SKETCli OF THE LIFE AND
possible , and what as certain : and that he should not spend too much time in endeavouring to digest the tough corticating threads of the chronology, but should enjoy the delicious kernel enveloped in them. He thinks the commencement of time answered to our autumn : the pre-Adamite theory is refuted by Gen. i. 26, ii. 7, v. 1 : Man’s state of innocence lasted for but a short time : the Israelitish day of atonement (the tenth of the seventh month) is probably the anniver- sary of the fall of man.
By Gen. v. he reckons from the creation to the flood, 1656 years. „ Gen. xi. from the flood to the birth of Abraham, 290 „
„ Gen. xxi. 5, from the birth of Abraham to that of
Isaac, ..... 100 „
„ Gen. xxv. 26, from that to the birth of Jacob, . 60 „
„ Gen. xli. 46, xlv. 6, xlvii. 28. From that to the
birth of Joseph, . . . . 90 „
„ Gen. 1. 26, from the birth of Joseph to his death, 110 „
Thence to the Exodus : comp. Gen. xv. 13 with
Judith y. 8, and Acts vii. 8, . . 140 „
From Adam to the Exodus, . . . 2446 „
From the Exodus to the completion of the temple, . 487 „
Conclusion of Solomon’s reign of forty years, . 2963 A. M. (See 1 Kings xi. 42, and 2 Chron. ix. 30.)
The years of the kings of Judah to the burning of
Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, . . 393 years.
Thence to the Christian Era, . . . 587 „
From Adam to the vulgar Christian Era, . . 3943 „
But the Lord’s nativity really took place three full years before this : probably on the 25th of December.
Bengel refutes the notion, that we are forbidden in Scripture to at- tempt fixing future dates. In Mark xiii. 32, Matt. xxiv. 36, the stress is on the present tense, u No man knowetli the day nor the hour.” In those days no man did know, not even the Son ; but He after- wards knew it, for He revealed it in the Apocalypse. So in Acts i. 6, 7, the stress lies on you ; but further disclosures would be made subsequently to others : we are not moreover in it precluded from all knowledge of the future, but only from knowing those seasons, which the Father hath reserved in His own power. Noah was forewarned of the very year in which the flood came. The four hundred years of sojourn of Abraham and his seed in a strange land were revealed beforehand to him. Surely then the twenty prophetic periods of time in the Apocalypse have not been specified for nothing. God gives a promise for believers to depend upon, and they are to persevere through all difficulties until its fulfilment. The glorious issue of Christ’s coming has ever been Revelation’s grand object :