FROM THE CLOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY, TILL THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. BY D. DAVIDSON. THREE VOLUMES IN ONE. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, No. 285 BROADWAY. PREFACE. On the importance of connecting the study of Sacred with Profane History, it would be useless to dilate. A glory gilds the sacred page, majestic as the sun; It gives a light to every age,-it gives but borrows none: it throws a radiance on the records of ancient times, which nothing else can give; and, mid the darkness and clouds which surround the steps of Providence, it casts a cheering and a guiding light, without which all were uncertainty and doubt. On reviewing history, the Writer has ventured to pass beyond the path of preceding authors: he has reflected on what he believed the evident or probable tendency of an event or a series of events, to promote and give publicity to the true religion, to corrupt, obscure, subvert it, or arrest its progress. Many of the rational creatures work in opposition to the impartial goodness and spontaneous compassion of the Supreme, and yet thereby only expose their feebleness as well as wickedness; for he ruleth over all, and will make all things subserve to accomplish his sovereign will: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation. Though the superintending power of God over the progress of nations may be as untraceable as His paths in the ocean, yet the effects are everywhere visible, and manifest the progressive fulfilment of the prophetic denunciations and promises set forth in the Holy Oracles. All who have wisdom to discern this power opera.ing in passing events, acquire increased knowledge of the inconceiv able and unsearchable excellences of the Divine nature, and of his benevolent purposes and design respecting our fallen |