schools of the prophets; and, individually, even the names of some of them. We have Samuel who did, as we have already seen, write memoirs ; and had the highest place and character of his day in Israel; and is ranked by succeeding writers with the greatest worthies of the nation. "Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among them that call upon his name; they called upon the Lord, and he answered them," Ps. xcix. 6. "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me," Jeremiah xv. 1. "Yea and all the prophets from Samuel," Acts iii. 24. "He gave judges until Samuel the prophet," Acts xiii. 20. "Time would fail to tell of David and Samuel and the prophets," Heb. xi. 32. And then we have Nathan the seer, and Gad the seer, both of them recorded in 1 Chron. xxix. 29, as the writers of national history.* And we have Solomon.-And we have Ezra. And we have transcribers as well as original writers for instance the men whom Hezekiah employed to copy out the Proverbs of Solomon. In 1 Chr. xxix. 29, there occur the names of no less than three Jewish historians two of which do not appear in the titles of any of our sacred books. There are a good many other instances besides as in 2 Chr. xii. 15; xiii. 22; xx. 34; xxvi. 22, where Isaiah is specified as one of the writers of Jewish history; and xxxiii. 19, where mention is made of the written sayings of the seers. There is reference made also to what undoubtedly were other than scriptural books, as the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, as in 1 Kings xiv. 19. There is reason to believe that there were chronological and political histories, diverse from those now extant in our Bibles, yet valuable documents notwithstanding. In as far as they are referred to in scripture, they must be regarded as at least true narratives of the history for which they are quoted; and they seem to have been thus referred to in 1 Kings xv. 7. 2 Chr. xvi. 11; xxiv. 27; xxv. 26; xxvii. 7; xxviii. 26: xxxii 32; xxxv. 27. These seem to have been more ample records than those which have been actually transmitted to us. In short we have no want of a sufficient human agency to account for all the compositions which have come down to us. For the character of these we must examine the evidence in regard to their nature and quality viewed as productswhich may be altogether independent of our knowledge in regard to the names of the men who were used instrumentally in the production of them. It is evident from 1 Kings viii. 8 & ix. 21, that at least certain parts of these compositions must have been written during the currency of the kingdom of Judea, or prior to the captivity by NebuchadnezThe intimate connexion of these books with others in scripture, as with the Chronicles, and the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, speaks strongly for their own rank and authority as canonical writings. But we have more particular and express evidence for this in such quotations as the following. "And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions," &c. 1 Kings x. 1, &c. "The queen zar. of the south came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon," Matt. xii. 42.-" And behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel, and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar! thus saith the Lord, Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt "And as Josiah upon thee, 1 Kings xiii. 1, 2. turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burnt them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord, which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words," 2 Kings xxiii. 16.-" And Elijah the Tishbite said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word," 1 Kings xvii. 1. "Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit," James v. 17, 18. But far the most illustrious testimony, and by which the character of "scripture" is most distinctly and expressly given to the book of Kings is the following-" The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away." "Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him," 1 Kings xix. 10, 18. "Wot ye not what the 'scripture' saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thou sand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal," Rom. xi. 2-4.-" And his flesh (Naaman's) came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean," 2 Kings v. 14. "And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian," Luke iv. 27." Then Rezin king of Syria, and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to war; and they besieged Ahaz; but could not overcome him," 2 Kings xvi. 5. "And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up towards Jerusalem, to war against it, but could not prevail against it,” Isaiah vii. 1.* 21. I. & II. Chronicles.] There are frequent references, in the two last and two present books, to certain books of Kings and certain books of Chronicles; but, in many instances, there is the certainty of these not being the very books that we have in scripture, and therefore other annals which, however valuable, were not admitted into the canon. It is thought by some, however, that there is a reference to our scripture Chronicles in xiv. 1. xxi. 4. xxii. 1. xxiii. 1. xxii. 10. xxiii. 21. xxiii. 1. xxiii. 29. χχίν. 1. xxiii. 30. XXV. 1. xxxiv. 29. xxxv. 1. XXXV. 20. xiv. 6. Ezek. xviii. 20. xiv. 19.-2 Chr. xxv. 27.. xxxvi. 1. xxiii. 34.-Matt. i. 11. xxiv. 10.-Dan. i. 1. Esther ii. 6. xxiv. 17.-Jer. xxxvii. 1. χχίν. 18. XXV. 1. lii. 1. xxxix. 1. lii. 4. lii. 6. xxvii. 22. lii. 21. xl. 5. xviii. 13.-2 Chr. xxxii. 1. XXV. 23. xviii. 13.-Ls, xxxvi. 1. xxv, 26. xl. 7, &c. xii, 1, 2. |