These rules are well known; but the art of writing history well will always be very uncommon. It obviously requires a style grave, pure, varied, and smooth. But we may say with respect to rules for writing history, as in reference to those for all the intellectual arts—there are many precepts, but few masters.
SECTION V.
History of the Jewish Kings, and of the "Paralipomena."
Every nation, as soon as it was able to write, has written its own history, and the Jews have accordingly written theirs. Before they had kings, they lived under a theocracy; it was their destiny to be governed by God himself.
When the Jews were desirous of having a king, like the adjoining nations, the prophet Samuel, who was exceedingly interested in preventing it, declared to them, on the part of God, that they were rejecting God himself. Thus the Jewish theocracy ceased when the monarchy commenced.
We may therefore remark, without the imputation of blasphemy, that the history of the Jewish kings was written like that of other nations, and that God did not take the pains Himself to dictate the history of a people whom He no longer governed.
We advance this opinion with the greatest diffidence. What may perhaps be considered as confirming it, is, that the "Paralipomena" very frequently contradict the Book of Kings, both with respect to chronology and facts, just as profane historians sometimes contradict one another. Moreover, if God always wrote the history of the Jews, it seems only consistent and natural to think that He writes it still; for the Jews are always His cherished people. They are on some future day to be converted, and it seems that whenever that event happens, they will have as complete a right to consider the history of their dispersion as sacred, as they have now to say, that God wrote the history of their kings.
We may be allowed here to make one reflection; which is, that as God was for a very long period their king, and afterwards became their historian, we are bound to entertain for all Jews the most profound respect. There is not a single Jew broker, or slop-man, who is not infinitely superior to Cæsar and Alexander. How can we avoid bending in prostration before an old-clothes man, who proves to us that his history has been written by God Himself, while the histories of Greece and Rome have been transmitted to us merely by the profane hand of man?
If the style of the history of the kings, and of the "Paralipomena," is divine, it may nevertheless be true that the acts recorded in these histories are not divine. David murders Uriah; Ishbosheth and Mephibosheth are murdered; Absalom murders Ammon; Joab murders Absalom; Solomon murders his brother Adonijah; Baasha murders Nadab; Zimri murders Ela; Omri murders Zimri; Ahab murders Naboth; Jehu murders Ahab and Joram; the inhabitants of Jerusalem murder Amaziah, son of Joash; Shallum, son of Jabesh, murders Zachariah, son of Jeroboam; Menahhem murders Shallum, son of Jabesh; Pekah, son of Remaliah, murders Pekahiah, son of Manehem; and Hoshea, son of Elah, murders Pekah, son of Remaliah. We pass over, in silence, many other minor murders. It must be acknowledged, that, if the Holy Spirit did write this history, He did not choose a subject particularly edifying.