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condition they laid down their arms. — The flames were rapidly advancing the houses were crowded with dead, and dying victims of peftilence, famine, and murder-upwards of 2000 perfons having laid violent hands on themselves, or killed one another by confent, befides the number killed under pretence of fedition, or intended defertion, by the party which governed the city-yet did the defperate madness of their leaders oblige them to reject these terms of mercy. Incensed by the infolence of a people whom he confidered as already conquered, the Roman General gave permiffion to his foldiers to fall upon them with fire and fword, and to make the beft of the fpoil. Now was the tremendous cup of wrath poured forth in all its bitterness. Imagination fhrinks from the detail of fuch unprecedented horrors, as Jofephus, afferts to have continued many days he alone who faw the dreadful realities could paint them with the force of truth; and to his defcription I refer thofe readers who require more evidence of the unexampled miferies attending this. memorable catastrophe; adding only his concluding remarksh. "There

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never was a city that fuffered fuch miferies, or a race of men from the beginning of the world, who fo abounded in wickednefs. I am of opinion, that if the Romans had dedelayed to deftroy these impious wretches, the city would have been fwallowed up by an earthquake, overwhelmed by the waters, or confumed by fire from heaven, like another Sodom; for it produced a race of men far worse than those who fuffered fuch punishment."

Thy enemies will lay thee even with the ground, and they will not leave in thee one ftone upon another.

When the foldiers had rested from their horrid work of blood and plunder. Titus gave orders to demolifh the foundations of the City and the Temple. But, that pofterity might judge of the glory and value of his conqueft, he left three towers standing as monuments of the prodigious ftrength and greatness of the city; and also a part of the western wall, which he defigned as a rampart for a garrifon, to keep the furrounding country in fubjection. All the other buildings

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were completely levelled with the ground. When Titus came again to Jerufalem in his way from Syria to Egypt, and beheld the fad devastation, he bitterly lamented the cruel neceffity which had compelled him to destroy fo magnificent a city. And Eleazar, in his address to his countrymen the Jews, pathetically asks, "What is become of our city, which was believed to be inhabited by God? It is rooted up from the very foundations; and the only monument of it that is left, is the camp of those who deftroyed it ftill pitched upon its remains."

And they fhall fall by the edge of the fword, and fhall be led captive into all nations.

The number that perifhed during the fiege. amounted to eleven hundred thoufand; and the number of captives to ninety-feven thoufand. - Thefe were not all inhabitants of the

It is recorded by Maimonides, and likewife in the Jewish Talmud, that Terentius Rufus, an officer in the army of Titus, with a ploughfhare tore up the foundations of the Temple, and thus remarkably fulfilled the words of the Prophet Micah; "Therefore fhall Zion, for your fake, be ploughed as a field, and Jerufalem fhall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the foreft." Mic. iii. 12.

city; for the Jews, according to their Law, had affembled from all parts to celebrate the feast of unleavened bread; and, in confequence of the rapid advance of the Roman army, were fuddenly prevented from returning home; as a fnare fhall it come upon them. This circumftance will account for the great multitudes that were fhut up in the city during the fiege; and to the vaft crouds of people thus unusually pent up, does Jofephus impute the plague, and, in part, the famine*. Of the prifoners Titus referved the most handfome youths, and principal perfons, to adorn his triumphal proceffion on his return to Rome; and prefented many to the governors of the provinces, to be expofed during the public games to wild beafts, or, to the fword. He fent those who were more than 17 years of age to labour in the public works in Egypt; and those who were under that

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Cetius, in order to convince Nero that he ought not to despise the Jewish nation, defired the priests to number the people who were affembled to celebrate the paffover when he was at Jerufalem: and there were found to be three millions of Jews, including women and children The aftonishing numbers of the Jewish people was the fubject of Prophecy. See Chap. II. But to confirm this account as merely an hiftorical fact, we need only look at the prefent state of population in Cairo, and Pekin.

! De Bell. Jud. lib. vi. c. 9.

age were fold for flaves, and fent into different parts of the empire. But eleven thoufand of thefe miferable captives were abfolutely starved to death, by the careleffness or cruelty of their guard. During this war with the Romans, one million three hundred and fifty-feven thousand, fix hundred and fixty, are particu larly enumerated as flain in different places, which are mentioned; and numbers of every age, fex, and condition, are mentioned as having perifhed at different times, and in dif ferent ways, befides these which are particu larly enumerated.

"In the reign of Adrian 985 of the best towns in Judea were facked and demolished, 580,000 men fell by the fword in battle, befides an infinite multitude who perifhed by famine, and ficknefs, and fire; fo that Judea was almost depopulated, and an almost incredible number of every age, and fex, were fold like horses, and difperfed over the face of the earth m

ferufalem fhall be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles fhall be fulfilled.

Newton, vol. ii. Diff. 18.

When

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