208 



of its existence, or disposed to regard it as spurious or interpo- 

 lated, as will be very evident to any one consulting Syncellus, 

 who discusses this very question (p. I70. Edit, ut supra) at 

 large, and particularly mentions the reasoning of Eusebius, 

 Avhich he opposes by his own : he acknowledges the authority 

 of the Verse, but contends, for an error in the interpretation of 

 it, because it should be understood " as separating the servi- 

 tudes and oppressions, and only recording the 'periods of 

 prosperity and peace;" and this error, which has been re- 

 newed and restated by Vossius and his followers in a later 

 age, was the only cause that the ancient chronologists do not 

 mention, or seem to neglect the computation of the book of 

 Kings. We see then the force and value of an argument 

 drawn from their silence against its authenticity; their logic 

 and their criticism, in so paraphrasing the text, may have 

 been inconclusive and inaccurate, and all the reasonings of 

 this essay, have for an object to prove that they were; but 

 their principles of computation were justly founded and 

 .ileduced from the exposition they premised; and little indeed 

 did these venerable supporters of all they held valuable and 

 important in life— the truth and authority of those Scriptures 

 which were the rule of their faith, and foundation of their 

 hopes, little doubtless, when however ignorantly, restoring the 

 chronology of the sacred writings,did they ever look forward to 

 the period when the very systems and hypotheses built on the 

 supposition of this text, and resting on li/ on an interpretation 



which 



