that was the caufe of the death of fome hundred thousands of them.

3. Another fubfequent circumftance, was the Jews being led into captivity, and difperfed into all nations. This St. Luke adds, Luke xxi. 24. They fhall be led away captive into all nations. I need not prove this out of history, we fee the effect of it to this day.

4. That they fhould continue in this captivity and difperfed ftate, and their city remain in the power of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled. So alfo St. Luke tells us, verfe 24. They Shall be led away captive into all nations, and Ferufalem fhall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled; that is, till the gofpel have had its courfe among the nations. And thus it is ftill with them at this day; Jerufalem is in the hands of other nations, and the captivity of the Jews continues; and when it fhall end, God alone knows.

Having thus explained the particulars of our Saviour's prediction, concerning the deftruction of Jerufalem, I fhould in the next place proceed to make fome reflexions upon this prediction, and its punctual accomplishment; but this I referve for the following difcourfe.

SER

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SERMON CCXL.

The evidences of the truth of the Christian religion.

2 COR. iv. 3, 4.

But if our gofpel be hid, it is hid to them that are loft: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, left the light of the glorious gospel of Chrift, who is the image of God, fhould shine unto them.

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The feventh fermon on this text.

N difcourfing on the fourth evidence which thofe who lived in our Saviour's time had of his divine authority, viz. The fpirit of prophecy prcved to be in him, and made good by the accomplishment of his predictions, I came to confider that remarkable prediction of the destruction of Jerufalem.

In doing this, I propofed three things:

Firft, To explain the feries and order of this prediction.

Secondly, To confider the particulars of it, as we find them in the 24th of St. Matthew, compared with the other two evangelifts.

Thirdly, To make fome reflexions upon this prediction, and its punctual accomplishment. The two former of these I have difpatched, and now proceed. to what remains, viz. The

Third thing I propounded, which was to make fome reflexions upon this prediction of our Saviour's, concerning the deftruction of Jerufalem, and the punctual accomplishment of it. And now that I have been fo large in the explication of this proVOL. X. phecy,

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phecy, I fhall make ufe of this argument farther than I intended, not only to fhew that those who lived in that age, and faw our Saviour's prediction fo punctually anfwered by the event, might from hence be fatisfied of the prophetick spirit of our Saviour; and confequently of his divine authority; but likewife to fhew of what force to the conviction of the Jews this confideration is of the deftruction of Jerufalem, and that long train of miferable confequences which followed upon it, and have lafted to this day.

And the reflexions I fhall make upon this fhall be these :

I. That nothing lefs than a prophetick spirit could fo punctually have foretold fo many contingents, and improbable things, as this prediction of our Saviour's does contain in it. Such were fome of those figns which did forerun the deftruction of Jerufalem, as the great famine which happened under Claudius; the feveral great earthquakes under Claudius and Nero; the univerfal publication of the gofpel all over the Roman empire, in fo fhort a fpace; thofe wonderful fights, and prodigious figns from heaven, fo ftrange as are not to be paralleled in any history. And fuch likewife were the circumftances of the deftruction of the city and the temple; as that it fhould be an utter defolation, which was ftrangely accomplished, when, as Jofephus tells us, the very mountain upon which the temple ftood, was almoft burnt up and confumed with the fierceness of the fire and the Roman hiftory gives account of the plucking up of the very foundations of the temple by Turnus Rufus But the most remarkable circumftance of all, which is fo fully expreffed by our Saviour in this prediction, was the ftrange and unexampled calamities which fhould attend this deftruction, fuch as never befell any people before, which our Saviour foretells in these words, Then fhall be great tribulation, fuch as was not from the beginning of the world to this time; nor ever fhall be. And never had any words a more fad and full accomplishment than this part of our

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Saviour's prophecy had, in thofe woful miferies which befel that people by civil and inteftine feditions, and the utmost extremity that famine could reduce a people to; befides the cruelties of a foreign enemy. No hiftory makes mention of fo vaft a number of men, that in fo fhort a time did perifh in fuch fad circumstances; fourteen or fifteen hundred thousand within less than a year's space, and more of thefe by far cruelly murdered by one another's hands, than by the Romans. So that these were days of vengeance, and of great tribulation, fuch as the world had never feen before, and if they had not been Shortened, no flesh could have been faved, as our Saviour adds in the prophecy; if things had gone on at that rate a little longer, not one of the Jewish nation would have been left alive.

Now that our Saviour fhould foretel fo punctually the fad calamity of this people, I take to be one of the most inaterial circumftances of this prophecy; and to be a thing fo contingent and unlikely, that it could not have been forefeen, but by divine infpiration. For though one might eafily have foretold, from the temper of the people, which was prone to fedition, and very impatient of the Roman government, that the Jews were very likely in a fhort time to provoke the Romans against them; yet there was no probability at all, that things fhould have come to that extremity; for it was not in the defign of the Roman government to deftroy any of their provinces; but that fuch a calamity should have happened unto them under Titus, who was the mildeft, and fartheft from cruelty of all mankind, nothing was more unlikely; that ever any people should have been fo befotted, as the Jews were at that time, and have fo madly confpired together to their own ruin, as they did; that they fhould fo blindly and obftinately run themfelves into fuch calamities, as made them the pity of their very enemies, was the moft incredible thing in the world. Nothing but a prophetick fpirit could have foretold an event fo contingent, and fo extremely improbable.

II. Not only thofe who lived in that age were ca

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pable

pable of fatisfaction concerning the accomplishment of this prediction of our Saviour; but that we also might receive full fatisfaction concerning this, the providence of God hath fo ordered it, as to preferve to us a more punctual and credible hiftory of the deftruction of Jerufalem, than there is of any other matter whatsoever fo long fince done.

And this is more confiderable than poffibly at first we may imagine. For,

1. We have this matter related not by a Christian, (who might have been fufpected of partiality, and a defign to have paralleled the event with our Saviviour's prediction) but by a Jew, both by nation and religion, who feems defignedly to have avoided, as much as poffibly he could, the very mention of the Chriftian name, and all particulars relating to our Saviour, though no historian was ever more punctual in all other things.

2. We have this matter related by one that was an eye-witnefs of all thofe fad calamities that befel the nation of the Jews, and during the war in Galilee against Vefpafian, was one of their chief commanders, and being taken by the Romans, was in their camp all the time that Jerufalem was befieged.

3. As he was an eye-witnefs, and fo able to give the trueft account of thofe matters, fo hath he always had the repute of a most faithful hiftorian. Joseph Scaliger, who was a very good judge in these matters, gives this character of him, that he was "Di

ligentiffimus nai qıraλndésatos, omnium fcripto"rum; the most painful hiftorian, and the greatest "lover of truth, of any that he had ever read; De quo

nos hoc audacter dicimus, non folùm in rebus Ju"daicis, fed etiam in externis, tutius illi credi quàm "omnibus Græcis & Latinis hiftoricis; of whom, fays he, I might confidently affirm, that not only in the Jewish affairs, but in all foreign matters, one may more fafely rely upon his credit, than all the Greek and Latin hiftorians put toge

upon "ther." 4. There is no ancient hiftory extant, that relates any matter with fo much particularity of circum

ftances,