Page:Jerusalem's captivities lamented, or, The history of Jerusalem.pdf/16

 ''and with us we could never have been masters of these forts. It was God in fire that assisted us, and that fought against the Jews, for it 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 spleens to work upon, (as they would not have been idle, if they had matter. Titus ordered them to lay the city and temple level with the ground; and to have nothing standing, but the three famous turrets, Thasael, Hippicos, and Marriamne, that overtoped all the rest; and a piece of wall to the west-ward of the town, where he designed a garrison. The towers to remain as so many monuments to posterity of the Roman's power and conduct in taking of them. This order was punctually executed, and all the rest laid so flat, that the place looked as if it never had been inhabited. This was the end of the Jerusalem faction; a mad and seditious people: And was also the end of the most glorious city of the universe.

What is here chiefly remarkable in 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 from disobedience of 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 this siege of any one city whatsoever, as now happened in Jerusalem.

Thus was Jerusalem taken and utterly destroyed, in the second year of Vespasion, and on the eight day of the month Gorpieus, having been five times taken before; i. o. by Abchæus king of Egypt, Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria ; Pompy, and Herod, with Sosius ; who did all preserve the city after it was taken. But Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, laid it waste one thousand three hundred and sixty