kind as to communicate; obferving only that Chrift foretold,

notaphia ftruerentur, quod Hipparcho cuidam factum legimus, &c.

Under the metaphor of eagles, which fly fwiftly and feize upon their prey violently, conquerors with their armies are frequently fpoken of in Scripture. Jeremiah, Lament. iv. 19. fays, Our perfecutors are Swifter than eagles; and Hofea viii. 1. fays of the king of Affyria, He fhall come as an eagle against the boufe of the Lord, because they have tranfgreffed his covenant. Ezekiel xvii. 3. pronounces a parable under the fame figure; Thus faith the Lord, A great eagle, with great wings full of feathers, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar; which the prophet thus explains ver. 12. Behold the king of Babylon is come to Jerufalem, and hath taken the king thereof.

Nor must it be forgotten, that when Mofes, Deut. xxviii 49, &c. threatens the Jews with the destruction of their nation, if they would not hearken unto the words of the Lord, the description of the calamities, with which he threatens them, answers fo exactly in the most material parts to the final deftruction of that people by the Romans, that this feems to have been chiefly and principally in the intention of the prophet; and there the deftroying army is fpoken of under this very emblem of an eagle; The Lord fhall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as fwift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose language thou shalt not understand.

The fenfe of the proverb then is this; wherefoever the wicked Jews are, there will the Roman eagles, the deftroying armies, follow them; and whitherfoever they fly, ruin and defolation will overtake them.

1. The total destruction of the city. 2. Of the temple.

Christ had been foretelling to his difciples the deftruction of the Jewish nation, and the vengeance which he was to take upon them for their obftinate refufal of him and his doctrine. This he expreffed by the coming of the Son of man; and he told them. many particulars of what was to happen before and at that great day of vifitation. Among others he acquainted them that there would be fome impoftors, who should fet up themselves for the Chrift or Meffiah of the Jews: Wherefore, fays he, if they shall fay unto you, Behold he is in the defart, go not forth: behold he is in the fecret chambers, believe it not, i. e. none but falfe Chrifts will be found there. The true coming of Chrift will be of another nature; not with obfervation, Luke xvii. 20. not with a difplay of his perfon, but of his power in the vengeance which he is to take upon the Jews; not reftrained to the defart or the chambers, not confined to holes and corners, nor to any one part of Judæa, but extended through every province of it; for as the lightning, fays he, cometh out of the east and fhineth even unto the weft, so fball alfo the coming of the son of man be, i. e. as extenfive and univerfal over the land, as the lightning fhines; the comparison being brought in to fhew not fo much its fwiftnefs, as its wide extent and compass: for wherefoever the carcafe &c. In St. Luke when our Lord had been defcribing this calamity which was to befall the Jews, his difciples afked him, Where Lord? where fhall this happen? to which he replied, Wherefoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together. If then his words contain any direct anfwer to the queftion, they must be understood as pointing out the place and extent of the calamity. 3. The

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3. The coming of falfe Chrifts and falfe prophets, magicians and forcerers, leading the people to the defarts.

4. Famines.

This prophecy was pronounced by our Saviour near forty years, and recorded by St. Matthew near thirty years before the event was to take place. And, for the literal accomplishment of it, we have the authority of Jofephus. He was a General on the fide of the Jews in the beginning of that war, and a prifoner at large in the Roman army during the rest of it: he was a party concerned in much of the calamity of his country-men, and an eye-witnefs to almost all of it. And befides this it is to be confidered, that if he ever had heard of this prophecy, which it is probable he had not, yet as he was a Jew by religion, and a Jewish Prieft too, he is therefore a witnefs not to be fufpected of partiality in this cafe, and was every way qualified to give us an exact hiftory of thofe times; which he has accordingly done, by defcribing very punctually all the particulars of that

terrible deftruction.

From his account it may be obferved, that the Roman army entered into Judæa on the east side of it, and carried on their conquefts weftward, as if not only the extenfiveness of the ruin, but the very route, which the army would take, was intended in the comparison of the lightning coming out of the east and fhining even unto the weft.

In the courfe of his hiftory he gives us a very particular account of the prodigious numbers of fuch as were slain in Judæa properly fo called, in Samaria, the two Galilees, and the region beyond Jordan: and he confirms the prophecy of Chrift by making a remarkable obfervation to this purpose, that there

5. Fefti

5. Peftilences.

6. Earthquakes.

7. Fearful fights and great figns from heaven. 8. The perfecution of the Apostles.

9. The apoftafy of fome Chriftians.

was not any the least part of Judæa, which did not partake of the calamities of the capital city. B. J. v. 3. There, at Jerufalem, the laft and finishing stroke was given to the ruin of the church and state; for after a long and fharp fiege, in which famine killed as many as the fword, in which the judgments of heaven appeared as vifibly as the fury of man, in which inteftine factions helped on the defolation which the foreign armies completed, Jerufalem was at last taken, not then a city, but a confufed mafs of ruins, affording a fadder fcene of calamity than the world had ever seen, and exactly fulfilling the words of Christ, Mat. xxiv. 21. Then fhall be great tribulation, fuch as was not fince the beginning of the world unto this time, no nor ever fhall be. To which Jofephus bears exprefs teftimony, and fays that the calamities of all nations from the beginning of the world were exceeded by thofe which befell his country-men on this occafion. B. J. i. 1.

Christ foretold, that Jerufalem fhould be encompaffed with armies, Luke xxi. 20. and accordingly it was befieged and taken by the Romans: a circumftance which had no neceffary connection with the revolt and conqueft of Judæa. For at the time when Christ spake this, the Roman governor refided in that city, and had troops there fufficient to keep it in obedience; whence it was more probable, that Jerufalem would have continued in a quiet fubjection to the Romans, whatever troubles might be raised in other parts of the Jewish dominions.

10. A prefervation of the faithful.

11. The fpreading of the Gospel through the Roman world.

12. The Roman standards defiling the holy place.

He foretold, that the Roman enfigns, called the abomination of defolation ver. 15. fhould be feen ftanding in the holy place or temple: an event not to be foreseen by human fkill, because very unlikely to happen. The great care, which the Jews took at other times not to defile that holy place, and the fmall ftrength which it had to defend them long from the Roman arms, as they had twice experienced in the memory of man, were both circumftances, which in all human appearance would have kept them from the rafh experiment. And yet, against all probability, they fled to the temple, and there made a laft and defperate refiftance. Having thus defiled it with their own arms, they made it neceffary for the Romans to follow them into the fanctuary; fo that they took it by ftorm, and of confequence caufed their military enfigns to be feen ftanding there.

Chrift foretold Mat. xxiv. 2, that when the temple should be taken, there should not be left there one Stone upon another that should not be thrown down. And yet the building was fo magnificent, that it was efteemed for coft, for art, and beauty one of the wonders of the world; whence it was natural to expect, that the Romans, according to their ufual custom amidft their conquefts, would endeavour to preferve it fafe and entire. And Jofephus B. J. vi. 2. 4. tells us, that Titus laboured with all his power to fave it, but that his foldiers, as if moved dauovi ogun, by a divine impulfe, would not hearken to his pofitive and repeated orders, but fet fire to every part of it, till

13. The