summits, and adapted to the production of corn and the common esculent herbs. While the most rocky regions of Judæa were thus rendered available for agricultural purposes by the skill and industry of its inhabitants, the plains even to this day present every indication of the richest and most valuable soil. Ancient profane authors, such as Hecatæus, Tacitus, and Strabo, commend the exuberant fertility of Palestine, and the representations of Josephus confirm the descriptions of the Sacred Volume. But now the desolation is extreme, the mountains are relinquished to the horrors of unmitigated aridity; and such is the unsettled state of the country, arising from the maladministration of the Turkish Pashas, and the incursions of the marauding tribes of the desert, that the husbandman if he sow, can scarcely expect to reap, and therefore abandons his labours in despair. external appearance of the country in Judæa, now presents one of the most melancholy scenes upon the surface of the globe.

The

THE PREDICTION. The last prediction which there is room in this place to quote relative to the Jews, is that which relates to their obstinate infidelity and obduracy. "And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses be without man, and the land be utterly destitute. And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land." Isa. vi. 9-12.

THE FULFILMENT.-And have not the Jews been blind and obstinate in their unbelief to an extent absolutely incredible if it were not matter of fact? Have they not been blind to the convincing testimony of their own prophecies to the divine mission and glory of Jesus of Nazareth-blind to the full blaze of evidence presented to them during his ministry, by his virtues, his doctrines, and his miracles-blind to the

demonstration of the truth of his religion afforded by its rapid success when it was first promulgated by his apostles and blind to the conclusion irresistibly enforced by their past sufferings and present condition, outcasts and wanderers upon the face of the earth, and yet a distinct and peculiar people, confounded with none of its nations and inhabitants? How appropriate is the apostolic description of the state of the Jews in the first ages of Christianity, to their obstinate incredulity still-" Until this day remaineth the same vail, untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read the vail is upon their heart.”

So wonderfully clear is the evidence thus furnished to the origin and reason of the present judgments of God upon the Jews, that it is impossible after perusing the preceding predictions and their full and accurate accomplishment, not to repeat the words of our Lord himself, "IF THEY HEAR NOT MOSES AND THE PROPHETS, NEITHER WILL THEY BE PERSUADED, THOUGH ONE ROSE FROM THE DEAD.

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SECTION III.

THE PROPHECIES OF CHRIST RESPECTING THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.

NAME the Signs preceding this event, which were foretold by Christ.

CHRIST SAID, "Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many." Matt. xxiv. 4, 5.

THE FULFILMENT.-Josephus declares that in the reign of the emperor Claudius, Judæa “ was overrun with magicians, seducers, and impostors, who drew the people after them in multitudes, into solitudes and deserts, to see the signs and miracles which they promised to show by the power of God. A Samaritan named Dositheus, affirmed that he was the MessiahSimon Magus declared that he was the Son of God—

Theudas, a false prophet, conducted a multitude of his deluded followers to the river Jordan, pretending that the waters would separate at his command, and that the people would safely reach the opposite shore -and thirty thousand men were led by an Egyptian into the desert, where they were destroyed by Felix the Procurator.

CHRIST SAID, "And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilence, and earthquakes, in divers places. And these are the beginning of sorrows." Matt. xxiv. 6—8.

THE FULFILMENT.-Prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, the whole Roman Empire was convulsed by the contention of rival candidates, who asserted their claims to the imperial throne. After the violent deaths of Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, who after swaying the sceptre for a few months, were successively numbered with the dead, the renowned Vespasian did not obtain the possession of the imperial dignity, without a sanguinary struggle. The plains of Italy were moistened with blood; Rome itself witnessed a desperate battle carried on within its walls; and the Capitol was burnt amidst the fury of the contending factions. The most inveterate malignity too was excited against the Jews in the neighbouring nations. In Cæsarea, in a contest between the Jews and the Syrians, twenty thousand of the former were slain; thirteen thousand were slain at Scythopolis; two thousand five hundred at Ascalon; two thousand at Ptolemais; ten thousand at Damascus; and fifty thousand at Alexandria. The whole of Judæa also presented a dreadful scene of sedition and civil war.

A dreadful famine and pestilence, distinctly mentioned by two heathen historians, ravaged the East; and in the city of Jerusalem many of the people perished from the want of food. Josephus also distinctly mentions a pestilence which raged after the famine.

Whether the term earthquakes, in the prediction of our Lord, be understood literally or figuratively, in each sense was the prophecy fulfilled. By one of

these tremendous convulsions of nature, the cities of Laodicea, Hierapolis, and Colosse, were subverted; and in Crete, in Smyrna, in Miletus, in some of the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, and in Rome, the same phenomena were observed. If the earthquakes mentioned by Christ are to be taken in the sense which the word always bears in prophetic language, being used to denote popular insurrection and commotion, sufficient has been detailed under the preceding prediction, to show that this prophecy was accurately fulfilled.

CHRIST SAID, And "they shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." Matt. xxiv. 9.

THE FULFILMENT.-Mournfully was this prediction accomplished. A bloody war was soon waged against the Christian name. Besides the infliction of minor punishments, such as imprisonment and scourging, Stephen, and James the brother of John, were put to death at Jerusalem; and in the first persecution which raged under the Emperor Nero, many of the Christians were destroyed amidst the most barbarous torments; Paul was beheaded, and Peter was crucified. It seems indeed that Christianity and Christians were universally despised and detested by the Pagans.

CHRIST SAID, "And there shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another......And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” Matt. xxiv. 10, 12.

THE FULFILMENT.-The writings of the Apostles fully demonstrate the accomplishment of this predic tion. Some had already forsaken them, having loved this present world, others are stated to have fallen away from the profession of the faith, and others are denounced as having not only abandoned the community of the faithful, but as having fallen into the most pernicious and detestable errors. It is worthy of remark too, with reference to the predicted treachery of some of the professed followers of the Redeemer, that the great Apostle of the Gentiles enumerates among the imminent dangers by which he was surrounded, his "perils among false brethren."

2 Cor. xi. 26. 2 Tim. iv. 10. Heb. vi. 6. x. 25. 2 Pet. ii. 15. Jude 4.

CHRIST SAID, "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Matt. xxiv. 14.

THE FULFILMENT. In this prophecy it is plainly intimated, that the destruction of Jerusalem was to be preceded by the preaching of the gospel among the nations of the then known world. That this prediction was accomplished, it is unnecessary in this place to prove at length. From the inscriptions of the apostolic epistles, from various incidental notices of distant countries such as Spain, Illyricum, &c. which they contain, and from the testimony of the Pagan writers Pliny and Tacitus, who attest that in their time Christianity had been diffused through the Roman Empire, it is certain, that before the city of Jerusalem was surrounded by the armies of its destroyers, the gospel had not only been preached in Judæa, in Asia Minor, in Greece, and in Italy, but that it had been propagated to Ethiopia on the south, to Parthia and India on the east, to Scythia on the north, and to Spain and Britain on the west.

Name now the events predicted by Christ which happened during the Siege of Jerusalem.

CHRIST SAID, "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand :) then let them which be in Judæa flee into the mountains." Matt. xxiv. 15, 16. "When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh." Luke xxi. 20. "For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side.” Luke xix. 43.

THE FULFILMENT.-The Roman army was called abomination on account of its ensigns and images, which were detestable to the Jews-it was called the abomination of desolation, because it was to lay waste the cities and the countries of Judæa-it is said with

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