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holiness consists in mere abstinence, and in the observance of that painful minutiæ; but in a more noble and exalted principle. It is, no doubt, the obtrusion of a galling yoke, that we, who are made in the image of God, and have an immortal soul, should be compelled, during the whole of this low and grovelling life, to follow some trade, some profession, or some labour, by no means assortable with the dignity of man. So is our calamity. But it is requisite at least, it is highly requisite, that one day in the week we should remember our origin, and turn our minds to things which are worthy of their excellence. It is requisite, that one day in the week we should rise superior to sensible objects; that we should think of God, of heaven, and of eternity; that we should repose, if I may so speak, from the violence which must be done to ourselves to be detained on earth for six whole days. O blessed God, when shall "the times of refreshing come," in which thou wilt supersede labour, and make thy children fully free? Acts iii. 21. When shall we enter the rest that remaineth for thy people?" Heb. iv. 9; in which we shall be wholly absorbed in the contemplation of thy beauty, we shall resemble thee in holiness and happiness, because "we shall see thee as thou art," and thou thyself shalt "be all in all" Amen.

SERMON XCVI.

THE CALAMITIES OF EUROPE.

LUKE xiii. 1-5.

There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering, said unto them, suppose ye that these Galileans, were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay: but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.

"I HAVE cut off the nations, I have made their towers desolate, I have sapped the foundation of their cities; I said, surely thou shalt receive instruction, so that thy dwelling shall not be cut off," Zeph. iii. 6, 7. This instructive caution God once published by the ministry of Zephaniah. And did it regard that age alone, or was it a prophecy for future times? Undoubtedly, my brethren, it regarded the Jews in the prophet's time. They saw every where around them exterminated nations, fortresses in ruins, villages deserted, and cities sapped to the foundation. The judgments of God had fallen, not only on the idolatrous nations, but the ten tribes had been overwhelmed. The Jews, instead of receiving instruction, followed the crimes of those whom God had cut off, and involved themselves in the same calamities.

And if these words were adapted to that age, how strikingly, alas! are they applicable VOL. 11.-48

to our own? What do we see around us? Nations exterminated, villages deserted, and cities sapped to the foundation. The visitations of God are abroad in Europe; we are surrounded with them; and are they not intended, I appeal to your conscience, for our instruction? But let us not anticipate the close of this discourse. We propose to show you in what light we ought to view the judgments which God inflicts on the human kind. You have heard the words of our text. We shall stop but a moment to mark the occasion, and direct the whole of our care to enforce their principal design. After having said a word respecting" the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices;" and respecting the dreadful fall of this tower which crushed eighteen persons under its ruins, we shall endeavour to examine.

I. The misguided views with which mankind regard the judgments God openly inflicts upon their neighbours.

II. The real light in which those judgments ought to be considered. The first of these ideas we shall illustrate on the occasion of the tragic accidents mentioned in the text, which were reported to Jesus Christ. The second, we shall illustrate on occasion of the answer of Jesus Christ himself; "Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans? Suppose ye that those eighteen were sinners above all that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay: but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Considering the text in this view, we shall learn to avert the judg ments of God from falling on our own heads, by the way in which we shall consider his visitations on others. God grant it. Amen.

What was the occasion of Pilate's cruelty, and of the vengeance he inflicted on those Galileans? This is a question difficult to determine. The most enlightened commentators assure us, that they find no traces of it either in Jewish, or in Roman history. The wary Josephus, according to his custom on those subjects, is silent here; and, probably, on the mention of the murder of the infants commitsame principle which induced him to make no ted by the cruel Herod.

Pilate you know in general. He was one of those men whom God, in the profound secrets of his providence, suffers to attain the most distinguished rank to execute his designs, when they have no view but the gratification of their own passions. He was a man, in whom much cruelty, joined to extreme avarice, rendered proper to be a rod in God's hand; and who, following the passions which actuated his mind, sometimes persecuting the Jews to please the heathens, and sometimes the Christians to please the Jews, sacrificed the Finisher of our faith, and thus after troubling the synagogue, he became the tyrant of both the churches.

Perhaps the vengeance he executed on the Galileans was not wholly without a cause. Here is what some have conjectured upon this narrative. Gaulon was a town of Galilee; here a certain Judas was born, who on that account was surnamed the Gaulonite, of whom

*Joseph. Antiq. lib. 18. c. 1.

we have an account in the fifth chapter of the | thought and reflection. 2. They regard them book of the Acts.* This man was naturally with a spirit of blindness; but Jesus Christ inclined to sedition. He communicated the would excite in them a spirit of instruction and spirit of revolt to his family, from his family knowledge. 3. They regard them with a spirit to the city, from the city to the province, and of rigour to others, and preference of themfrom the province to all Judea. He had the seives; but Jesus Christ would excite in them art of catching the Jews by their passions; I a compassionate and humble temper. 4. They would say, by their love of liberty. He excit-regard with an obdurate spirit; but Jesus Christ ed them to assert their rights, to maintain would excite in them a spirit of reformation their privileges, to throw off the yoke the Ro- and repentance. These are terms to which mans wished to impose, and to withhold the we must attach distinct ideas, and salutary intribute. He succeeded in his designs; the Jews structions. If we shall sometimes recede from revered him as a patriot. But to remedy an the words of Jesus Christ, it shall be to apinconsiderable evil, he involved them in a thou- proximate ourselves more to the situation in sand disgraces. It has been conjectured that which Providence has now placed us. And those whose blood was mingled with their if we shall sometimes recede from the circumsacrifices, were some of the seditious who had stances in which Providence has now placed come to Jerusalem to celebrate the passover, us, it shall be to approach the nearer to the and of whom Pilate wished to make an exam- views of Jesus Christ. ple to intimidate others.

What we said of Pilate's cruelty, suggested by the subject, is wholly uncertain; we say the same of the tragic accident immediately subjoined in our text; I would say, the tower of Siloam, which crushed eighteen people under its ruins. We know in general, that there was a fountain in Jerusalem called Siloam, mentioned in the ninth chapter of St. John, and in the eighth chapter of Isaiah. We know that this fountain was at the foot of mount Zion, as many historians have asserted. We know that it had five porches, as the gospel expressly affirms. We know several particulars of this fountain, that it was completely dried up before the arrival of the emperor Titus; and that it flowed not again till the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem: so we are assured by Josephus. We know likewise, that the empress Helena embellished it with various works, described by Nicephorus. We know likewise various superstitions to which it has given birth; in particular, what is said by Geoffroy de Viterbus, that there was near it another fountain called the Holy Virgin, because, they say, this blessed wonian drew water from it to wash the linen of Jesus Christ, and of her family. We are told also that the Turks have so great a veneration for it as to wash their children in the same water, and to perform around it various rituals of superstition. But what this tower was, and what the cause of its fall was, we cannot discover, nor is it a matter of any importance.

Let us make no more vain efforts to illustrate a subject, which would be of little advantage, though we could place it in the fullest lustre. Let us turn the whole of our attention to what is of real utility. We have proposed, conformably to the text, to inquire, first, into the erroneous light in which men view the judgments God inflicts on their own species; and, secondly, the real light in which they ought to be considered. Here is in substance the subject of our discourse. Mankind regard the judgments God inflicts on their own species, 1. With a spirit of indifference; but Jesus Christ would thereby excite in them a disposition of

* Theudas, v. 30.

Wars of the Jews, lib. v. cap. 26.
Eccles. Hist. lib. viii. cap. 20.

The first characteristic of the erroneous disposition with which we regard the judgments God inflicts on other men, is stupor and inattention. I do not absolutely affirm, that people are not at all affected by the strokes of Providence. The apathy of the human mind cannot extend quite so far. How was it that this unheard-of cruelty could scarce impress the mind of those who were present? Here are men who came up to Jerusalem, who came to celebrate the feast with joy, who designed to offer their victims to God; but behold, they themselves became the victims of a tyrant's fury, who mixed their blood with that of the beasts they had just offered! Here are eighteen men employed in raising a tower, or perhaps accident ally standing near it; and behold, they are crushed to pieces by its fall! Just so, wars, pestilence, and famine, when we are not immediately, or but lightly involved in the calamity, make indeed a slight, though very superficial, impression on the mind. We find, at most, in these events, but a temporary subject of conversation; we recite them with the news of the day, "There were present at that season, some who told him of the Galileans;" but we extend our inquiries no farther, and never endeavour to trace the designs of Providence. There are men who feel no interest but in what immediately affects themselves, provided their property sustain no loss by the calamity of others; provided their happiness flow in its usual course; provided their pleasures are not interrupted, though the greatest calamities be abroad in the earth, and though God inflict before our eyes the severest strokes, to them, it is of no moment. Hence the first mark of the misguided disposition with which men regard the judgments of the Lord on others, is stupor and inattention.

But how despicable is this disposition! Does one live solely for one's self? Are men capable of being employed about nothing but their own interests? Are they unable to turn their views to the various bearings under which the judgments of God may be considered? Every thing claims attention in these messengers of the divine vengeance. The philosopher finds here a subject of the deepest speculation. What are those impenetrable springs, moved of God, which shake the fabric of the world, and sud

Voiez Jesuit Eusebius Nieremberg de Lerrapromis, denly convulse the face of society? Is it the

cap. 48.

earth, wearied of her primitive fertility, which

occasions barrenness and famine? Or, is it some new malediction, supernaturally denounced by him who renders nature fruitful in her ordinary course? Is it the exhalations froin the earth which empoison the air; or, are there some pernicious qualities formed in the air which empoison the earth? By what secret of nature, or phenomenon of the Creator, does the contagion pass with the velocity of lightning from one clime to another, bearing on the wings of the wind the infectious breath of one people to another? The statesman admires here the catastrophes of states, and the vicissitudes of society. He admires how the lot of war in an instant raises him who was low, and abases him who was high. He sees troops trained with labour, levied with difficulty, and formed with fatigue; he sees them destroyed by a battle in an hour; and what is more awful still, he sees them wasted by disease without being able to sell their lives, or to dip their hands in the enemies' blood. The dying man sees, in the calamities of others, the image of his own danger. He sees death armed at all points, "and him that hath the power of death"* moving at his command the winds, the waves, the tempests, the pestilence, the famine and war. The Christian here extending his views, sees how terrible it is "to fall into the hands of the living God." He adores that Providence which directs all events, and without whose permission a hair cannot fall from the head: he sees in these calamities messengers of the God "who makes flatnes of fire his angels, and winds his ministers." He "hears the rod, and who hath appointed it."§ Fearing to receive the same visitations, he "prepares to meet his God." He enters his closet, and hides himself till the indignation be overpast." He saves himself" before the decree bring forth." He cries as Israel once cried, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?"** Such are the variety of reflections and of emotions which the calamities of Providence excites in an enlightened mind. Truths which we proceed to develop, and which we numerate here solely to demonstrate the stupidity of this first disposition, and to oppose it by a spirit of recollection and seriousness implied in our Saviour's answer, and which he was wishful to excite in us.

2. We have marked, in the second place, a spirit of blindness, and our wish to oppose it by an enlightened and well-informed disposition. When we speak of those who have a spirit of blindness, we do not mean men of contracted minds, who having received it from nature, are incapable of reflection; men who think merely to adopt phantoms, and who talk merely to maintain absurdities. We attack those witlings who pique themselves on a superiority, who, under a pretence of emancipating the mind from error and prejudice, and of rising above the vulgar, so immerse themselves in error and prejudice, as to sink below the vulgar. Persons who have knowledge indeed; but "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools;"ft and are so much the more blind, to speak as the Scripture, "because they say, we see."

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They treat those as weak-headed, whom the visitations of Heaven prompt to self-examination, who recognise the hand of God, and who endeavour to penetrate his designs in the afflictions of mankind. More occupied with Pilate than with him whose counsel has determined the conduct of Pilate; more occupied with politics, and more attentive to nature, than to the God of nature, they refer all to second causes, they regard nature and politics as the universal divinities, and the arbitrators of all events. This is what we call a spirit of blindness. And as nothing can be more opposite to the design of this text, and the object of this discourse, we ought to attack it with all our power, and demonstrate another truth supposed by Jesus Christ in the text, not only that God is the author of all calamities, but that in sending them, he correctly determines their end. This shall appear by a few plain propositions.

Proposition first. Either nature is nothing, or it is the assemblage of the beings God has created; either the effects of nature are nothing, or they are the products and effects of the laws by which God has arranged, and by which he governs beings; consequently, whatever we call natural effects, and the result of second causes, are the work of God, and the effects of his established laws. This proposition is indisputable. One must be an Atheist, or an Epicurean, to revoke it in doubt. For instance, when you say that an earthquake is a natural effect, and that it proceeds from a second cause: do you know that there are under our feet subterranean caverns, that those caverns are filled with combustible matter, that those substances ignite by friction, expand, and overturn whatever obstructs their passage? Here is a natural effect; here is a second cause. But I ask; who has created this earth? Who has formed those creatures susceptible of ignition? Who has established the laws of expansive force? You must here confess, that either God, or chance is the author. If you say chance, atheism is then on the throne; Epicurus triumphs; the fortuitous concourse of atoms is established. If you say God, our proposition is proved, and sufficiently so; for those that attack us here, are not Atheists and Epicureans; hence, in refuting them, it is quite sufficient to prove, that their principle tends to the Epicurean and the atheistical system.

Proposition second. God, in forming his various works, and in the arrangement of his laws, knew every possible effect which could result from them. If you do not admit this principle, you have no notion of the perfect Being; an infinity of events might happen in the world independent of his pleasure; he would daily learn; he would grow wiser with age; and become learned by experience! These are principles which destroy themselves, and combine by their contradiction to establish our second proposition, that God, in creating his works, and in prescribing the laws of motion, was apprised of every possible effect.

but modern observations attest that great masses of sulThis was the received opinion in our author's time; phureous coals thrown on heaps kindle spontaneously by the accession of air and rain. So on the falling of the alum shell of Boulby cliffs, the rain and air caused the mass to ignite. See Sutcliffe's Geological Essays: and Hist. of Whitby

3. Men regard with a spirit of severity and of preference, the judgments which God inflicts on others; but Jesus Christ was wishful to excite in them a disposition of tenderness and humiliation; he apprises them, that the most afflicted are not always the most guilty. So is the import of these expressions, "Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans? Suppose ye that those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell, and killed, were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay."

The Jews had much need of this caution. Many of them regarded all the calamities of life, as the punishment of some sin committed by the afflicted. The mortifying comforts of Job's friends, and all the rash judgments they formed of his case, were founded upon this principle: you find likewise some of our Saviour's disciples, on seeing a man born blind, asking this question: "Lord, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” John ix. 2. How could they conceive that a man, blind from his birth, could have committed a crime to superinduce the calamity? This corresponds with our assertion: they were persuaded that all calamities were the result of some crime; and even in this life, that the most calamitous were the most culpable; and they even preferred the supposition of sins committed in a pre-existent state, to the ideas of visitations not preceded by crime. They admitted, for the most part, the doctrine of

Proposition third. God, foreseeing all those effects, has approved of them, and determined each to an appropriate end. It is assortable to the nature of a wise Being to do nothing but what is consonant to wisdom, nothing but what is connected with some design; and to make this the distinguishing characteristic of the smallest, as well as of the greatest works. The wisest of men are unable to follow this law, because circumscribed in knowledge, their attention is confined to a narrow sphere of objects. If a prince, wishful to make his subjects happy, should endeavour to enter into all the minutiae of his kingdom, he could not attend to the main design; and his measures would tend to retard his purpose. But God, whose mind is infinite, who comprises in the immense circle of his knowledge an infinity of ideas without confusion, is directed by his wisdom to propose the best design in all his works. Consequently the works of nature which he has created, and the effects of nature which he has foreseen, all enter into his eternal counsels, and receive their destination. Hence, to refer events to second causes, not recognising the designated visitations of Providence by the plague, by war, and famine; and under a presumption, that these proceed from the general laws of nature, not perceiving the Author and Lord of nature, is to have a spirit of blindness. Moreover, all these arguments, suggested by sound reason, are established in the clearest and most indisputable manner in the Scriptures, to which all wise men should have re-metempsychosis, and supposed the punishments course to direct their judgment. Does Joseph arrive in Egypt, after being sold by his brethren? It was God that sent him thither, according to his own testimony, Gen. xlv. 5. "Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life." Do Kings arrange their counsels? "Their heart is in the hands of God: he turneth them as the rivers of water," Prov. xxi. 1. Does Assyria afflict Israel? "He is the rod of God's anger," Isa. x. 5. Do Herod and Pilate persecute Jesus Christ? They do that which God had previously "determined in counsel," Acts iv. 27. Does a hair fall from our head? It is not without the permission of God, Luke xii. 7. If you require particular proof that God has designs in chastisements, and not only with regard to the chastised but to those also in whose presence they are chastised, you have but to remember the words at the opening of this discourse; "I have cut off all nations, I have made their towers desolate, and said, Surely thou shalt receive instruction;" you have but to recollect the words of Ezekiel, "As I live, saith the Lord, surely because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with thy detestable things, a third part of you shall die with the pestilence, and another part of you shall fall by the sword, and a third part shall be scattered: and thou shalt be a reproach, and a taunt, and an instruction," Ezek. v. 11-15. Pay attention to this word, "an instruction." My brethren, God has therefore designs, when he afflicts other men before our eyes; and designs in regard to us; he proposes our instruction. Hence his visitations must be regarded with an enlightened mind.

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sustained in one body, were the result of sins committed in other bodies. This sentiment the Jews of Alexandria had communicated to their brethren in Judea: but we suppress, on this head, a long detail of proofs from Philo, Josephus, and others. They had also another notion, that children might have criminal thoughts while slumbering in the womb. It is probable that those who, in the text, reported to Jesus Christ the unhappy end of the Galileans, were initiated into this opinion. This is the spirit of severity and of preference by which we regard the calamities of others. This is what the Lord attacks: "Suppose ye that those eighteen on whom the tower in Šiloam fell, were sinners above all that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay: but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish."

This is the most afflicted man in all the earth; therefore he is more wicked than another who enjoys a thousand comforts. What a pitiful argument!

To reason in this way is to "limit the Holy One of Israel," Ps. lxxviii. 41; and not to recognise the diversity of designs an infinite Intelligence may propose in the visitations of mankind. Sometimes he is wishful to prove them: "Now I know that thou lovest me, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son," Gen. xxii. 12. Sometimes he designs to be glorified by their deliverance. Thus the opening of the eyes of the man born blind was designated, to make manifest "the works of God;" and the sickness of Lazarus was "to glorify the Son of God." Sometimes he proPhilo on the Giants; and on Dreams; Joseph. Wars of the Jews, book ii. cap. 12.

poses to make their faith conspicuous; this was the end of Job's affliction.

To reason in this way, is to revolt against experience, and to prefer the worst of sinners to the best of saints. Herod who is on the throne, to Jesus Christ who is driven to exile; Nero who sways the world, to St. Paul who is reckoned "the filth and offscouring of the earth."

To reason in this way, is to disallow the turpitude of crime. If God sometimes defer to punish it on earth, it is because the punishinents of this life are inadequate to the enormity of sin.

To reason in this way, is to be inattentive to the final judgment which God is preparing. If this life were eternal; if this were our principal period of existence, the argument would have some colour. But if there be a life after death; if this be but a shadow which vanishes away; if there be a precise time when virtue shall be recompensed, and vice punished, which we cannot dispute without subverting the principles of religion, and of reason, then this conjecture is unfounded.

To reason in this way, is to be ignorant of the value of afflictions. They are one of the most fertile sources of virtue, and the most successful means of inducing us to comply with the design of the gospel. If the calamities which mortals suffer in this life were allowed to form a prejudice, it should rather be in favour of God's love, than of his anger: and instead of saying, this man being afflicted, he is consequently more guilty than he who is not afflicted, we should rather say, this man having no affliction, is, in fact, a greater sinner than the other who is afflicted.

In general, there are few wicked men to whom the best of saints, in a comparative view, have the right of preference. In the life of a criminal, you know at most but a certain number of his crimes; but you see an infinite number in your own. Comparing yourselves with an assassin about to be broken on the wheel, you would no doubt find a preference in this point. But extend your thoughts; review the history of your life; investigate your heart; examine those vain thoughts, those irregular desires, those secret practices, of which God alone is witness; and then judge of vice and virtue, not by the notions that men form of them, but by the portrait exhibited in God's law; consider that anger, envy, pride and calumny, carried to a certain degree, are more odious in the eyes of God, than those notorious crimes punished by human justice; and on investigating the life of a criminal, you will be obliged to confess that there is nothing more revolting than what is found in your own. Besides, a good man is so impressed with his own faults, that the sentiment extenuates in his estimation the defects of others. This was the sentiment of St. Paul: "I am the chief of sinners; but I obtained mercy." This was his injunction; "In lowliness of mind, let each esteem another better than himself," Phil. ii. 5; 1 Tim. i. 13. But is this avowal founded on fact? Is the maxim practicable? It is, my brethren, in the sense we have just laid down. But the Jews, whom our Saviour addressed, had no need of those solutions: their lives real

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ized his assertions; and would to God that ours, compared with the multitude of victims which this day cover the earth, might not suggest the same reflection? "Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans? Suppose ye that those eighteen were sinners above all the men that dwelt in Jerusalem?" Do you suppose that those whose dead bodies are now strewed over Europe? Do you suppose that the people assailed with famine, and those exempt from famine, hut menaced with the plague and pestilence, are greater sinners than the rest of the world? "I tell you, nay."

IV. Lastly: mankind regard the judgments which God obviously inflicts on others with an obdurate disposition; but Jesus Christ is wishful to reclaim them by a spirit of reformation and repentance. This is the design of his inference, which is twice repeated; "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

One of the designs God proposed in perinitting the cruelty of Pilate to those Galileans, and the fall of the tower of Siloam on eighteen of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, was to give others an idea of the punishment which awaited themselves, in case they should persist in sin, and thereby of exciting them to repentance. He has now the same designs in regard to us, while afflicting Europe before our eyes.

That this was his design with regard to the Jews, we have a proof beyond all exception, and that proof is experience. The sentence pronounced against that unhappy nation; “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," was literally executed, and in detail. Yes, literally did the Jewish nation perish as the Galileans, whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, and as the others on whom the tower of Siloam fell.

Read what happened under Archelaus, on the day of the passover. The people were assembled from all parts, and thought of nothing but of offering their sacrifices. Archelaus surrounded Jerusalem, placed his cavalry without the city, caused his infantry to enter, and to defile the temple with the blood of three thousand persons.*

Read the sanguinary conduct of those cruel assassins, who in open day, and during their most solemn festival in particular, caused the effects of their fury to be felt, and mingled human gore with that of the animals slain in the temple.

Read the furious battle fought by the zealots in the same temple, where without fear of defiling the sanctity of religion, to use the expression of the Jewish historian, "they defiled the sacred place with their impure blood."t

Read the pathetic description of the same historian concerning the factions who held their sittings in the temple. "Their revenge," he says, "extended to the altar; they massacred the priests with those that offered sacrifices. Men who came from the extremities of the earth to worship God in his holy place, fell down slain with their victims, and sprinkled their blood on the altar, revered, not only by the Greeks, but by the most barbarous nations. The blood was seen to flow as rivers; and the

*Joseph. Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 11.

Joseph. Wars of the Jews, book iv. chap. 14.

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