A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

So that the reason why the scripture gives us no history of so great a part of this period, is not because the events of this period were not so important, or less worthy to be taken notice of, than the events of the foregoing periods? for I shall hereafter show how great and distingushedly remarkable the events of this period were. But there are several other reasons which may be given of it. One is, that it was the will of God that the spirit of prophecy should cease in this period, (for reasons that may be given hereafter); so that there were no prophets to write the history of these times; and therefore God designing this, took care that the great events of this period should not be without mention in his word; and so ordered it, that the prophecies of scripture should be more full h•re, than in the preceding periods. It is observable, that that set of writing prophets that God raised up in Israel, were raised up ••at the latter end of the foregoing period, and at the beginning of this; which it is likely was partly for that reason, that the time was now approaching, of which the spirit of prophecy having ceased, there was to be no scripture-history, and therefore no other scripture-account but what was given in prophecy.

Another reason that may be given why there was so great a part of this period left without an historical account in scripture, is, that God in ••is providence took care, that there should be authentic and full accounts of the events of this period preserved in profane history. It is remarkable, and very worthy to be taken notice of, that with respect to the events of the five preceding periods, of which the scriptures give the history, profane history gives us no account, or at least of but very few of them. There are many fabulous and uncertain accounts of things that happened before; but the beginning of the times of authentic profane history is judged to be but a little before Nebuchadnezzar's time, about an hundred years before. The learned men among the Greeks and Romans, used to call the ages before that the fabulous age; but the times after that they called the historical age. From about that time to the coming of Christ, we have undoubted accounts in profane history of the principal events; accounts that wonderfully agree with the many prophecies that we have in scripture of those times.