visitors; now it lay in total ruins, with not one stone upon another; as Christ had denounced. These ruins Eusebius informs us, he beheld. And Eleazer is introduced by Josephus as exclaiming: "Where is our great city, which it was believed God inhabited." The prophet Micah, a Moor, had predicted: "Therefore shall Zion for your sakes be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the Lord's house as the high places of the forest." A captain of the army of Titus, did, in fact, plough where some part of the foundation of the temple had stood, as the Talmud records, and thus fulfilled this prediction. Jesus Christ had foretold of this destruction, that "there should be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world." And of the event Josephus says. "If the misfortunes of all nations from the beginning of the world, were compared with those which befel the Jews, they would appear far less." Again; "No other city ever suffered such things; as no other generation from the beginning of the world, was ever more fruitful in wicked ness. Other parts of Judea were still to be subdued. Macherus was attacked. Seventeen hundred Jews surrendered and were slain; also three thousand fugitives taken in the woods of Jardes. Titus at Cæsarea celebrated in great splendor the birth day of his brother Domitian. Here a horrid scene, according to the bloody customs of those times, was presented. To grace this occasion, more than two thousand five hundred Jews fell; some by burningsome by fighting with wild beasts and some by mutual combat with the sword. - Massada was besieged. The Jewish commander, in despair, induced the garrison first to destroy their stores, and then themselves. They (nine hundred and sixty in number) consented to the horrid proposal. Men, women, and children took their seats upon the ground, and offered their necks to the sword. Ten men were selected to executed the fatal deed. The dreadful work was done. One of the ten was then chosen to execute the nine, and then himself. The nine being put to death, and fire being set to the place, the last man plunged his dagger into his own heart. Seven persons, [women and children,] found means to conceal themselves, and escape the ruin. When the Romans approached, these seven related to them these horrid events. Most of the remaining places now, through sullen despair, gave up all opposition, and submitted to the conquerors. Thus Judea became as a desolate wilderness; and the following passage in Isaiah had at least a primary accomplishment; "Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant; and the houses without man; and the land be utterly desolate; and the Lord have removed man far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land." A line of prophecies is found in the sacred oracles, which relate to a signal temporal destruction of the most notorious enemies of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Those were to have a two fold accomplishment; first upon the Jews; and secondly upon the great Antichrist of the last days, typified by the infidel Jews. Accordingly those prophecies in the Old Testament are ever found in close connection with the Millennium. The predictions of our Savior, in Matt. xxiv. Mark xiii. and Luke xxi, are but a new edition of these sacred prophecies. This has been noted as "the destruction of the city and temple foretold." -It is also a denunciation of the destruction of the great Antichrist in the last days. The certainty of this will appear in the following things, as New Testament writers decide. The Thessalonians, having heard what our Lord denounced, that all those things he had predicted should take place on that generation, were trembling with the apprehension, that the coming of Christ predicted, would then very soon burst upon the world. Paul writes to them, (2 Thes. ii.) and beseeches them by this coming of Christ, not to be shaken in mind, or troubled with such an apprehension. For that day, [that predicted coming of Christ, as it related to others beside the Jews,] was not to take place on that generation. It was not to come till the Antichristian apostacy came first; that man of sin was first to be revealed. This long apostacy was to be accomplished before the noted coming of Christ in its more important sense be fulfilled. After the Roman government, which hindered the rise of the man of sin, should be taken out of the way, Paul says, "Then shall that wicked one be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming." Here then, is the predicted coming of Christ, in its more interesting sense, in the battle of that great day, which introduces the Millenium. Here is a full decision that these noted denunciations of Christ alluded more especially, though not primarily, to'a coming which is still future. The same is decided by Christ himself, in Rev. xvi. After the sixth vial, in the drying up of the Turkish Euphrates, three unclean spirits of devils, like frogs, go forth to the kings of the earth, and of all the world, to gather them to the great battle. The awful account is interrupted by this notice from the mouth of Christ; verse 15, "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments; lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." This is as though our Lord should say; now the time is at hand, to which my predictions of coming as a thief, principally alluded. Now is the time when my people on earth shall need to watch, as I directed, when predicting my coming to destroy first the type of Antichrist, and secondly the antitype. The predictions in the prophets, which, received an incipient fulfilment in the destruction of Jerusalem, were to receive a more interesting fulfilment in Christ's coming to destroy his antichristian foes. Hence it is that the seventh vial is called (Rev. xvi. 14,) "the battle of the great day of God Almighty;" clearly alluding to that great day noted through the prophets. And of the same event it is said, Rev. x. 7; "the mystery of God shall be finished, as he hath declared to his servants, the prophets." Here again the allusion clearly is to the many predictions in the prophets of the destruction of the enemies of Christ's kingdom, which were to receive an incipient fulfilment in the destruction of Jerusalem; and a far more interesting one, in the sweeping from the earth the last antichristian powers, to introduce the millennial kingdom of Christ. We accordingly find those predictions through the prophets clearly alluding to the last days, and the introduction of the Millennium. Viewing the destruction of Jerusalem then, as but a type of an event now pending upon antichristian nations, we peruse it with new interest; and it must be viewed in the light of a most impressive warning to this age of the world. The factions, madness, and self-ruin of the former, give but a lively practical comment upon the various predictions of the latter. Three great and noted factions introduced the destruction of Jerusalem. And of the destruction of Antichrist we read [perhaps alluding to that very circumstance] Rev. xvi. 19; "And the great city was divided into three parts." Then it follows; "and the cities of the nations fell; and great Babylon came in remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath." In the desolation of Gog and his bands, faction draws the sword of extermination. "I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord God; every man's sword shall be against his brother." (Ezek. xxxviii. 21.) The great coalition against the Jews, in the time of Jehoshaphat, was destroyed by the sword of mutiny and faction: (See 2 Chron. xx.) And in allusion to this very battle which God fought for his church, the vast coalitions of Antichrist, in the last days, when the Jews are restored, is said to be gathered "to the valley of Jehoshaphat:" (See Joel iii.) The various circumstances of the destruction of Jerusalem afforded a lively incipient comment on the many denunciations of the battle of that great day of God Almighty, which awaits the antichristian world; while it is fully evident, that the passages more especially allude to the tremendous scenes of judgment, which shall introduce the Millennium. DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWS. THE number of people that perished at Jerusalem, by the sword, fire, sea, wild beasts, famine and pestilence, amounts to one million four hundred thousand. Ninetyseven thousand were captured and dispersed among the nations. [Josephus.] CHAPTER VII. THE PRESENT STATE OF JUDAH THE HEBREWS OR ISRAELITES, THE JEWS. "HE shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah." The black Jews of Cochin in the East Indies, Doctor Buchanan gives an account of. The Most High speaks of gathering his ancient people from the east and from the west. Dr. Buchanan informs us that the black Jews have a tradition that they arrived in the East Indies not long after the Babylonish captivity. And he adds, "what seems to countenance this tradition is, they have copies of those books of the Old Testament which were written before the captivity, but none of those whose dates are subsequent to that event." It seems most probable, then, that these black Jews are descendants of the Jews who turned their course to that region of the East when they were liberated from Babylon, instead of returning to Jerusalem. Some of the Jews manifestly did thus part from their brethren, and migrate to the East. These were the Jews who abounded in the eastern as well as the western_provinces of Persia, in the days of Ahasuerus, Haman, Esther and Mordecai, when the impious decree was obtained against them by Haman. Ahasuerus then "reigned over one hundred and twentyseven provinces, even from India to Abyssinia or Ethiopia," Esther i. 1 — in Africa. The Jews appear at that time to have been scattered in all these provinces. Thence these black Jews became planted |