Page:Jerusalem's captivities lamented, or, A plain description of Jerusalem (1).pdf/22

22 forts. It was God in fine, that aſſiſted us and that fought againſt the Jews; for this was not an undertaking to be compaſſed with hands or machines."

This was in fine the iſſue of the ſiege: And when the ſoldiers had neither rapine nor blood-ſhed for their ſpleen to work upon (as they would not have been idle, if they had had matter) Titus ordered them to lay the city and temple level with the ground; and to leave nothing ſtanding, but the three famous turrets, Paſael, Hippicos, and Mariamne, that overtopped all the reſt; and a piece of wall to the weſtward of the town, where he deſigned a garriſon. The towers to remain as ſo many monuments to poſterity, of the Romans' power and conduct in taking them. This order was puctually executed and all the reſt laid ſo flat, that the place looked as if it had never been inhabited. This was the end of the Jeruſalem faction; a mad and ſeditious people: and alſo the end of the moſt glorious city in the univerſe.

What is here chiefly remarkable is this; that no foreign nation ever came thus to deſtroy the Jews at any of their ſolemn feſtivals, from the days of Moſes till this time; but came now upon their apoſtacy from God, and diſobedience to him. Nor is it poſſible, in the nature of things, that in any other nation ſuch vaſt numbers ſhould be gotten together, and periſh in the ſiege of any