Judg. xviii. For doubtless to this time the expedition may most conveniently be referred. And thus, without any great inconvenience to him appearing, doth Codoman reconcile the account of Jephtha, Judg. xviii. 1. and St. Paul, with that in 1 Kings vi. Now whereas it is said, that the expedition of the Danites was, when there was no king in Israel;-to this Codoman answereth, that it is not necessary that we should suppose that Othoniel lived all those forty years of rest, of which Judg. iii. 11. So that by the twenty-five years after his victory, either he might have been dead, or at least, as Gideon did, he might have refused all sovereignty; and so either way it might truly be said, that at this time, (to wit, the twenty-fifth year after Othoniel's victory,) there was no king in Israel. This opinion of Codoman, if it were as consonant to other chronologers grounding their opinions on the plain text, where it is indisputable, as it is in itself round enough and coherent, might perhaps be received as good; especially considering, that the speeches of St. Paul have not otherwise found any interpretation, maintaining them as absolutely true, in such manner as they sound and are set down. But seeing that he wanteth all help of authority, we may justly suspect the supposition whereupon his opinion is grounded; it being such as the consent of many authors would hardly suffice to make very probable. For, who hath told Codoman, that the conquest of Laish, by the tribe of Dan, was performed in the five and twentieth year of Othoniel? Or what other probability hath he than his own conjecture, to shew that Othoniel did so renounce the office of a judge after five and twenty years, that it might then be truly said there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was good in his own eyes?

Now concerning the rehearsal of the law by Moses, and the stopping of Jordan, they might indeed be properly said to have been, when Israel came out

of Egypt; like as we say, that King Edward I. was crowned when he came out of the Holy Land; for so all journies, with their accidents, commonly take name from the place, either whence or whither they tend. But I think that he can find no such phrase of speech in scripture, as limiteth a journey by an accident, or saith, by converting the proposition, when Jordan was turning back, Israel came out of Egypt. Indeed most improper it were to give date unto actions commenced long after, from an expedition finished long before; namely to say, that king Edward, at his arrival out of Palæstina, did win Scotland, or died at Carlisle. How may we then believe, that enterprize, performed so many years after the division of the land, (which followed the conquest at the journey's end,) should be said to have been at the time of the departure out of Egypt? Or who will not think it most strange, that the most notable account of time, serving as the only guide for certain ages in sacred chronology, should not take name and beginning from that illustrious deliverance out of Egypt, rehearsed often by God himself among the principal of his benefits to Israel, whereof the very day and month are recorded in scripture, (as likewise are the year and month wherein it expired,) and the form of the year upon that occassion changed; but should have reference to the surprising of a town by six hundred men, that robbed a chapel by the way, and stole from thence idols to be their guides, as not going to work in God's name? for this accident, whereupon Codoman buildeth, hath either no time given to it, or a time far different from that which he supposeth, and is indeed rather by him placed in such a year, because it best stood with his interpretation so to have it, than for any certainty or likelihood of the thing itself.

Wherefore we may best agree with such as affirm, that the apostle St. Paul did not herein labour to set down the course of time exactly (a thing no way.

concerning his purpose) but only to shew that God, who had chosen Israel to be his people, delivered them out of bondage, and ruled them by judges and prophets, unto the time of Saul, did raise up our Lord Jesus Christ out of the seed of David the king, in whose succession the crown was established, and promise of a kingdom that should have no end. Now in rehearsing briefly thus much, which tended as a preface to the declaration following, (wherein he sheweth Christ to have been the true Messias) the apostle was so far from labouring to make an exact calculation of times, (the history being so well known, and believed of the Jews to whom he preached,) that he spake as it were at large of the forty years consumed in the wilderness, whereof no man doubted; saying, that God suffered their manners in the wilderness about forty years. In like manner he proceeded, saying, that from the division of the land unto the days of Samuel the prophet, in whose time they required to have a king, there passed about four hundred and fifty years. Neither did he stand to tell them, that a hundred and eleven years of bondage mentioned in this middle while, were, by exact computation, to be included within the three hundred and thirty-nine years of the Judges; for this had been an impertinent digression from the argument which he had in hand. Wherefore it is a work not so needful as laborious, to search out of this place, that which the apostle did not here intend to teach, when the sum of four hundred and eighty years is so expressly and purposely set down.

Now that the words of St. Paul, (if there be no fault in the copy through error of some scribe,) are not so curiously to be examined in matter of chronology, but must be taken as having reference to the memory and apprehension of the vulgar, it is evident by his ascribing in the same place forty years to the reign of Saul; whereas it is manifest, that those years were divided between Saul and Samuel, yea,

that far the greater part of them were spent under the government of the prophet, howsoever they are here included in the reign of the king. As for those, that with so much cunning foresake the general opinion, when it favoureth not such exposition, as they bring out of a good mind, to help where the need is not over great; I had rather commend their diligence, than follow their example. The words of St. Paul were sufficiently justified by Beroaldus, as having reference to a common opinion among the scribes in those days, that the hundred and eleven years of servitude were to be reckoned apart from the three hundred and thirty-nine years ascribed to the judges; which account the apostle would not in this place stand to contradict, but rather chose to speak as the vulgar, qualifying it with a Quasi, where he saith Quasi quadringentis et quinquaginta annis; as it were four hundred and fifty years. But Codoman being not thus contented, would needs have it to be so indeed; and therefore disjoins the members to make the account even. In so doing he dasheth himself against a notable text; whereupon all authors have builded, (as well they might and ought,) that purposely and precisely doth cast up the years from the departure out of Egypt, unto the building of Solomon's temple, not omitting the very month itself.

Now, (as commonly the first apprehensions are strongest,) having already given faith to his own interpretation of St. Paul, he thinketh it more needful to find some new exposition for that, which is of itself most plain, and to examine his own conjecture, upon a place that is full of controversy. Thus, by expounding, after a strange method, that which is manifest, by that which is obscure, he loseth himself in those ways, wherein, before him, never man walked. Surely if one should urge him to give rea son of these new opinions, he must needs answer, that Othoniel could not govern above twenty-five VOL. III.

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years, because then was the taking of Laish, at which time there was no king in Israel; that the Danites must needs have taken Laish at that time, because else we could not reckon backwards from the foundation of the temple, to any action that might be termed the coming of Israel out of Egypt, without excluding the years of servitude; and that the years of servitude must needs be included, for that otherwise he himself should have spent his time vainly, in seeking to pleasure St. Paul with an exposition. Whether this ground be strong enough to uphold a paradox, I leave it to the decision of the judicious reader.

And now to proceed in our story. To the time of Jephtha are referred the death of Hercules, the rape of Helen by Paris, and the provisions which her husband Menelaus, reigning then in Sparta, and his brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenæ, made for her recovery. Others refer this rape of Helen to the fourth year of Ibzan; from which time, if the war of Troy, (as they suppose,) did not begin till the third of Ailon or Elon, yet the Greeks had six years to prepare themselves; the rule holding not true in this war, longa præparatio belli celerem affert victoriam;' that a long preparation begets a speedy victory for the Greeks consumed ten years in the attempt; and Troy, as it seems, was entered, sacked, and burnt in the third year of Habdon.

Three years after Troy was taken, which was in the sixth year of Habdon, Æneas arrived in Italy. Habdon in the eighth year of his rule died, after he had been the father of forty sons and thirty grandchildren. And whereas it is supposed, that the forty years of Israel's oppression by the Philistines, (of which Judg. xiii. 1.,) took beginning from the ninth year of Jair, and ended with the last of Habdon; I see no great reason for that opinion. For Ephraim had had little cause of quarrel against Jephtha, for not calling them to war over Jordan, if