A word in season to this present generation, or, A sober and serious discourse…

Some think that it was written upon occasion of the 70 years captivity in Babylon: but this can't ¹be, because that captivity was the fruit and product of their high iniquities, as the Scriptures do every where evidence. They could not say in Babylon: for thy sake, we are killed all the day long; but for sins sake, for our wickedness sake we are killed all the day long. It is more probable that this Psalm was penned upon the occasion of the horrible persecution of the Church under Antiochus Epiphanes; unto which I guess Paul hath reference ⟨p. 128⟩towards the latter end of that 11. to the Hebrews. In this 22. Verse you have three things observable, 1. The greatness of their sufferings, They were killed; amplified by a similitude, As sheep to the slaughter. 2. The cause, not for their sin, but for thy sake. 3. The continuance how long, even all the day long. Their sufferings are great and long; that Tyrant Antiochus made no more ²reckoning of taking away of their lives, than a Butcher doth of cutting the throats of the poor sheep, and as Butchers kill the sheep without making conscience of the effusion of their blood, even so did that Tyrant Antiochus destroy the Saints of the most high, without making the least conscience of s•eding innocent blood; and as Butchers think well of their work, and are glad when they have butchered the poor sheep, so did this Tyrant Antiochus, he thought he did God good service in butchering of the holy People, and rejoiced in that bloody service; and yet notwithstanding all the dreadful things that these blessed souls suffered, they still kept close to God, and close to his Covenant, and close to his ways, and close to his worship▪ And Austin observes, ³that though the Heathen sought to suppress the growth of Christianity by binding, butchering, racking, stoning, burning, &c. yet still they increased and multiplied, and still they kept close to God and his ways. The Church was at first founded in blood, and it has thriven best when it has been moistened with blood; it was at first founded in the blood of Christ, and ever since it has been moistened or watered, as it were, with the blood of the Martyrs. The Church of Christ in all Ages hath been like the oak, which liveth by his own wounds, and the more limbs are cut off, the more new sprouts. O how close to God his ways and worship did the Saints keep in the Ten Persecutions;