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ceded by rumours.

It may, therefore,

appear absurd to attempt a distinct elucidation of this part of the prophecy; never. theless, it ought not to be omitted, that about this time the emperor Caligula, having ordered his statue to be placed in the temple of Jerusalem, and the Jews having persisted to refuse him, the whole nation were so much alarmed, by the mere ap. prehension of war, that they neglected even to till their lands! The storm, however, blew over.

About this period, a great number of Jews, on account of a pestilence which raged at Babylon, removed from that city to Selucia, where the Greeks and Syrians rose against them, and destroyed of this devoted people more than five myriads! "The extent of this slaughter," says Josephus," had no parallel in any former period of their history." Again, about five years after this dreadful massacre, there happened a severe contest between

the Jews at Perea and the Philadel. phians, respecting the limits of a city called Mia, in which many of the for mer were slain. This was "nation rising up against nation." Four years afterwards, under Cumanus, an indignity was offered to the Jews within the precincts of the temple, by a Roman soldier, which they violently resented; but upon the approach of the Romans in great force, their terror was so excessive, and so disorderly and precipitate their flight, that not less than ten thousand Jews were trodden to death in the streets. This, again, was "nation rising up against nation." Four years more had not elapsed, before. the Jews made war against the Samaritans, and ravaged their country. The people

of Samaria had murdered a Galilean, who was going up to Jerusalem to keep the passover, and the Jews thus revenged it. At Cæsarea, the Jews having had a sharp contention with the Syrians for the government of the city, an appeal was

made to Nero, who decreed it to the Syrians. This event laid the foundation of a most cruel and sanguinary contest between the two nations. The Jews, mortified by disappointment, and inflamed by jealousy, rose against the Syrians, who successfully repelled them. In the city of Cæ. sarea alone, upwards of twenty thousand Jews were slain. The flame, however, was not now quenched; it spread its destructive rage wherever the Jews and Syrians dwelt together in the same place: throughout every city, town, and village, mutual animosity and slaughter prevailed. At Damascus, Tyre, Ascalon, Gadara, and Scythopolis, the carnage was dreadful. At the first of these cities ten thousand Jews were slain in one hour, and at Scythopolis thirteen thousand treacherously in one night. At Alexandria, the Jews, aggrieved by the oppressions of the Romans, rose against them; but the Romans, gaining the ascendency, slew of that nation fifty thousand persons, sparing neither infants

nor the aged. And after this, at the siege of Jotapata, not less than forty thousand Jews perished. While these destructive contests prevailed in the East, the western parts of the Roman empire were rent by the fierce contentions of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius; of which three emperors it is remarkable, that they all, together with Nero, their immediate predecessor, died a violent death, within the short space of eighteen months. Finally, the whole nation of the Jews took up arms against the Romans, king Agrippa, &c. and provoked that dreadful war which, in a few years, deluged Judea with blood, and laid its capital in ruins.

If it be here objected, that, because wars are events of frequent occurrence, it would be improper to refer to supernatural foresight a successful prediction respecting them, it is replied, that much of this objection will be removed, by considering the incompetency of even statesmen them

selves to foretell the condition, only for a few years, of the very nation whose affairs they administer. It is a well-known fact, that the present minister of Great Britain, on the very eve of the late long and destructive war with the French Republic, held out to his country a picture of fifteen successive years of peace and prosperity. Indeed, the nice points on which peace and war often depend, baffle all calculations from present aspects; and a rumour of war, so loud and so alarming as even to suspend the operations of husbandry,. máy terminate, as we have just seen, in nothing but rumour. Further, let it be considered, that the wars to which this part of our Lord's prophecy referred, were to be of two kinds, and that the event corresponded accordingly; that they occurred within the period to which he had assigned them; that they fell with the most destructive severity on the Jews; to whom the prophecy at large chiefly related, and that the person who predicted them was

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