follows: The first, embracing the interval between the creation and fall of man, to the commencement of the prophetic seventy weeks of Daniel, and which forms the basis of historic chronology; the second, extending thence to the final "restitution of all things," " or to the six thousandth year of the world, and which we denominate the chronology of prophecy.

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But, with a view to a satisfactory issue in the prosecution of our inquiries of this subject, it is indispensable that we determine upon a criterion of measurement of time, both past and future;- the questions, are the years in sacred time, historic and prophetic, the same? Does time, as measured by sacred chronology harmonize with our solar year? meeting us at every turn. He therefore who, in an attempt to define the point of time upon which we now stand, in the successive dispensations of God to man, would avoid a confirmation of those prejudices already so universally obnoxious to such an attempt,

1. Acts xvii., 26.

2. Dan. x., 1. (Margin, great.) 3. Acts iii., 21.

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and also the imputation of "darkening council by words without knowledge," must institute a distinction (if any there be) as well between the criteria of measurement to time historic and prophetic, as between time sacred (or Jewish) and solar.

Chronology, as a science, possesses few attractions. It is ordinarily regarded as a dry and uninteresting study. Compared with other sciences, it has not received, except in a few instances, any attention at all entitled to the mede of patient, laborious, and minute research. As evidence of this, we have but to advert, to the extreme and variant conclusions of those who have already occupied this field. Dr. Hales presents a formidable list of the disagreement of Chronologists on the Æra (B. C.) of the creat on, which embraces a hundred and twenty different opinions, which, he says, might easily be swelled to three hundred; and the extreme dates of six thousand nine hundred and eighty-four years B. C., and three thousand six hundred and sixteen years B. C., exhibiting a difference of above three thousand three hundred years!

With these facts before us, we think we may legitimately infer, that the science is comparatively little studied and less understood. Still, if we mistake not, it is clearly susceptible of explication, even to ordinary minds. It is only when we invest the results of protracted and laborious toil in the departments of letters with the garb of mysticism, (than which none other will better serve the purposes of illustration

1. Job. xxxviii., 2.

than that now before us,) that we place them beyond the reach of general, practical utility. But, actuated by the principle, that the object of all human attainments is, to make things plain, while it excludes all regard to the pomp and outward circumstance of human attainments; (an idol which, as the natural offspring of that knowledge which puffeth up," 1 receives the homage of its thousands and its tens of thousands;) it will seek to divest the subject of all unnecessary appendages, by reducing it to the narrowest available limits. Nor is it at all necessary to accuracy in our conclusions, that we explore every plot of ground in the field of chronological science, by those who have gone before us. Indeed, to a mind not previously fortified by a degree, greater or lesser, of unquestionable data, "confusion worse confounded” will be the result of further toil. This is inevitable, when history, the basis of chronology, abounds with inaccuracies. And when this is the case with such writers as the great Jewish historian Josephus, and (though to a much more limited extent) to the profoundly learned Archbishop Usher; it more than suggests the necessity of the greatest caution in relying upon their deductions, and shuts us up to the alternative of studied discrimination in the use of all human helps, and a resting of ourselves and the merits of our investigations, upon the infallible autho

1. Cor. xiii., 1.

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2. Prideaux, vol. i., pp. 174, 382; ii., 65, 68, 305; iii., 58, 71, 135, 199, 207, 240. 241, 400, 401, 414, 416; iv., 58.

3. Prideaux, vol. i, 430, 434; ii., 45; iii., 206.

rity of the historic and prophetic records of GOD'S WORD. Upon this ground exclusively, we rest the merits of our cause. Not that we do not respect hu

man science - not that we have not examined human systems—but that we believe the conflicting opinions of men in these premises, while thus subservient to evidence a too great resting upon uninspired aids in their investigations, are also designed to illustrate the final purpose of God to "choose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: THAT NO FLESH SHOULD GLORY IN HIS PRESENCE. This end, humiliating though it be to the pride of human greatness, awaits all speculative systems not subservient in their nature and design, to the inspired word: nor shall we accept of the proffered aid even of these, except in so far as, by the coincidence of their deductions with the statements of that word, they afford collateral evidence of its truth.

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It is in this strictly subordinate sense that we now proceed to a developement, in brief, of the progress of astronomical science in furnishing a criterion for the measurement of time, as preparatory to the proof of the coincidence of solar with sacred time, in determining the age of the world.

Chronology treats of the divisions of time, rather

1. 1 Cor. i., 27.

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