have sometimes occasioned serious practical injury to the cause of religion, a right conception of the objects and uses of the sacred history of the Old Testament is on the contrary of essential service to Christian truth, and to the edification of Christians.

I. But in the first place, with respect to the proofs which the Historical Scriptures of the Old Testament afford of their objects and design, let us

ancients speak); that is, all the world over. In short, whatsoever is most ancient in those countries, which are farthest from all commerce with his own, is clearly explained by Moses: whose writings therefore cannot but be highly valued by all those who will apply their minds seriously to the study of them."

We are not indeed to infer from these passages, that the writer himself confounded the indirect and very subordinate uses of the Scriptures with their great and proper uses; but they shew with what views and for what poor purposes he conceived they were likely to be studied, if studied at all, in 1694, in an age which seemed, as he says, "to take pleasure in being ignorant of the most important truths."

In our own age, however, and in our own country, we have seen an attempt to construct a merely civil history of the Jews out of the sacred records; and the impression likely to be created by this book (although its author, I am persuaded, never contemplated such a consequence) is something altogether contrary to that which would follow a well-directed study of the inspired historians.

be careful to view them from our proper position. We do not regard these sacred books as insulated works nor yet as works whose design is to be collected from internal evidence alone. We view them, both as believers in their sacred character, and as Christians. And further, we recollect that they are part, and only part, of holy Scripture.

For the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, have not only separate, but common, objects; and all the several portions of the Old Testament mutually throw light on one another: but the objects and design of the whole and of all the parts of the Old Testament are still better understood and appreciated by those, who can look back upon them from the elevated position which the Christian occupies. To make use of the advantages of this position, will, indeed, be still more important, when we consider some of the particular objects of the old Historical Scriptures: but we should not lose sight of them even in tracing the proofs of their general design.

It is easy to say, for instance, that the history of the kings of Israel is brief, because the historians belonged to the rival kingdom of Judah; that the history of Abraham and the patriarchs is treated at ample length, because the writer was a Jew, and one of their own descendants; or that the affairs of the Jewish Church and of religion eclipse

the civil history of the times, because the writer or the compiler was a priest. These easy and superficial assertions will not, it is true, by any means account for the actual state of the fact. They will not explain the phænomena of the Historical books even when considered by themselves, and apart from the other portions of the sacred volumes with which they are in reality connected. And this may often appear incidentally in the progress of these remarks. But what we are here to bear in mind is, that we have not at present any direct concern at all with objections of this nature. Since they virtually impugn the inspiration of these writings, the proper proofs of their sacred character supply the direct answer to such objections. We, on the contrary, are regarding these books as long ago admitted into the sacred canon, integral parts of that volume of Scripture which was "given by inspiration of God." But Christ and his apostles, whilst they confirmed the authority of the elder Scriptures, gave us besides another volume of Revelation. And hence it must be our endeavour to trace the objects of the old sacred histories at once with all the reverence and humility becoming those who would examine into the design, not so much of the inspired historians, as of the Holy Spirit, and yet with all the advantage of the light reflected upon them by the Gospel.

Thus we have Historical books in the New Testament also. And their general design is palpable. No one can find a civil or political history in the four Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles. On the contrary, the writer who should attempt a merely political history of the Jewish people, would almost pass over in silence the great transactions recorded in these books, although they affect the highest interests, temporal and eternal, of the whole human race". These histories then

are exclusively religious histories, occupied altogether with the character of man and the mercy of God.

When therefore we look back from these sacred histories to others connected with them, and bearing also a sacred character, we may well expect to find them treating of the same subjects, although under different circumstances; occupied with the history of that elder church, for instance, upon which the Church of Christ is founded; or of earlier dispensations which might pave the way for the last and highest; or with such records and descriptions of human conduct and character, or such revelations of the Divine character and attributes, as would illustrate and make preparation

e

Josephus, accordingly, and the author of the recent "History of the Jews," have bestowed scarcely a word upon the transactions recorded in the four Gospels and the Acts.

for the last and highest act of grace, in the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ.

And this is precisely what we find in the Historical Scriptures of the Old Testament. And by what they omit, and what they select, by what they treat succinctly or in full detail, their proper character and design are displayed as religious histories, maintaining a just connexion with the other portions of the sacred Scriptures, prophetical, devotional, or doctrinal, of the Old Testament and of the New.

I. Hence it is that the history of the kingdom of Israel is concisely treated, because it had apostatized from the Church of God. And what is recorded of each successive reign is principally, or almost exclusively, the fact and the extent of this apostasy, or the judgments, and mercies, and other interpositions of God, by which it might haply Hence also the reigns

be checked or overcome.

of Ahab and of the first Jeroboam occupy the largest space, because the one introduced the first great defection from the worship of Jehovaḥ, and the other completed the apostasy by polluting the holy land with the worship of Baal.

Con

cerning the rest it was almost sufficient to state, that they repressed or retained the service of Baal, or "departed not from the sins of Jeroboam