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heaven*."-Josephus has collected the chief of these portents together, and introduces his account by a reflection on the strangeness of that infatuation, which could induce his countrymen to give credit to impostors, and unfounded reports, whilst they disregarded the divine admonitions, confirmed, as he asserts they were, by the following extraordinary signs:

1. "A meteor, resembling a sword, hung over Jerusalem during one whole year." This could not be a comet, for it was stationary, and was visible for twelve successive months. A sword, too, though a fit emblem of destruction, but ill repre

sents a comet.

2. "On the eighth of the month Zanthicus (before the feast of unleavened bread), at the ninth hour of the night, there shone round about the altar, and the circumjacent buildings of the temple, a light equal † Vide 1 Chron. xxi. 16.

*Luke xxi. 11.

to the brightness of the day, which continued for the space of half an hour." This could not be the effect of lightning, nor of a vivid aurora borealis, for it was confined to a particular spot, and the Hight shone unintermittedly thirty minutes.

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3. "As the High. Priests were leading a heifer to the altar to be sacrificed, she brought forth a lamb, in the midst of the temple." Such is the strange account given by the historian. Some may regard it as "a Grecian fable;" while others may think that they discern in this prodigy a miraculous rebuke of Jewish infidelity and impiety, for rejecting that antitypical Lamb, who had offered Himself as an atonement, "once for all;" and who, by thus completely fulfilling their design, had virtually abrogated the Levitical sacrifices. However this may be, the circumstances of the prodigy are remarkable. It did not occur in an obscure part of the city, but in the temple; not at an

ordinary time, but at the Passover, the season of our Lord's crucifixion-in the presence, not of the vulgar merely, but of the High Priests and their attendants, and when they were leading the sacrifice to the altar.

4. "About the sixth hour of the night, the eastern gate of the temple was seen to open without human assistance." When the guards informed the curator of this event, he sent men to assist them in shutting it, who with great difficulty succeeded. This gate, as hath been observed already, was of solid brass, and required twenty men to close it every evening. It could not have been opened by a "strong gust of wind," or a "slight earthquake;" for Josephus says, "it was secured by iron bolts and bars, which were let down into a large threshold, consisting of one entire stone*."

The conclusion which the Jews drew from this event was, that the security of the temple was gone.

5. "Soon after the feast of the Passover, in various parts of the country, be fore the setting of the sun, chariots and armed men were seen in the air, passing round about Jerusalem." Neither could this portentous spectacle be occasioned by the aurora borealis, for it occurred before the setting of the sun; or merely the fancy of a few villagers, gazing at the heavens, for it was seen in various parts. of the country.

6. “At the subsequent feast of Pente cost, while the priests were going, by night, into the inner temple to perform their customary ministrations, they first felt, as they said, a shaking, accompanied by an indistinct murmuring, and afterwards voices as of a multitude, saying, in a distinct and earnest manner,- Let us depart hence'." This gradation will remind the reader of that awful transaction, which the feast of Pentecost was principally instituted to commemorate. First,

a shaking was heard; this would naturally induce the priests to listen; an unintelligible murmuring succeeds; this would more powerfully arrest their attentionand while it was thus awakened and fixed, they heard, says Josephus, the voices, as of a multitude, distinctly pronouncing the words "Let us depart hence." And accordingly, before the period for celebrat ing this feast returned, the Jewish war had commenced, and in the space of three years afterwards, Jerusalem was surrounded by the Roman army, the temple converted into a citadel, and its sacred courts streaming with the blood of human victims.

7. As the last and most fearful omen, Josephus relates that one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a rustic of the lower class, during the feast of tabernacles, suddenly exclaimed in the temple, "A voice from the east -a voice from the west-a voice from the four winds-a voice against Jerusalem and

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