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year of the servitude under Chusan, to the last of Eli, or com- 

 mencement of Samuel. It is, hence, plain, that St. Paul (as- 

 suming the disputed text to be correct,) must have reckoned 

 some of the periods assigned to the Judges and servitudes re- 

 ciprocally inclusive;* which affords strong evidence for our 

 more consistent interpretation, in computmg them all in 

 this manner. But while he thus makes clearly for the princi- 

 ples of our computation, he is decidedly adverse to the senti- 

 ments of those who Avould adduce him in support of their 

 hypothesis for extending the pei'iod; since» 1st. supposing that 

 it is the period assigned to the government of Samson, 

 he means to compute inclusively, (as that period is expressly 

 ascribed by Scripture to be contemporary with the dominion 

 of the Philistines) ; the setwenty years must be the duration 

 he would allot to the government of the elders, or the interval 

 from the conquest to the first servitude under Chusan. But, 

 on what principle, then, can Vossius, Pezron, and the other 

 adherents of the enlarged calculus, quote the passage of the 

 Apostle as their authority for granting fifty years, or more, to 

 the elders, and for afterwards attributing forty years complete 

 to the jurisdiction of Othniel, forgetting that he was himself 

 one of the elders, whose government had concluded, as they 



alledge, 



• Since he computes, from the conquest of the land to the end of Pamuel, only 450 

 years — and he cannot be supposed to mean, contrary to history, reason, Scriptme, and 

 coinrnoiv sense, that the first servitude commenced immediately after the concjuest. 



