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and perfecute you, delivering you up to the fynagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's fake"." Accordingly the Jews were not only their first, but their most bitter and implacable enemies. They fcourged them in their fynagogues, and arraigned them in their councils; they imprisoned and stoned them. Their malice pursued them even to foreign cities'. They stirred up the Gentiles to infult and oppose them; and through Their means it was chiefly, that they were brought before governors of provinces, before kings and emperors. If in exquifitenefs of pain and variety of punishment, their cruelty did not equal the barbarity of a Nero; it was wider in its range, and longer in duration.

But, under all this preffure, the hope of the faithful was firm and fteadfast; "for as the fufferings of Chrift abounded in them, fo their confolation alfo abounded by Chrift*." They were supported and comforted by that bleffed Spirit, whose gracious affiftance, pur

h Luke xxi. 12.

* Juftin Martyr fays the Jews of Jerufalem fent out men into all countries calumniating Christianity as an impious heresy: λέγοντες άιρεσιν αθίον Χρισιανων πεφάνθαι. ap. Εur. H. E. L. IV. e. xviii. And see Lardner's J. and H. Test. Vol. I. c.ii.

k

* 2 Cor. i. 5.

chafed

chafed for us by the Son of God, is ever proportioned to human exigence. They rejoiced in the teftimony of their own confcience; which affured them, that they fuffered in the cause of truth, and for the glory of GOD. They knew moreover, that a day of redemption to them was approaching; but that the calamities of the unbelieving and unmerciful Jews, though at present not fmall, were still to increase. For our Lord had added, in defcribing their forrows, " nation fhall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom'.

Thefe words appear to be very juftly explained by the commentators, not of the hoftilities of one nation of men against another, but of divifions and infurrections within the ftates themselves; and thofe ftates fuch as confifted, entirely or in part, of Jews. Indeed, the phrase of "rifing against" feems more properly to indicate civil commotions, than a regular war; and "a house against a houfe," which occurs in St. Luke", and is a mode of fpeech perfectly fimilar to those before us, denotes what is expressed, in the other Gofpels, by The divifion of a house

Matt. xxiv. 7.

xi. 17. compared with Mar. iii. 25. Matt. xii. 25.

against

against itself. According to this interpretation therefore, thus authorised, let us obferve the accomplishment of our Lord's prediction.

The Samaritans, the ancient enemies of the Jews, fell upon the Galileans, as they were paffing through their country to one of the feasts; and the flaughter of this onset, not great in itself, brought on worse havoc

and a train of evils".

At Cefarea there were diffenfions between the Jews and the Syrians; which did not totally cease, till at last there were flain of the former more than twenty thousand in one day.

In fhort, (for it were endless to recount all the particulars) fo grievous were the tumults, and fo remarkably were the words of our bleffed Saviour verified, that every city, throughout all Syria, was divided, Jofephus says, into two armies; in most places the Jews combined against the aliens, but in fome they affailed their brethren the Jews. The only fecurity for either party was to be the aggreffor; the days were spent in flaugh

"A. J. L. XX. c. v. and B. J. L. II. c. xii. §. 3.

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A. J. L. XX, c, vii. §. 7. 9. B. J. L. II. c. xviii. §. 1.

ter,

ter, and the nights in fear. The cities were filled with unburied corpfes of men and of women, of hoary age and of helpless infants. One wretch, of more hardened guilt than his fellows, murdered his parents, his wife, and his children; and then, that his exploit might be the more confpicuous, standing on their bodies, he plunged the yet reeking fword in his own bowels P.

Still however Judea, the chief in iniquity, was the chief alfo in fuffering. Bands of robbers for more than twenty years ravaged the country, plundering the inhabitants and burning the towns. Many of the fame lawless tribes, going to the feasts armed with daggers, stabbed fome out of hatred and others for hire, within the walls of the city and in the temple itself, without punishment and without horror ".

Thofe, in the mean time, who should have been promoters of peace, as well as patterns of holiness, were the fomenters of difcord. The high priests, whofe rapacity and avarice were not less than their other vices, robbed and oppreffed their inferior brethren, so that

P B. J. L. II. c. xviii. §. 4.

9 A. J. L. XX. c. vii. §. 5. 10. B. J. L. II. c. xiii. §. 2.

many

many of them died of abfolute want. Yet, with the fame views of plunder, they were by no means unanimous among themselves; the difpofal of the high priesthood was made the occafion of mutiny, and they had other broils.

Indeed, of the corruption of these men we need no greater proof, than what the cafe of St. Paul affords; when they authorised a defperate band of confpirators to take way the life of one, against whom they could not make good a single accufation. But let them alone, let them fill up their guilt, for their day is coming; and he who countenanced an unjust conspiracy against the apostle, shall himself, by the righteous judgement of heaven, be flain in a confpiracy raised by his own fon'.

A. J. L. XX. c. vii. §. 8. c. viii. §. 2. 4.

B. J. L. II. c. xvii. §. 9. Manahem, fon of Judas of Galilee, was now at the head of this fedition; but it was begun (Ibid. §. 2.) by Ananias's fon Eleazar, captain of the temple, who perfuaded the officiating priefts to receive no gift or facrifice from a stranger. And this, Jofephus says, was the fource of the war; for they rejected the emperor's facrifice for the Romans. Manahem, upon his fuccefs, growing infolent, Eleazar's party, who before were his friends, rofe upon him in the temple and flew him. As to Ananias, in the reign of Claudius, before Felix was procurator, he was fent in chains to Rome, in confequence of a dispute between the Samaritans and Jews. Through the intereft of Agrippa,

who

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