If this Chronology is not correct, I shall despair of ever getting from the Bible and history, a true account of the age of the world. At any rate, I shall rest satisfied here, and wait the event; time will determine. As it respects the text in 1 Kings vi. 1, it cannot be reconciled with the history of the Judges and the statement of St. Paul; I have therefore followed two witnesses instead of one. As it respects Samuel, I have no doubt of as long a period as 21 years; but it may possibly have exceeded 24 years.

A DISSERTATION ON

PROPHETIC CHRONOLOGY.

WHEN we read in divine inspiration a class of texts like the following, Acts iii. 20, 21, "And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began;" verse 24, "Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days;”—again, in Acts xvii. 26, "And hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth; and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation ;" and 31st verse, "Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead;" Amos iii. 7, “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets;" -I say no man can read these texts, and the like, of which the Scriptures abound, without being convicted that God has set bounds, determined times, and revealed unto his prophets the events long before they were accomplished; and having thus revealed himself, has never failed in time and manner to fulfil all things which, by his prophets, have been spoken or written. He has in his word revealed the times in different ways: sometimes in plain language, by telling the exact number of years; at other times, by types, as the year of release, the jubilee, and the Sab

baths; in other places by figurative language, by calling a year a day, or a thousand years a day; again by analogy, as in Hebrews iv. 10, showing, that as God created the heavens and earth, and all that are in them, in six days, and rested on the seventh, so Christ would be six thousand years creating the new heavens and earth, and would rest on the seventh millennium. I will now present a few cases where time has been revealed in the above manner, and fulfilled so far as present time will allow.

I. IN PLAIN LANGUAGE, BY YEARS, MONTHS, OR DAYS, AS THE CASE MAY BE.

1. Seven days before the flood began, and the forty days the rain continued, were prophesied of, and literally fulfilled. See Genesis vii. 4. "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights." These days were literal days, and so fulfilled. Verses 10 and 12: "And it came to pass after the seventh day that the waters of the flood were upon the earth." "And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights."

2. Abraham was informed by God, that his seed should be afflicted in a strange land four hundred years, which, including his sojourn, would make 430 years. Gen. xv. 13. This was literally accomplished. See Exodus xii. 40, 41.

3. The butler's and baker's dreams were interpreted to mean three days, by Joseph, and were exactly fulfilled. See Gen. xl. 12-20.

4. The dream of Pharaoh, as explained by Joseph, meaning seven years' plenty and seven years' famine, was literally completed. See Gen. xli. 28-54.

5. The forty years in the wilderness were prophesied and fulfilled literally. See Num. xiv. 34. Josh.

v. 6.

6. Three years and a half Elijah prophesied that there would be no rain, and there was none until the time was finished. 1 Kings xvii. 1. James v. 17.

7. Isaiah prophesied that within sixty-five years Ephraim should be broken, so that they should not be a people, Isa. vii. 8; and in sixty-five years they

these living and raised saints will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. There the saints will be judged and presented to the Father, without spot or wrinkle. Then the gospel kingdom will be given up to God the Father. Then will the Father give the bride to the Son Jesus Christ; and when the marriage takes place, the church will become the "New Jerusalem," the "beloved city." And while this is being done in the air, the earth will be cleansed by fire, the elements will melt with fervent heat, the works of men will be destroyed, the bodies of the wicked will be burned to ashes, the devil and all evil spirits, with the souls and spirits of those who have rejected the gospel, will be banished from the earth, shut up in the pit or place prepared for the devil and his angels, and will not be permitted to visit the earth again until 1000 years. This is the first resurrection, and first judgment. Then Christ and his people will come down from the heavens, or middle air, and live with his saints on the new earth in a new heaven, or dispensation, forever, even forever and ever. This will be the restitution of the right owners to the earth.

Then will the promise of God, to his Son, be accomplished: "I will give him the heathen for his inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for his possession.' Then "the whole earth shall be full of his glory." And then, will the holy people take possession of their joint heirship with Christ, and his promise be verified, "the meek shall inherit the earth," and the kingdom of God will have come, and "his will done in earth as in heaven." After 1000 years shall have passed away, the saints will all be gathered and encamped in the beloved city. The sea, death and hell will give up their dead, which will rise up on the breadths of the earth, out of the city, a great company like the sand of the sea-shore. The devil will be let loose, to go out and deceive this wicked host. He will tell them of a battle against the saints, the beloved city; he will gather them in the battle around the camp of the saints. But there is no battle; the devil has deceived them. The saints will judge them, the justice of God will drive them from the earth into

All these cases which I have brought forward as proof of prophetic chronology were once prophecies; and would it have been right in Noah, the patriarchs, and prophets, to have rejected the time given, any more than the manner? I answer, it could not have been faith to have rejected either. Then let us have faith to believe the chronology of the future, as well as of the past.

The seventy weeks were evidently fulfilled in the year A. D. 33, beginning 457 years B. C., at the going forth of the commandment to Ezra to restore the law and the people to Jerusalem. See Ezra vii. 10-13. I need not stop to argue this point, as very few can be found who have the hardihood to deny the seventy weeks as being a definite time. One reason, out of the many, may be here presented. Why should the man Gabriel be so particular in defining the beginning and the end of the seventy weeks, if indefinite time only is meant? And why did he name the events so particularly, as to divide the seventy into three very unequal parts, and yet in all three parts include the whole? Surely, no mortal can account for this agreement of numbers, and yet call it indefinite. There was much more ambiguity in the prophecy to Abraham, concerning his seed sojourning in a strange land four hundred years, (see Gen. xv. 13, 14,) than in this of the 70 weeks. Yet that was exactly accomplished on the self-same day predicted. Exod. xii. 41. And, in me, it would be the very height of folly to believe otherwise concerning these 70 weeks of years, than as an exact fulfilment, on the self-same day. God has not changed, that he will not be as particular now as in the days of Abraham. He surely will; and when men, through cowardice or unbelief, charge God with thus tampering with his word, they must, sooner or later, find it to their cost to make such a solemn charge.

II. I WILL NOW BRING FORWARD SOME PROPHECIES WHICH REMAIN TO BE FULFILLED, OR WHICH HAVE RECENTLY BEEN ACCOMPLISHED.

1. Moses' prophecy of the scattering of the people