and other nations. It was again sacked, and a part of the wall thrown down by Joas king of Israel, while 2 Amaziah the twelfth king thereof governed Juda.

Not long after, Achaz, the fifteenth king of Juda, impoverished the temple, and presented Teglatphalassar with the treasures thereof: and a Manasseh, the son of Ezekiah, the son of Achaz, by the vaunts made by Ezekiah to the ambassadors of Merodach, lost the remain and the very bottom of their treasures. It was again spoiled by the Babylonians, Joakim then reigning. But this ungrateful, idolatrous, and rebellious nation, taking no warning by these God's gentle corrections and afflictions, but persisting in all kind of impiety, filling the city even to the mouth with innocent blood, God raised up that great b Babylonian king, Nabuchodonosor, as his scourge and revenger, who making this glorious city and temple, with all the palaces therein, and the walls and towers which embraced them, even and level with the dust, carried away the spoils with the princes and people, and crushed them with the heavy yoke of bondage and servitude full seventy years; insomuch, as Zion was not only become as a torn and ploughed-up field, Jerusalem a heap of stone and rubble, the mountain of the temple as a grove, or wood of thorns and briers; but (as Jerome speaketh) even the birds of the air scorned to fly over it, or the beasts to tread on that defiled soil.

Then seventy years being expired, according to the prophecy of d Daniel, and the Jews, by the grace of Cyrus, returned, the temple was again built, though with interruption and difficulty enough, and the city meanly inhabited, and without walls or other defences, for some sixty and odd years, tille Nehemiah, by the favour of Artaxerxes, rebuilt them. Then again was the temple and city spoiled by Bagoses, or Vagoses, lieutenant of Artaxerxes; after, by fPto

lomæus I.; then by Antiochus Epiphanes; and again by Apollonius his lieutenant. By Pompey it was taken long after, but not destroyed nor robbed; though Crassus, in his Parthian expedition, took as much as he could of that which Pompey spared.

But the damages which it sustained by the violence of sacrilegious tyrants, were commonly recompensed by the industry or bounty of good princes, the voluntary contribution of the people, and the liberality of strangers. Before the captivity, the people of the land, through the exhortation of godly kings, made many and large offerings to repair the temple of Solomon. The wrong done by Ptolomæus Lagi to the second temple, was requited by the bounty of his son Ptolomæus Philadelphus. The mischief wrought by Antiochus Epiphanes and his followers was amended partly by the great offerings which were sent to Jerusalem out of other nations. Finally, all the losses, which either the city or temple had endured, might well seem forgotten in the reign of 8 Herod, that usurping and wicked, but magnificent king, who amplified the city, new built the temple, and with many sumptuous works did so adorn them, that he left them far more stately and glorious than they had been in the days of Solomon.

SECT. III.

Of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

IN this flourishing estate it was at the coming of our Saviour Christ Jesus; and after his death and ascension it so continued about forty years: but then did Titus the Roman, being stirred up by God to be the revenger of Christ's death, and to punish the Jews' sinful ingratitude, encompass it with the Roman army, and became lord thereof. He began the siege at such time as the Jews, from all parts, were come up to the celebration of the passover; so as the city was then filled with many hundreds of thousands of all sorts, and no manner of provision or store for any such multitudes. An

5 M. T. C. pro Scylla.

extreme famine, with the civil dissension, oppressed them within the walls; a forcible enemy assailed them without. The Idumeans also, who lay in wait for the destruction of the Jews' kingdom, thrust themselves into the city of purpose to betray it; who also burnt the temple when Nabuchodonosor took it. And to be short, there perished of all sorts, from the first besieging to the consummation of the victory, heleven hundred thousand souls; and the city was so beaten down and demolished, as those which came afterwards to see the desolation thereof, could hardly believe that there had been any such place or habitation: only the three Herodian towers (works most magnificent, and overtopping the rest) were spared, as well for lodgings for the Roman garrisons, as that thereby their victory might be the more notorious and famous: for by those buildings of strength and state remaining, after-ages might judge what the rest were; and their honour be the greater and more shining that there-over became victorious.

After this, such Jews as were scattered here and there in Judæa, and other provinces, began again to inhabit some part of the city; and by degrees to rebuild it, and strengthen it as they could, being then at peace, and tributaries to the Roman state; but after sixty-five years, when they again offered to revolt and rebel, Ælius Adrianus, the emperor, slaughtered many thousands of them, and overturned those three Herodian towers, with all the rest, making it good which Christ himself had foretold, That there should not stand one stone upon another of that ungrateful city. Afterwards, when his fury was appeased, and the prophecy accomplished, he took one part without the wall, wherein stood mount Calvary and the sepulchre of Christ, and excluding of the rest the greatest portion, he again made it a city of great capacity, and called it after his own name, Ælia Capitolia. In the gate toward Bethel, he caused a sow to be cut in marble, and set in the front thereof, which he did in despite of the Jews' nation; making an

h Esd. 1. c. 4. 45.

edict, that they should not from thenceforth ever enter into the city, neither should they dare so much as to behold it from any other high place overtopping it.

But the Christian religion flourishing in Palæstina, it was inhabited at length by all nations, and especially by Christians; and so it continued five hundred years.

It was afterwards, in the 636th year after Christ, taken by the Egyptian Saracens, who held it 400 and odd years.

In the year 1099 it was regained by Godfrey of Bouillon, by assault, with an exceeding slaughter of the Saracens, which Godfrey, when he was elected king thereof, refused to be crowned with a crown of gold, because Christ, for whom he fought, was therein crowned with thorns. After this recovery, it remained under the successors of Godfrey eighty-eight years; till in the year 1197 it was regained by Saladine of Egypt: and lastly, in the year 1517, in the time of Selim, the Turks cast out the Egyptians, who now hold it, and call it Cuzumobarec, or the holy city. Neither was it Jerusalem alone that hath so oftentimes been beaten down and made desolate, but all the great cities. of the world have with their inhabitants, in several times and ages, suffered the same shipwreck. And it hath been God's just will, to the end others might take warning, if they would, not only to punish the impiety of men by famine, by the sword, by fire, and by slavery; but he hath revenged himself of the very places they possessed, of the walls and buildings; yea, of the soil, and the beasts that fed thereon.

For even that land, sometime called holy, hath in effect lost all her fertility and fruitfulness; witness the many hundreds of thousands which it fed in the days of the kings of Juda and Israel; it being at this time all over, in effect, exceeding stony and barren. It also pleased God, not only to consume with fire from heaven the cities of the Sodomites; but the very soil itself hath felt, and doth feel, the hand of God to this day. God would not spare the beasts

i Gul. Tyr. Bell. Sac. 1. 14. c. 12. 1 Gul. Tyr. 1. 8. c. 5. 18, 19, &c. k Onuph. Chron.

that belonged to Amalek, no not any small number of them, to be sacrificed to himself; neither was it enough that Achan himself was stoned, but that his moveables were also consumed and brought to ashes.

SECT. IV.

Of the vain and malicious reports of heathen writers touching the ancient Jews.

OF the original of the Jews, profane writers have conceived diversely and injuriously. Quintilian speaks infamously of them, and of their leader; who, saith he, gathered together a pernicious nation. Diodore and Strabo make them Egyptians. Others affirm, that while Isis governed Egypt, the people were so increased, as Jerosolymus and Judas led thence a great multitude of that nation, with whom they planted the neighbour regions; which might be meant by Moses and Aaron: for the name of Moses was accidental, because he was taken up and saved out of the waters. But m Justin, of all other most malicious, doth derive the Jews from the Syrian kings; of whom Damascus, saith he, was the first; and to him succeeded Abraham, Moses, and Israel. He again supposeth (somewhat contrary to himself) that Israel had ten sons, among whom he divided the land of Juda; so called of Judas his eldest, who had the greatest portion. The youngest of the sons of Israel he calleth Joseph; who being brought up in Egypt, became learned in magical arts, and in the interpretations of dreams and signs prodigious; and this Joseph, saith he, was father to Moses; who with the rest, by reason of their foul diseases, and lest they should infect others, were banished Egypt. Further, he telleth how these men thus banished, when in the deserts they suffered extreme thirst and famine, and therein found relief the seventh day, for this cause ever after observed the seventh day, and kept it holy; making it a law among themselves, which afterwards became a branch of their religion. He addeth also, that they might not marry out of their own tribes, lest discovering their uncleanness they might also be expelled by m Justin. 1. 36.