tion, what has hitherto been concealed in learned languages, and rendered toilsome and repulsive by the very brevity and closeness of calculation essential to all mathematical and inductive sciences. Much of the ignorance and of the strong prejudice which, in unlettered minds, invariably accompanies the self-complacency of ignorance, proceeds from looking only at results, and not surveying the steps by which men arrive at them. His object was to show clearly and simply what these steps have been. For this purpose, it was necessary to synchronize dates; to see on what grounds modern are substituted for ancient notations of time; and in all cases to separate conjecture from certainty. From this arduous task many, even of the most celebrated historians, have shrunk. The consequence has been a vagueness and uncertainty, if not contradiction and inconsistency, on their part, for which the ancients are blameless. Hence the Chronological Introduction was necessary. Without it, he could not have written the present volume; and without the present volume, he could not proceed, to use the language of his appointment, in "preparing, from the most original sources now extant, a faithful Ecclesiastical History, reaching from the apostles' times to the formation of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States."

But though the "Chronological Introduction" was written with a view to Ecclesiastical History, it belongs, in reality, and is equally related, to ALL history. It must, however, be studied, and not merely read; and even if the authors whom he quotes are not entirely comprehended by all his readers, enough can be understood by all, from his translation, to show for what intent, and with how much fidelity, they testify. He ventures to say that any one who well understands the first rules

of arithmetic, can verify every position he has advanced. The tables alone are worth the price of the whole book; and, if constantly consulted, will soon be prized by the student at their proper value.

In the present work, the rules laid down in the Introduction (pp. 4-6) have been rigidly observed. The accuracy of its results has been demonstrated by HISTORY- the most infallible of all proofs. At the commencement of Part I., Chap. xii., (Chron. Introd. p. 269,) it was remarked, that "Where facts are found to arrange themselves harmoniously, without any effort to support a system or to weave a theory, there must be truth. As a luxated limb moves with pain and difficulty, but, by a slight touch of the surgeon, is restored to ease and vigour, so is it with chronology. To prove that we are well, we have only to get up and walk; and the truth of chronology must be tested by the ease with which the events of history fall into their proper places." The truth of this remark, as the author confidently trusts, will be strikingly corroborated by the unfolding of events as detailed in the present volume. The history becomes to the previous calculations, like the proof to the operation of a sum in arithmetic. A strict, undeviating adherence to the Holy Scriptures, and the simple adjustment of the Roman Consulships, supporting the great discovery of Bianchini in 1703, have unitedly solved questions which before had occasioned to the learned the greatest perplexity. Two examples of this may be mentioned the answer of the Jews to our Lord at the first Passover of his ministry, (John ii. 20,) and the seventy weeks of Daniel. Until the exact date of the termination of those two periods could be determined, the precise date of their beginning was the subject of conjecture and controversy.

A*

Yet the method of computation has always been the same; the sum was worked by the same rules; and it was only the proof of history which showed that in the operation there was an error somewhere. The same remark may be applied to all the great dates affirmed in the Bible: the creation- - the deluge the call of Abraham-the Exodus - the building of the first temple, and its duration. From the time of Scaliger, the use of the Julian Period, the mode of ascertaining the solar and lunar cycles, the calculation backward or forward from some fixed and well known point of time, the adjustment of the whole by astronomical observations, have all been common and uniform. When, therefore, a diversity occurs in their results, it proceeds rather from special causes, affecting the computations of each chronologer, and for which we are able to account, than from actual uncertainty. Let us take, for example, the systems of Petavius and Usher, with regard to the age of the world. The former of these profoundly learned and distinguished men reckons backward from that well known year which is commonly called the first year after our Saviour's birth. That it was erroneously so called, is now beyond controversy. But that makes no difference as to its certainty. It coincided, as I have shown, (Chronol. Introd., Part I. Chap. iv. p. 109,) with the year 4714 of the Julian Period; and, being a fixed point in all chronological computations, is retained in the following work merely to avoid confusion. By subtracting any given year before it, the number of intervening years is the remainder. If from 4714 the year before the Vulgar Æra be subtracted, it gives the corresponding year of the Julian Period; if the year of the Julian Period be subtracted, the remainder is the year before the Vulgar Era. Any year of the Julian Period

being thus obtained, divide it by 19, and the remainder is the golden number. If there be no remainder, the golden number is XIX. Divide the same year by 28, and the remainder in the solar cycle tells whether the year is or is not Bissextile, and what the Sunday letter or letters. [See the Table, Chron. Introd., p. 98.] The computations of Petavius made the year of creation before the Vulgar Æra 3984; and that, subtracted from 4714, gave 730 as the year of the Julian Period, applied to Genesis i. 2. The golden number was VIII., and the remainder in the solar cycle, 2, gave E as the Sunday letter. He thus found the Sundays of that year. Petavius adopted the opinion that the world was created in the autumn; and in the year he selected, the Sundays after the autumnal equinox were September 28, October 5, 12, 19, 26. He assigns (De Doctrina Temporum, lib. ix. c. vii., and in the tables at the end of his second volume) certain astronomical reasons about the relative position of the sun and earth; says that the new moon was on the 12th of October, and the full moon on the 26th; and thence concludes that Sunday, the 26th, was the beginning of the order of creation. Usher, pursuing the same mode of computation, made the world twenty years older than Petavius, 4004 years before the Vulgar Æra, or A. J. P. 710. Its golden number was VII., and its Sunday letter, B. He also adopted the opinion that the world was created after the autumnal equinox; and, with the calendar of the Council of Nice in his hand, he found that, after that equinox, the Sundays were October 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30. For what reason we know not, he selected Sunday, October 23, as the first day of order in the creation. The introduction of Adam into Paradise he placed on the following Sunday, the thirtieth of that month. After his death, a

work was found explanatory of his scheme, but the first chapter, which treated of the creation, was unhappily missing. His credit, however, has given the most extensive currency to it, even to this day.

The elaborate work of Dr. Hales, published at the beginning of the present century, pursues a very different system from those of Petavius and Usher, and yet is governed in its calculations by the same rules. In his Analysis, (2d Edition, London, 1830, 8vo., vol. i. p. 33,) after speaking of the years of ancient nations as beginning, some at the vernal equinox, and some at the autumnal, some at the summer, and others at the winter solstice, he proceeds thus: "At which of these the primæval year, instituted at the creation, began, has been long contested among astronomers and chronologers. Philo, Eusebius, Cyril, Augustine, Abulfaragi, Kepler, Capellus, Simpson, Lange and Jackson, contend for the vernal equinox; and Josephus, Scaliger, Petavius, Usher, Bedford, Kennedy, &c., for the autumnal. The weight of ancient authorities, and also of argument, seems to preponderate in favour of the former opinion." The year of the creation assumed as the basis of his system, is before the common æra 5411; that is, 697 years before the Julian Period differing from Petavius 1427 years, and from Usher, 1407 years! These differences, viewed merely as results, occasion great perplexity; yet, when we consider the reasons which swayed his judgment, we cannot but smile at the confidence with which certainty is substituted for conjecture. Dr. Hales collected this date "from the rectification of the chronology of Josephus, and of Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch!" (Analysis, vol. i. p. 302, and vol. ii. p. 2.) Yet he professes to follow precisely the same rules as are followed by