According to this prelate, the number of mankind about the year 140 after the flood amounted to no less than 30,000; and two centuries after, the married people alone to no less than 6,666,666,660. Now if to these we add the moderate average of two children to each marriage, we shall have more than twenty thousand millions of human beings existing in the year 340 after the flood; a sum which exceeds by more than one half, any number that has ever been supposed to have existed in the world at any given time.

When an argument terminates in positive absurdity, it is hardly worth while, says Dr. Russell, to examine the process of reasoning by which the conclusion was attained; and to confute the Reverend Prelate would be an unpardonable waste of time.

From what I have stated, and from other reasons which I forbear to state, it is evident that the chronology of the Hebrew text is inadmissible; and every intelligent reader of ancient history, both sacred and profane, and even of the holy Bible, must see the absolute necessity of adopting the computation of the Septuagint version, which agrees with the writers of all ages and all nations, and with the Hebrew text itself, as it had been known in the world up to the second century of our era. Do not startle at this assertion: the reasons which, after having bestowed on this subject all the attention it deserves, have led me to this conclusion, are of the most convincing nature;

Mira, sed et scænâ testificata, loquar.

The fact is this: up to the year 127 after Christ there was but one system of chronology, which had been followed by all chronographers and historians, whether sacred or profane, both before and after the birth of Christ. This chronology was the chronology of the Hebrew text itself, and consequently the chronology of the several versions that had been made of it, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint.

I could adduce many arguments to prove this to have beeen the fact, but this discussion would lead us much away from our subject. I will therefore mention one only of the many proofs of the agreement of the Greek version with the Hebrew text, and that is, that Josephus openly and repeatedly asserts that he compiled his Antiquities from the Hebrew Scriptures, and yet his chronology coincides with the computation of the Septuagint, and disagrees with the reckoning of the Hebrew text as much as the Septuagint now does. This was, in reality, the chronology which had been adopted by the heathen writers before the birth of Christ, and by the heathen and the Christian authors even after the death of our Saviour. For in point of fact, before the second century of the Christian era, no traces can be found of any controversy, or of any difference between the Greek and Hebrew texts of the Holy Bible. All the authors who quote the Old Testament at that early period, whether Jews, Christians, or Heathens, and even the apostles and our Saviour, have recourse to the Hebrew text and

the Greek version indiscriminately, without indicating the least suspicion in respect to their not perfectly agreeing together.

The difference, therefore, which we now find in the chronology of these two texts of our Scriptures, is the work of a time posterior to the first century after Christ; and it seems a fact now fully established, that this alteration took place about the year 30 of the second century. At that time a new translation of the Old Testament into Greek was produced by the Jews, under the auspices of their leading Rabbis, the object of which was to bring into discredit the venerable work of the Seventy. This task was performed by a learned man, and a pagan priest, of the name of Aquila, who, after having embraced Christianity, was for his heretical opinions expelled from the bosom of the Church, and therefore attached himself to the Jews, for the sake of injuring and calumniating the Christians, and their religion.

Although the liberties which Aquila and the Rabbis used with the original were soon perceived and exposed, yet two years after a work appeared, entitled Seder Olam Rabba, that is, the great Chronicle of the world; which presented to the Jews the first fruits of the labours which the enemies of Christianity had bestowed upon the Hebrew writings. This mutilated system of chronology was put forth under the name of Rabbi Josi, and favoured by the countenance of the notorious

Akiba, the supporter of the rebel and false Christ Barchocab.

The publication of the Seder Olam Rabba may with certainty be regarded as marking the epoch at which the Jews altered the dates of the great events recorded in their sacred books, and adopted the abbreviated scheme of ancient Chronology. I have already stated, that as the Christians were wont to produce the testimonies of Scripture against the Jews, out of the Greek version, the Jews were obliged to appeal from that Greek version, which alone the Christians understood, to the Hebrew text, which they understood not; and in order to avoid the arguments of the Christians, they not only translated their original Scriptures in a different manner, but altered the dates.

For five or six centuries this flagrant treachery of the Jews was at different times exposed, and consequently their new chronology was never adopted by the Christian writers. But about the year 720, the venerable Bede published his works De Temporum Ratione et sex ætatibus mundi, &c.; in which he endeavoured to introduce the reckoning of the Jews. But his reasoning was ill-received, and neglected; though perhaps, during the dark ages, the weight of his name might have procured some followers to his opinion.

On the revival of learning the controversy was renewed with vigour and freedom, and it soon called

into the field the powerful talents of a Scaliger, a Petavius, a Vossius, a Perron, and an Usher.

By the powerful efforts of these justly celebrated men, the reckoning of the Septuagint was again fully established. But at the time of the Reformation, the most stern of the Reformers, finding that the Samaritan computation was wrong, and wishing to oppose, in any thing and every thing, the doctrines of the Church of Rome, decided that the chronology of the Greek version must be equally wrong; and without analysing the grounds of their decision, they threw the weight of their authority in favour of the orignal Hebrew, and thus succeeded in introducing, at least among the Protestants, the corrupt chronology of the Hebrew text.

But if then, the concurrent testimony of all ages and all nations refer us to the computation of the Septuagint; if the dictates of reason point to us the chronology marked by this version of the Scriptures, as the only means of extricating ourselves from difficulties which we cannot otherwise conquer or explain; if the monuments of Egypt, undeniable by their nature, and unimpeachable in regard to their authenticity, add a fresh weight to the necessity of this adoption, and an additional authority to this computation, a computation which has been for ages the only one known in the world, we may, and indeed we must, look upon it as the only reckoning that can reconcile Scriptural chronology with those Egyptian monuments that now so boldly stare us in the face.