we are repeatedly told, that they were not chosen for their
superior righteousness--"for they were a stiff-necked people, and
provoked the Lord with their rebellions from the day they left
Egypt."--"You have been rebellious against the Lord (says Moses) from
the day that I knew you." And he vehemently exhorts them, not to flatter
themselves that their success was, in any degree, owing to their own
merits.

27. They were appointed to be the scourge of other nations, whose crimes
rendered them fit objects of divine chastisement. For the sake of
righteous Abraham, their founder, and perhaps for many other wise
reasons, undiscovered to us, they were selected from a world over-run
with idolatry, to preserve upon earth the pure worship of the one only
God, and to be honoured with the birth of the Messiah amongst them. For
this end, they were precluded, by divine command, from mixing with any
other people, and defended, by a great number of peculiar rites and
observances, from falling into the corrupt worship practised by their
neighbours.

_Of Judges, Samuel, and Kings._

28. The book of Judges, in which you will find the affecting stories of
Sampson and Jeptha, carries on the history from the death of Joshua,
about two hundred and fifty years; but, the facts are not told in the
times in which they happened, which makes some confusion; and it will be
necessary to consult the marginal dates and notes, as well as the index,
in order to get any clear idea of the succession of events during that
period.

29. The history then proceeds regularly through the two books of Samuel,
and those of Kings: nothing can be more interesting and entertaining
than the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon: but, after the death of
Solomon, when ten tribes revolted from his son Rehoboam, and became a
separate kingdom, you will find some difficulty in understanding
distinctly the histories of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, which
are blended together, and by the likeness of the names, and other
particulars, will be apt to confound your mind, without great attention
to the different threads thus carried on together: The index here will
be of great use to you. The second book of Kings concludes with the
Babylonish captivity, 588 years before Christ--'till which time the
kingdom of Judah had descended uninterruptedly in the line of David.

_Of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther._

30. The first book of Chronicles begins with a genea