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it may signify an age, i. e. the space of time in which all those who are of the same descent, may be supposed to finish their lives. Thus we read that Joseph died and all his brethren, and all that generation." In this sense the generation did not end at Joseph's death, nor at the death of the youngest of his brethren; nor until all the persons who were in the same line of descent with them were gone off the stage. A generation in this latter sense, must be a much longer space of time, than a generation in the forManasseh and Ephraim, the sons of Joseph, were two generations or descents after Jacob, for they were his grandchildren; yet they were born in the same age or generation in which Jacob was born; for they were born before he died. But I confess the word yEVE, or generation, is more frequently used to signify a descent; in which sense it is commonly found in Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Pausanias, in the profane as well as in the sacred writers.

mer sense.

Exodus i, 6.

.

But I must remark, 2. That reigns and these generations are equipollent, when the son succeeds to the kingdom at his father's death. Thus, if a crown descends from father to son, for seven, or more, or not so many successions, it is evident that as many successions as there are, we may count so many either reigns, or descents, or generations; a reign and a descent here are manifestly equivalent, for they are one and the same thing. But, 3. when it has hap pened in a catalogue of kings, that sometimes sons succeeded their fathers, at other times brothers their brothers, and sometimes persons of different families obtained the crown; then the reigns will not be found to be equivalent to the generations; for in such a catalogue several of the kings will have been of the same descent with others, and so there will not be so many descents as reigns, and consequently the reigns are not one with another equivalent to generations. Now, this being the case in almost all, if not in every series of any number of kings that can be produced; it ought not to be said that

reigns and generations are in general equiva lent; for a number of reigns will be, generally speaking, for the reasons abovementioned, much shorter than a like number of generations or descents. 4. When de scents or generations proceed only by the eldest sons, then each generation ought to be computed, one with another, about as many years, as are at a medium the years of the ages of the fathers of such generations at the birth of their eldest sons. Thus we find from the birth of Arphaxad* to the birth of Terah the father of Abraham' are seven generations, or two hundred and nineteen years, which are thirty-one years and above one-fourth to a generation. Now, the seven fathers in these generations had their respective sons; one of them at about thirty-five years of age, one at thirty-four, one at thirty-two, three

* Gen. xi, 11.

Gen. xi. 26.

- Salah was born when Arphaxad was thirty-five,

ver. 12.

a

Peleg was born when Eber was thirty-four, ver. 16.
Serug was born when Reu was thirty-two.

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at thirty, and one at twenty-nine. 5. When descents or generations proceed by the younger or youngest sons, the length of such generations will be according to the time of the father's life in which such younger sons are born, and also in proportion to what is the common length or standard of human life in the age when they are born. When men lived to about two hundred, and had children after they were a hundred years old; it is evident, that the younger children might survive their parents near one hundred years. But now, when men rarely live beyond seventy or eighty years, a son born in the latest years of his father's life, cannot be supposed, in the common course of things, to be alive near so long after his father's death; and consequently descents or generations by the younger sons must have

< Eber was born when Salah was thirty, ver. 14. Reu when Peleg was thirty, ver. 18. Nahor when Serug was thirty, ver. 22.

Terah was born when Nahor was twenty-nine,

ver, 24.

I

been far longer in the ages of ancient longevity, than they can be now. Therefore, 6. Since in the genealogies of all families, and the catalogues of kings in all kingdoms, the descents and successions are found, to proceed, not always by the eldest sons, but through frequent accidents many times by the younger children; it is evident, that the difference in the common length of human life in different ages of the world must have had a considerable effect upon the length of both reigns and generations, as both must be longer or shorter in this or that age in some measure, according to what is the common standard of the length of men's lives in the age to which they belong; seven reigns, as before said, are in general not so long as generations; but from historical observations a calculation may be formed at a medium, how often one time with another such failures of descent happen, as make the difference; and the length of reigns may be calculated in proportion to the length of generations according to it. Sir Isaac Newton computes the length of reigns to be to the

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