scoffs and reproaches; so that Titus from thence resolved to pro ceed with more severity against a people who had been perfidious to the highest degree, and were obstinate beyond example. Accordingly when any of the Jews escaped out of the city, (which many did on account of the famine) and were taken by the Romans, Titus caused them to be scourged and crucified, and that in such numbers, that room was wanting for crosses, and crosses for persons; intending by this dismal spectacle to terrify the besieged, and induce them to surrender.

On the 12th of May, Titus began four mounts for his battering rams, two near the castle of Antonia, where he was in hopes of taking the temple, and two near the monument of John, the high priest, where he supposed it would be easiest for him to force his way into the upper city; but, in two bold sallies, the besieged ruined the mounts, burnt several rams and other engines, and broke into the very camp of the Romans. At length they were valiantly repulsed by Titus, who resolved, in a counsel of war, to surround the whole city with a wall of intrenchment, both to hinder the flight of the besieged, and to prevent their receiving any relief, thereby exactly verifying our blessed Lord's prediction: "The days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and encompass thee round, and keep thee in on every side."* This work, though near five miles in compass, was carried on with incredible celerity, and finished in three days; but it made no impression upon the besieged, who still continued to make an obstinate defence.

The famine now began to rage violently in the city, and such a mortality ensued, that, from the 14th of April to the 1st of July, 115,080 carcasses of the poorer sort were carried out to be buried at the public charge; and some persons who fled to Titus assured him, that 60,000 were cast out of the gates; and when the number of the dead bodies increased so that they knew not how to dispose of them, they gathered them together, and shut them up in their largest houses. All this while the famine in

*Luke xix. 42.

ereased to such a degree, that a bushel of corn was sold for 600 erowns; that sinks and holes were continually raked to find the old dung of oxen for food; that wives took the meat out of their husband's mouths, children from their parents, and mothers from their infants; that old men were driven from their victuals as useless persons, and young men tortured to make them confess where they had hoarded their provisions; that the very soldiers (who, it may be supposed, were the last that would want) began. to eat belts, shoes, skins, and hay itself; and that a woman of quality even boiled her own child to eat it; an act so detestable, that Titus, after he had insisted upon his frequent offers of peace and pardon to the Jews, declared publicly, that he would bury that abominable crime in the ruins of their country, and not suffer the sun to shine upon that city where mothers eat their own children, and where fathers, no less culpable, reduced them by their obstinacy to that extremity.'

With this resolution he cut down all the trees within a considerable distance of Jerusalem, and having with great labor raised new mounts, on the first of July he began to batter the wall of Antonia. A breach being made, he entered the castle on the first of that month, and pursued the flying Jews even to the temple; which when he had done, both he and Josephus again exhorted them to surrender, but to no purpose: they obstinately refused all terms of accommodation, adding,' that they had rather endure the worst of miseries.' A few days after this, Titus erected other mounts, whereby he overturned the foundations of Antonia, and made an easy ascent to the temple; and having seized the North and West porticoes, or cloisters, of the outward range of the temple, he set them on fire, as the Jews did other porticoes, to hinder the Romans from making their approaches. On the eighth day of August, when Titus perceived that the walls of the inner temple were too strong for his battering rams, and there was no possibility of undermining them, he determined upon that from which reverence had for some time restrained him, which was to set fire to the gates, yet still with an intent, if possible, to save the temple itself; but so it fell out, that

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a certain Roman soldier, contrary to the command of his general, cast a flaming fire brand through the golden window into the chambers and buildings on the North side, which immediately set them on fire, and the flames, notwithstanding the utmost endeavors to extinguish them, spread throughout the whole fabric, and consumed the most magnificent and beautiful structure that ever the world beheld.

The sight of this extreme misfortune put a killing damp to all the courage and fury of the Jews, who, having now lost the great jewels for which they chiefly fought, did not think their lives worth enjoying any longer. The loud outcries and miserable lamentations of the people cchoed from all the adjacent mountains; and many famished and expiring persons made shift to lift up their dying eyes, and to bewail the fate of the once glorious. temple. In the mean time the Roman soldiers pursued their victory with all imaginable fury and revenge, cutting in pieces. all that they found about the temple, and setting fire to the rest of the buildings; in one of which six thousand men, women, and children, who had been deluded thither by a false prophet, per ished miserably in the flames.

In this confusion the seditious Jews found means to escape in: to the city, where they desired a parley with the Roman general, who highly condemned them for their obstinacy, but nevertheless promised them their lives upon immediate submission. They refused, however, to rely upon his promises, and demanded liberty to depart the city with their wives and children; at which Titus. was so exasperated, that he caused proclamation to be made, that they were no longer to expect any mercy.' Accordingly he permitted his soldiers to burn and plunder all the lower city; but the chiefs of the factious parties retiring to the king's palace, where great numbers had deposited their wealth, defended themselves obstinately against the Romans. They likewise barbarously slew above eight thousand of their own countrymen and carrying away all the money and treasure, betook themselves to the upper and strongest part of the city, called Zion, situated upon a steep rock, where they threatened to defend

themselves to the last, and there tyrannized with more cruelty than ever; tl Titus having raised his. batteries, and made a breach in the wall, they lost all their courage, and in great consternation abandoned the towers, which were their only strength, and in vain sought to escape by hiding themselves in vaults and privies, from whence both John and Simon, two ringleaders of their different factions, were dragged out, and the former condemned to perpetual imprisonment, whilst the latter was reserved to grace the triumph of the Roman general.

The Romans became masters of all the city on Saturday, the eighth of September, and ranging up and down the streets, killed all that came in their way, without distinction, till the narrow passages and alleys were choaked up with carcasses, the kennels ran with blood, and the whole was involved in one general conflagration. To this fatal end was the famous city of Jerusalem reduced, after a siege of about five months, in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, and thirty seven years after our Lord's crucifixion. There perished in this memorable siege no less than 1,100,000 persons, and 97,000 were taken prisoners; besides 237,400 more (according to Josephus) who fell in the preceding. wars. At last, when the soldiers had glutted themselves with rapine and bloodshed, Titus ordered them to lay the walls of the city and temple, and whatever had escaped the flames, level with the ground; which order was so punctually executed, that (except three towers, which for their strength and beauty were left as monuments of the city's stateliness to posterity), the whole was laid so flat, that the place looked as if it had never been inhabited; our Saviour's prophecy being thus accomplished, that one "stone of it should not remain upon another."*

Thus ended the Jewish state and economy; and their country, which had for some time been governed by the Romans as friends and protectors, was now enslaved, and its inhabitants banished, sold and dispersed throughout all parts of the world; whereby the ancient prediction of the sceptre's departing from Judah was

* Matth. xxiv. 2, Luke xix. 44, and xxi. 6.

completely fulfilled, though it was in some measure accomplished: under Herod the Great, as has been before observed. But the last and most dreadful dispersion of the Jews, did not happen till. the reign of the emperor Adrian, sixty six years after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus; for having entered into a rebellion against the Romans under a false Messiah, they were at length totally subdued, five hundred and eighty thousand of them being slain in several battles and skirmishes, and their whole land laid waste and desolate. Those who survived the general ruin were sold in incredible numbers, of all ages and sexes, in public markets appointed for that purpose.. Many of them were transported into Egypt, where some perished by shipwrecks, some by famine, and others were slain like beasts by the Pagans. In a word, they were banished for ever from their native country, and their whole race forbidden to set foot on it, or come within view of Jerusalem, even from the highest mountans, upon pain of immediate death; and thus they became sojourners and strangers in all nations, fugitives and vagabonds throughout the earth, and to this day remain, as monuments of the just judgment of God, a scattered and despised people.

From this final dispersion of the Jewish nation, Jerusalem, which had been rebuilt by Adrian and called Ælia Capitolina, was inhabited chiefly by Romans and foreigners, having temples and statues in it erected to the heathen deities, which continued standing till the time of Constantine the Great, when Christianity was first established by human laws. That emperor built several churches in Jerusalem, and his pious mother Helen is said to have founded no less than two hundred churches and monasteries in such places of the Holy Land, as were noted for the birth, miracles, and sufferings of our Saviour, or for the residence and actions of the Blessed Virgin, the prophets and apostles. In the year 615, the Persians made themselves masters of this country under their king Chosroes II. but were soon expelled by the emperor Heraclius. It was again conquered in the year 637 by Omar I. Caliph of the Saracens, who kept possession of it. (except during part of the reign of Charlemagne) till the year