Page:Jerusalem's captivities lamented, or, The history of Jerusalem.pdf/14

 those that perished by the famine. The putrid corruption of dead bodies sent out a vapour to prison as many as came within the reach of it. Some were not able to endure it, and so went out of the way; others had their hearts so set upon Sooty, that they rifled the very carcases, and trampled upon the dead bodies as they lay soaking in their corruption; but avarice sticks at nothing. They brought out several prisoners also that the two tyrants had laid in chains there; for they kept up their cruelty to the last: But God s justice overtook them both in the end; for John and his brethren in the vaults were now driven by the distress of an unsupportable hunger, to beg that mercy of the Romans, that they had so often despised: and Simon after a long struggle with an unsupportable necessity, delivered up himself: The latter being reserved for the triumph, and John made prisoner for life. The Romans, after this burnt the remainder of the city, and threw down the walls.

The power of God on the one hand, and his goodness on the other, was very remarkable upon this occasion: For the tyrants ruined themselves, by quitting those holds of their own accord, that could never have been taken but by famine: And this after the Jews had spent so much time to no purpose upon other places of less value. By this means the Romans became masters of three impregnable forts, by fortune that could never have been taken any other way: For the three famous towers before mentioned were proof against all batteries.

Upon Simon and John's quitting these towers; or rather, upon their being driven out of them by the impulse of judicial infatuation, they hastened away to the vale of Siloa, where they took breath a while, and after some recollection, and refreshment, they gave an assault to the new wall there: utBut [sic] so faint and weak, that the guards, beat them off; for between