Cyrus in the Canon, and thus completes the interval from the scriptural date of Nebuchadnezzar to the scriptural first of Cyrus, to exactly seventy years. Even Scripture itself lends us a key to explain why the reign should disappear in profane history. It was the result of the victory of Cyrus, occurred during his lifetime, and in the height of his triumphs, and was a last relic of Median superiority, which the pride of the Persians might easily blot out, by incorporating it in the reign of his greater successor. It seems implied (Dan. xi. 1.) that it needed a special providence, to secure to Darius the privilege of his age and birthright, against the renown of Cyrus, and the growing influence of the victorious Persians.

Traces of this reign, however, are still found in profane history. Xenophon, though his Cyropedia may be a romance, would naturally secure, as far as possible, an historical groundwork. He had read Herodotus, and had since conversed with Cyrus the younger, whose name and character, and his ambitious designs, would lead him to study, more than others, the history of the great conqueror, who reigned only three or four generations earlier. Thus Xenophon would have access to the best sources of information, and would naturally follow them, so far as the purpose of his narrative allowed. Now he makes Cyaxares the Mede, and uncle of Cyrus, to be reigning at the time of Babylon's fall. His description also of the capture of the city, and of the death of the king, answers completely to the inspired history, and is an entirely independent witness of its truth. The variety, therefore, when closely sifted, only confirms in every point the correspondence of reigns already proved.

The difference of names is the only remaining difficulty, on which the noble author insists strongly, but without any real ground. In his own system, six kings from Nebuchadnezzar to Artaxerxes have no less than twenty-two names at least. Besides, to make the king, emphatically styled the Mede, the same whom profane history marks emphatically and pointedly as not a Mede, but the restorer of the Persian supremacy, is a violence far greater than to suppose that an eastern monarch had two names. Nay, there seems to be a direct authority for the name among profane authors. According to Strabo and Herodotus, the darics were first coined by Darius Hystaspes, and named after him. But Suidas and the Scholiast on Aristophanes, Prideaux observes, ascribe this to an earlier Darius. If so, this could be no other than Darius the Mede. And this view suits the history far better, for we can hardly think that the Persians would continue without a gold coinage for thirty years after the fall of Crœsus.

The next difficulty is in the reigns after Cyrus, and before the

first Persian Darius. There are two in Scripture and one in the Canon. And here again the real coincidence is very striking. For we know from Herodotus and many authors that the short reign of Smerdis intervened; which the Canon omits, as usual, because it was less than a year, being seven months only. Thus the agreement in the number of the kings is restored.

There is also a general agreement in their length. For, assigning two years to Darius, the sum of the three next will be fifteen years, the exact interval which Scripture requires. It is thus demonstrated that the Artaxerxes of Ezra iv., is neither of those who bear that name in the Canon. Again, the beginning of the reign of Ahasuerus is specified, but no such distinction occurs in that of Artaxerxes. The expression agrees with a reign of seven years, but would have been unnatural in the shorter reign of the next

successor.

The difference of names is easily explained. And first, our author himself, while he seems to smile at the hypothesis that Artaxerxes was a title and not a name, adopts this very explication of Cambyses. Now it is clear that either way the theory which makes Ahasuerus, in Ezra iv., to be Cambyses, is equally satisfied. If, however, we may reason from facts, we must maintain that the rejected supposition is the more probable. For the name Cambyses is assigned only to one king, apparently before his accession, and, on respectable authority at least, to one private person. But Ahasuerus, in Scripture, is never applied to a private person, and belongs to two, or perhaps three kings. In like manner Artaxerxes, both in Scripture and other writers, seems never to occur as a private name, while it was assumed by Artaxerxes Mnemon, Artaxerxes Ochus, and perhaps by Arses, on their accession to the throne.

Again, that Artaxerxes, Ezra iv., is Smerdis, may be confirmed by further reasons. The name is no difficulty whatever, as the fact just mentioned will prove; and when the Persians had slain the usurper, they would abolish, as far as possible, his royal title. The work of the temple ceased from some time in the reign of this Artaxerxes till the second of Darius. Yet the interval was very short, as Ezra v. 16, makes quite evident. The circumstances make it nearly certain that the application of the enemies was very soon after his accession, as in every other instance. If then the reign had been of any length, its beginning would have been specified, for the time of the petition, and the statement, v. 16, would have been quite unnatural. But the short reign of Smerdis will exactly suit the history, and the hatred of his memory by Darius might help to explain the sudden and complete reversal of his decree.

There is a further remark, which seems to lend some additional weight to arguments which are conclusive in themselves. For on this view we may trace a kind of cycle in the most popular names, of which two were certainly titles in some cases, and the third seems to be used in Scripture as indicative of royal grandeur. We shall then have a succession of this kind-Darius the Mede, Ahasuerus, Artaxerxes; Darius Hystaspes, Xerxes or Ahasuerus, Artaxerxes; Darius Nothus, Xerxes II. or Ahasuerus, Artaxerxes Mnemon. The title Artaxerxes seems then to have been assumed by Ochus and Arses in succession, and the list closes with a monarch who assumed the name of Darius.

There are two further indications that the Artaxerxes of Ezra vii. was really Artaxerxes Longimanus. The time of his accession is fixed by profane authors near the end of the Julian year. But this will exactly agree with Neh. i. ii., where the ninth month, Chisleu, in his twentieth year, precedes the first Jewish month in the same year of the king. Again, the words in Ezra vii. 23, scem a plain allusion to the tremendous overthrow of Xerxes in his Grecian expedition. That king, unlike Cyrus or Darius, the two most prosperous monarchs, had done nothing for the house of God, and there seems a direct reference to the disasters which marked his reign.

To conclude for our space is exhausted, while a wide field of remark still remains-the leading features of the question may be briefly summed up as follows. The inspired history gives us a clear succession-Nebuchadnezzar, at least 43 years; Evil Merodach and Belshazzar, before the fall of Babylon; a short Median reign-and then Cyrus, the victor of Babylon; two short reigns, together less than 12 years; Darius, the first Persian king of that name, and an Artaxerxes, whose reign was more than 33 years, with a probable distance of 120 years from his accession to another Darius, called the Persian. On the other hand, both the Canon, the most complete and consistent account, independent of Scripture, and Herodotus and others, who were contemporary with these reigns, give us 36 years for Darius Hystaspes, who overthrew a short-lived Median usurper, Xerxes for 20 years, Artaxerxes for years, and Darius Nothus for 19, A.D. 424-405. Before Hystaspes they place Cyrus for 9 years, Cambyses for 7, and Smerdis for 7 months. If we identify Darius Nothus with the Darius of Haggai, we flatly contradict the scriptural interval for the two previous reigns, and overthrow its distinction of the two dynasties, the Median dominion of the first Darius, the independent rule of Cyrus, or even the knowledge of his existence among all contemporary writers, and the known facts of the reign of Hystaspes;

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we split up Nebuchadnezzar into two separate kings, and make them both viceroys of Darius Hystaspes, in times only just before the battle of Marathon. We suppose Herodotus to have made a king of Egypt to have been dead eighty years, who was living two years before his own lifetime, and a king of Persia to have been dead forty years, who was living when his history was finished. We invent three Cyruses, one of them later than Pericles, and unknown to Herodotus, one of them intervening between Cambyses and Hystaspes, and unknown to all historians. In short, we bury ourselves under a pile of contradictions, from which it is impossible to escape without abandoning the whole system. On the other hand, the usual chronology may be established, in its main features, by Scripture evidence alone; is confirmed by the best and fullest profane witness, the Astronomical Canon; agrees with Herodotus in all the events of his own lifetime, and of the fifty previous years; and is quite as consistent with the Persian legends themselves, as that system, purely conjectural, which rests on these for its chief and most trustworthy foundation.

There are several other topics, on which we would gladly enter. But we trust that even these brief remarks are enough to confirm our original statement, and to prove the solid foundation of the chronology, which has been commonly received. We must reserve all further reflections to some more favourable opportunity; for the whole subject is rich with trains of interesting thought to every devout mind.

THE TWO RESURRECTIONS, IN THEIR RELATION TO THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION. By J. G. MANSFORD. London: Nisbet. 1846.

THOSE who move in the world of science are ever and anon fated to hear of some new discoverer, who has at last, he fancies, found out a veritable" perpetual motion." But the experienced always turn on their heel, saying with a smile, "He will find himself mistaken,-Gravity will not be cheated!"

In like manner, every ten or even every five years, we are favoured with some new scheme, for rendering the doctrine of Election tolerable to human pride. We cannot smile on such sucjects, but we can answer, as succinctly as the philosopher, “Omniscience will not be eluded."

For the whole question is one of whether the attributes of God are perfect or not. If the Divine Omniscience be perfect, then every single act, word, and thought of every human being now living, or that ever will live, is entirely known; and has been known from all eternity. And what is and has ever been, entirely and absolutely known as a thing which certainly will happen, cannot be reduced to the rank of a thing which may happen.

This, we apprehend, is the centre or turning-point of the doctrine of Election. There is nothing unknown to God;-either of things which have been, or which are, or which shall be. And to know, is to permit,-even such awful facts as sin, Satan, and hell, -for none will deny God's power to annihilate such facts, if He saw it right to do so. And this is all the "Reprobation" that we dare venture to believe or to assert.

But if every thing is thus certain beforehand, what room is there for human effort or human choice?

Let every man's daily walk answer this question. If my child is dangerously ill, do I not entirely believe, that God most certainly knows, whether she will recover, or die of the disorder? And more,-that if she dies, it will be because He does not see fit to heal her? Yet does this conviction at all lessen my anxiety or diminish my exertions? Shall I not seek for the ablest physicians, the tenderest nurses,-the best air, food, and medicine;and why? Because I love the child,-because the thought of losing her is exceedingly painful,-and because we all naturally shrink from pain, and do all we can to put it away from us.

One single passage of St. Paul's life shews us both of these principles, faith, and feeling,-actively at work. In St. Paul's voyage, at the crisis of danger, he says to the captain,