A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

But the generality of them refusing to receive conviction. God soon destroyed them with such terrible circumstances, as the destruction of no country or city since the foundation of the world can parallel; agreeable to what Christ foretold, Matth xxiv.21. "For then shall be tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." The first destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians was very terrible, as it is in the most affecting manner described by the Prophet Jeremiah, in his Lamentations; but this was nothing to the dreadful misery and wrath which they suffered in the destruction; God, according as Christ foretold, bringing on them all the righteous blood that had been shed from the foundation of the world. Thus the enemies of Christ were made his footstool ofte• his ascension, agreeable to God's promise in Psal. cx at the beginning; and Christ rules them with a rod of Iron. They had been kicking against Christ, but they did not kick against the pricks. The briars and thorns set themselves against him in battle: but he went through them: he burned them together.

This destruction of Jerusalem was in all respects agreeable to what Christ had foretold of it, Matth. xxiv. by the account which Josephus gives of it, who was then present, and was one of the Jews, who had a share in the calamity, who wrote the history of their destruction. Many circumstana•s of this destruction resembled the destruction of the wicked at the day of judgement, by his account, being accomplished with many fearful sights in the heavens, and with the separation of the righteous from the wicked. Their city and their temple were burnt, and razed to the ground, and the ground on which the city stood▪ was ploughed; and so one stone was not left upon another, Matth. xxiv.2.