with the various dealings of God with men from the beginning of the world. Nor can I think it would be a vain and useless employment for persons who are not furnished with better advantages for scriptural knowledge, to read it over once in a year or two, in order to keep these sacred memoirs ever fresh in their minds. Half a chapter a week would be no heavy task, and this would finish it in twelve months time. May the divine blessing attend this feeble endeavour of mine to diffuse the knowledge of divine things among mankind, and to furnish families with useful matter for conversation, whereby they may be better secured against the temptation of loose and vicious writings, and vain discourse, which give an unhappy tincture to the imagination in early years, and tend to defile and destroy the soul. CONTENTS. An Account of the several Dispensations of I. The History of Mankind before the Flood, namely, of 3 §. 2. Of Abraham and Lot, Ishmael and Isaac.. 13 3. Of Esau and Jacob and their posterity 19 §. 4. Of the holy Things, namely, the Ark, Table, Candlestick, Altars, Laver, Holy Gar- §. 5. Of the holy Times, Feasts, and Fasts, the Sabbaths, the New Moons, the Passover, Pentecost, Feast of Tabernacles, Day of §. 6. The Use of the Jewish Ceremonies both to the Jews and to Christians.... VI. Of the Political or Judicial law of the Jews, namely, VIII. Of the Jews' Entrance into Canaan, and their first §. 2. Of the Government of the Jews by Judges, namely, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gi- IX. Of the Government of the Jews under their Kings; X. Of the Reign of Solomon and Rehoboam over all XIII. Of the Return of the Jews from Captivity, and the XIX. A continuation of the Jewish History from the End of the Old Testament to the times of Christ.. 150 §. 1. Of Nehemiah's further Reformation, of Synagogues, Targums, Samaritans, Pro- §. 2. Of the Jewish affairs under the Persian and Grecian Monarchies, and particularly §. 3. The Jewish Affairs under the Ptolemies, Kings of Egypt. Of the great Synagogue, the Mishnah and Talmud, and Septua gint, or Greek Translation of the Bible §. 4. Of the Jewish Affairs under Antiochus §. 6. Ofthe Jewish Government under the Asmo- neans or Maccabees; and first, of the three Brothers, Judas, Jonathan, and Simon.... 178 §. 7. Of the Posterity and Successors of Simon, and of the several Sects among the Jews, namely, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, XXII. Of the Birth and Childhood of Jesus Christ.... ibid A SHORT VIEW OF THE WHOLE SCRIPTURE HISTORY, &c. THE HISTORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. INTRODUCTION. THERE is no history in the world so ancient as the Bible, nor is there any which gives us so early an account of things. The Old Testament begins at the creation of the world, brings us into acquaintance with Adam and Eve, our first parents; informs us of their state of innocence, their sin against God, and their being driven out of Paradise: it recounts the first generations of men, and their multiplied iniquities, which provoked God to destroy them by a flood. Then it treats of the character, circumstances, and conduct of Noah and Abraham, and of their families after the flood, enlarging most upon the household of Jacob or Israel, the grandson of Abraham, who, at the |