Together with the moral system of the world, the Old Testament contains a chronological account of the beginning of it, and from thence, an unbroken genealogy of mankind for many ages before common history begins; and carried on as much farther as to make up a continued thread of history, of the length of between three and four thousand years. It contains an account of God’s making a covenant with a particular nation, that they should be his people, and he would be their God, in a peculiar sense; of his often interposing miraculously in their affairs; giving them the promise, and long after, the possession, of a particular country; assuring them of the greatest national prosperity in it, if they would worship him, in opposition to the idols which the rest of the world worshipped, and obey his commands; and threatening them with unexampled punishments if they disobeyed him, and fell into the general idolatry: insomuch that this one nation should continue to be the observation and the wonder of all the world. It declares particularly, that _God would scatter them among all people, from one end of the earth unto the other_; but that _when they should return unto the Lord their God, he would have compassion upon them, and gather them from all the nations, whither he had scattered them_: that _Israel should be saved in the Lord, with an everlasting salvation; and not be ashamed or confounded world without end_.[277] And as some of these promises are conditional, others are as absolute as any thing can be expressed: that the time should come, when _the people should be all righteous, and inherit the land forever_: that _though God would make a full end of all nations whither he had scattered them, yet would he not make a full end of them_: that _he would bring again the captivity of his people Israel, and plant them upon their land, and they should be no more pulled up out of their land_: that _the seed of Israel should not cease from being a nation forever_.[278] It foretells, that God would raise them up a particular person, in whom all his promises should finally be fulfilled; the Messiah, who should be, in a high and eminent sense, their anointed Prince and Savior. This was foretold in such a manner, as raised a general expectation of such a person in the nation, as appears from the New Testament, and is an acknowledged fact; an expectation of his coming at such a particular time, before any one appeared claiming to be that person, and when there was no ground for such an expectation, but from the prophecies: which expectation, therefore, must in all reason be presumed to be explanatory of those prophecies, if there were any doubt about their meaning. It seems moreover to foretell, that this person should be rejected by the nation to whom he had been so long promised, though he was so much desired by them.[279] And it expressly foretells, that he should be the Savior of the Gentiles; and that the