length of generations one with another, as eighteen or twenty to thirty-three or thirty-four. These particulars ought to be duly considered, in order to judge of our learned author's argument from the length of reigns and generations. For,

1. The catalogues of kings, which our great and learned author produces to confirm his opinion, are all of later date, some of them many ages later than the times of David. He says, the eighteen kings of Judah, who succeeded Solomon, reigned one with another twenty-two years each. The fifteen kings of Israel after Solomon reigned seventeen years and a quarter each. The eighteen kings of Babylon from Nabonassar reigned eleven years and two thirds of a year each. The ten kings of Persia from Cyrus reigned twenty-one years each. The sixteen successors of Alexander the Great, and of his brother and son in Syria, reigned fifteen years and a quarter each.

• See Newton's Chronol. of the Greeks, p. 53, 54. f Id. Ibid.

France from

years each.

The eleven kings of England from William the Conqueror, reigned twenty one years and a half each. The first twenty-four kings of Pharamond. reigned nineteen The next twenty-four kings of France from Ludovicus Balbus reigned eighteen years and three quarters each. The next fifteen from Philip Valesiùs twenty one-years each; and all the sixty-three kings of France one with another reigned nineteen years and a half each. These are the several catalogues which our great and learned author has produced: they are of various dates down from Solomon to the present time; but as none of them rise so high as the time of king David, all that can be proved from them is, that the observation of David, who remarked that the length of human life was in his time reduced to what has ever since been the standard of it, was exceedingly just; for from Solomon's time to the present day it appears, that the length of kings' reigns in different ages, and in

different countries, have been much the same, and therefore during this whole period, the common length of human life has been what it now is, and agreeable to what David stated it. But,

2. It cannot be inferred from these reigns mentioned by Sir Isaac Newton, that kings did not reign one with another a much longer space of time in the ages which I am concerned with, in which men generally lived to a much greater age, than in the times out of which Sir Isaac Newton has taken the catalogue of kings which he has produced. From Abraham down almost to David, men lived, according to the Scripture accounts of the length of their lives, to I think, above one hundred years, at a medium, exceeding that term very much in the times near Abraham; and seldom falling short of it until within a generation or two of David. But in David's time the length of human life was at a medium, only seventy years; therefore

h Psalm. xc. ver. 18.

Whoever considers this difference, must see, that the length of kings' reigns as well as of generations, must be considerably affected by it. Successions in both must come on slower in the early ages, according to the greater length of men's lives. I could produce many catalogues of successions from father to son, to confirm what I have offered; but since there is one which takes in almost the whole compass of time which I am concerned in, and which has all the weight that the authority of the sacred writers can give, and which will bring the point in question to a clear and indisputable conclusion, I shall for brevity sake omit all others, and offer only that to the reader's farther examination. From Abraham to David (including both Abraham and David) were fourteen generations; now from Abraham's birth A. M. 2008, to David's death, about A. M. 2986 are nine hundred and seventy

Usher's Annals. It

i Matt. i. may perhaps be thought that I ought not to compute these fourteen generations from the birth of Abraham,

eight years, so that generations in these times took up one with another near seventy years each, i. e. they were above double the length which Sir Isaac Newton computes them; and which they were, I believe, after the time of David. We must therefore suppose the reign of kings in these ancient times to be longer than his computation in the same proportion; and if so, we must calculate them at above forty years each one with another. The profane historians have recorded them to be so, for according to the lists which we have from Castor of the ancient kings of Sicyon and Argos, the first twelve kings of Sicyon reigned no more than forty-four years each one with another, and the first eight kings of Argos something above forty-six, as our

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but from the death of Terah, the father of Abraham, who died when Abraham was seventy-five. If we compute from hence, the fourteen generations take up only nine hundred and three years, which allows but sixty-four years and a half to a generation, which is but almost double the length of Sir Isaac Newton's generations. Euseb. in Chron.