Page:Light and truth.djvu/219

Rh Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, having besieged Jerusalem, and raised towers all round the city, so that, after defending it for the space of a year and a half, it was, in the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, surrendered and delivered at midnight to the officers of Nebuchaduezzar, who sacked and destroyed the temple, and took away all the holy vessels, together with those, two famous brazen pillars; and the remnant of the people that escaped the sword, carried he away captives to Babylon, where they remained servants to him and his successors, until the reign of Cyrus, king of Persia. Cyrus, in the first year of his reign, being directed by that divine power which invisibly led him to the throne of Persia, issued his famous edict for the liberation of the Hebrew captives, with permission that they should return to their native country, and rebuild the city and house of the Lord. Accordingly, the principal people of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with the Priests and Levites, immediately departed for Jerusalem, and commenced the great and glorious work.

City of God, long answered well to its name, Jerusalem, They shall see; Salem, Peace. Long did the church while they walked with God, there see and enjoy peace. But alas, we find recorded of this city, temple, and nation of Jews, a fatal reverse! They found the sentiment in their sacred oracles fulfilled, "The Lord is with you while ye be with him; but if ye forsake him he will cast you off."

The Jews became carnal, and crucified the Lord of Glory; (Simon, a Cyrenian, or African, carried our Savior's cross to the place of crucifixion,) and they fell under the denunciations and the full execution of his wrath. Their lawgiver, Moses, and their prophets had long thundered against them solemn denunciations, that if they should ever become of the character which they did, the most signal judgments of God should cut them off.

The Messiah uttered against them, in consequence of