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. 66 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 Lefore 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 Sal baths; in other places by figurative language, by call ing 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 |