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Not all the disturbing force of the hierarchy could ever succeed completely to its wishes : but it succeeded so far as to give us an erroneous instead of a true i » ra for the birth of Christ * It also disturbed some
chronological dates more fanciful and of less importance . Before Herod was raised from the dead , to do a deed without a name , such a deed as none but a downright , absolute madman could ever think of doing , and none but one theologically mad could ever reall y believe to be done by any man
in his senses , chronologers , who are very fond of round numbers , and almost as zealous for correspondences as a Swedenborgian , had by their calculations , assisted by imagination , made the world to be exactly 4000 years old at the birth of Jesus . But when Herod commanded Jesus to be
born four years earlier , ( a mere trifle , compared with what the pseudo-Matthew has ascribed to him !) the chronologers , obedient to the mandate , made the world to be exactly 4000 years old at the new birth , and 4004 rat the old . And that this new birth
might not claim any nearer approach > to Roman antiquity , but keep itself -at a proper distance from the birth of the immortal city , the Romans , whose consular calendar would not easily admit of extending the duration of their republic , were kindly
accommodated with four years in addition to the duration of their regal state , when there was as full and as free scope for invention as any chronologer could desire . And thus the 240 years which Sir Isaac Newton had the presumption
to think were a vast deal too long for seven kings to reign in succession , were extended to 244 . But the Jews , who were always as tiff-necked people , and always resisted the Holy Ghost , would have nothing to do , either with the bcw axpo ^ pa , or even with the old
superfluity of these uncircumcised Heathens , no portion of which they contended was sanctioned by their records , or could be freed from the suspicion of imcleanness even by the Heathens themselves . Accordingly , they would not superintend the printing of a Hebrew Bible for the Christians unless
they were allowed to cut off 240 years from the Christian aera for the date of it ; which any one may see exemplified
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in the rabbinical dates annexed ( o Robert Stephens's , to Planting , and to most of the early-printed Hebrew Bibles . The true year of the crucifix ion then , has been faithfully preserved hv
the Christian church in all ages . In every mode of computing time , the memory of it has been carefull y han ded down from year to year , and from cycle to cycle , in the way described . The year of the vulgar sera in whicli it happened is also regularl y marked in the margins of our Gospels to this
day . 1 o this year the adherence has been invariable ever since the aera was adopted . To corresponding years in other seras the adherence was equally invariable , as long as those seras were in use . When they fell into disuse , the correspondence between the years of those eeras and our own > vas ) ost
It has , therefore , now become a question of some difficulty among us , in what year of the Jews , the Greeks , ot the Romans , though not in what year of our own aera , the crucifixion
happened . There is also , from some cause or other , a difficulty in settling the precise day of it , so as to be free from all objection . Basnage says rightly , ( Vol . I . p . 246 , col . 1 , ) no day can be the true day , unless it be a
Friday , and also the day of the full moon . I add , unless it stand on the site of the 1 st of April in the original table of paschal limits ; whicli table has been carefully preserved in all the service-books of the church ever since it was a church . And I further ad < l ,
that no year can be the true year ot the crucifixion , unless it correspond to the year 33 of our present vulgar a * ra . Mr . Benson , therefore , cannot Iw right in placing the crucifixion in the year 4742 of the Julian period , which , ever since that period was invented by
Joseph Scaliger , has been considered as coinciding with the year 2 J of the vulgar ; era , whose paschal limit , w the original table , is the 15 th of April ; but which Mr . B . ( pp . 326- -32 H ) would allow any one that chooses it , to consider as the 18 th of March , a
day antecedent to the vernal asquinox , a thing unheard of , or even as the 25 th of March , between which and the year 29 there is no correspondent whatever .
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266 The Introductory Chapters of Luke ' s Gospel SpUrioitg ;
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1822, page 266, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2512/page/10/
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