divine vengeance might be be as manifest ín the final destruction of Jerusalem, as it had been in the first, there appeared in both the same seduction, the same temerity, and the same hardness of heart.

Although their rebellion had drawn the Roman arms upon them, and though they rashly shook off a yoke which the whole world had bent under, Titus was not willing to destroy them: on the contrary, he caused several offers of pardon to be made them, not only in the beginning of the war, but even when they could no longer escape his hands. He had already raised about Jerusalem a vast high wall, fortified with towers and redoubts, as strong as the city itself, when he sent to them Josephus, their fellowcitizen, one of their captains, one of their priests, who had been taken in that war defending his country. What did he not say to move them? By how many forcible arguments did he invite them to return to their obedience? He shewed them heaven and earth conspired against them, their destruction inevitable in resistance, and at the same time their safety in the clemency of Titus. 66 Save," said he, "the holy city,

save yourselves, save that temple, the won"der of the world, which the Romans re"verénce, and which Titus is loth to de

stroy*.' But how was it possible to save people so obstinately resolved to undo themselves? Seduced by their false prophets, they did not hearken to these wise

Joseph. vii. de bell. Jud. iv.

3

admonitions. They were reduced to the last extremity; the famine killed more than the war, and mothers eat their own children. Titus, touched with their calamities, took the Gods to witness, that he was not the cause of their destruction. During these miseries, they gave faith to the false predictions, which promised them the empire of the world. Nay more, when the city was taken, and already on fire in every quarter, those infatuated people still believed the false prophets, who assured them that the day of salvation was come, that so they might hold out to the last, and that there might be no more mercy for them. Accordingly every thing was massacred, the city was utterly demolished, and except some remains of towers, which Titus left for a monument to posterity, not one stone remained upon another.

You see then, Sir, the same vengeance shewn upon Jerusalem, that had before appeared under Zedekiah. Titus was no less sent by God than Nebuchadnezzar; the Jews perished in the same manner. We see in Jerusalem the same rebellion, the same famine, the same extremities, the same ways of safety open, the same seduction, the same hardness of heart, the same fall; and that every circumstance might exactly correspondt, the second temple was burned by Titus in the same month, and on the same day of the month, that the first had been under Nebuchadnezzar. It was of im

portance that every thing should be marked, and that it should be impossible for the people to doubt of the vengeance of God.

There are however some very remarkable differences between these two overthrows of Jerusalem and the Jews, but all serve to shew in the last a justice more severe and more manifest. Nebuchadnezzar caused the temple to be set on fire: Titus left no method untried for its preservation, though his counsellors represented to him, that, so long as it stood, the Jews, who held their destiny inseparable from it, would never cease to be rebels*. But the fatal day was come; it was the tenth of August, which had before seen the temple of Solomon burned to the ground. Notwithstanding the prohibitions of Titus, pronounced both before the Romans and the Jews, and notwithstanding the natural inclination of the soldiers, which should rather have led them to plunder than to consume so much riches, a soldier prompted, says Josephus, by a divine impulse †, causes his companions to hold him up to a window, where he sets fire to this august temple. Titus flies to the place, and commands them to hasten and extinguish the spreading flame. It seizes the whole in an instant, and that admirable structure is reduced to ashes.

But if the obduracy of the Jews under Zedekiah, was the most terrible effect and surest sign of the divine vengeance; what shall we say of the blindness that appeared in the time of Titus.

In the first ruin of Jerusalem, the Jews were at least in good understanding amongst themselves; in the last, Jerusalem besieged by the Romans, was torn by three opposite factions*. If the hatred they all bore the Romans went even to fury, they were no less cruelly exasperated against one another; the conflicts without cost the Jews less blood than those within. The moment after sustaining assaults from the foreign enemy, the citizens recommenced their intestine war ; violence and robbery reigned through the whole city. When it was perishing, when it was now but one great field covered with dead bodies, the heads of the factions disputed the command in it. Was not this an image of hell, where the damned hate one another no less than they hate the devils, their common enemies, and where every thing is full of pride, confusion and rage?

Let us then confess, Sir, that the justice, which God executed upon the Jews by Nebuchadnezzar, was but a shadow of that of which Titus was the minister. What city has ever lost eleven hundred thousand men in seven months time, and that in one single siege? But so many, Jews fell in the last siege of Jerusalem. They had suffered nothing like it from the Chaldeans. Under them their captivity lasted but seventy years: these seventeen hundred years have they been slaves all over the world, nor do they yet find any mitigation of their slavery.

We need no longer wonder that Titus, when returned victorious from the taking of Joseph. lib. vi. vii.

Jerusalem, would not receive the congratu lations of the neighbouring countries, nor the crowns they sent him in honour of his victory. So many remarkable circumstances, the wrath of God so manifest, and his hand, which he saw yet present before him, kept him in profound astonishment: and it was this made him say what you have heard, that he was not the conqueror, but only a weak instrument of the divine vengeance.

He knew not the whole secret of it; the hour was not yet come, when the emperors were to acknowledge JESUS CHRIST. It was the time of the humiliation and persecution of the church. Wherefore Titus, sufficiently enlightened to know that Judea perished by a manifest effect of the justice of God, was unacquainted with the crime which God had thought fit to punish so terribly. It was the most heinous of all crimes, a crime till then unheard of, namely, Deicide, which therefore gave occasion to a vengeance, whereof the world had seen no precedent.

But if we open our eyes a little, and consider the course of things, neither that crime of the Jews, nor its punishment, can remain hid from us.

Let us remember only what JESUS CHRIST had foretold them *. He had foretold the utter ruin of Jerusalem, and of the temple, There shall not be left, saith he, one stone upon another. He had foretold the manner

* Matt. xxix. 1, 2, Mark xiii. 1, 2. Luke.xxi.