176 



understood it, we should have heard less of propositions, to 

 read 580 or 680, or, as Pezron would have it, 873 3'ears, enlar- 

 ging the period of a generation to 80 or even 120 3ears, when 

 we are expressly informed, that, even in the days of Abraham, 

 it was the immediate interference of Heaven, that granted him 

 his first son, at a much earlier age; and David, (or Moses, as 

 the psalm is ascribed to him,) himself, informs us, that hu- 

 man life was then abridged to the present length; but, be- 

 cause, in questions to be solved by inductional proof, we 

 cannot accumulate too many examples in favour of our hy- 

 pothesis, we will find numerous authorities in synchronizing 

 the genealogies in the Book of Chronicles: we find 17 gene- 

 rations-j- computed from Levi to Solomon, (c. 6. ].); but the 

 successions were, in general, of eldest sons, which gives fewer 

 years to a generation. However, it is an interval of above 

 700years, which is somewhat more than eight, to 350 years. In 



David's 



argument, in defence of the contested text, which he foUowe, but the enlarged application 

 of the principle, the demonstration of its existence, and the multiplied evidence of its 

 use, still remain, exclusively, the property of the first of philosophers. It is interesting 

 to observe a principle recognized in antiquity from casual associations, suffered thus 

 to lie dormant and unemployed ; but when adopted and restated, after the lapse of 

 ages, by superior mind, become the useful instrument in the discovery of important 

 truths. 



f Josephus also reckons 1 3 high-priests from the exod to the foundation of the temple, 

 (Antiq. XX. C. 8. p. 700.) but we are to recollect, that the successions were of men 

 advanced in years, at the time they attained this great dignity; the remaining four were 

 in the 215 years from the descent of Jacob into Egypt, to the exod. 



