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

I will not spare you, till I have made ¹you curse your crucified God, and adore the Sun; he was afterwards (like another Sennacherib) deposed and murdered by his own Siroes: When the Divine presence is armed against the great ones of the World, they must certainly fall. In Diocletian's time, under whom was the last and worst of the ten persecutions, though then Christian Religion was more desperately opposed than ever, yet such was the presence of God with his ²People in those times, that Religion prospered and prevailed more than ever; so that Diocletian himself observing that the more he sought to blot out the name of Christ, it became the more legible, and to block up the way of Christ it became the more passable; and what ever of Christ he thought to root out, it rooted the deeper and rose the higher, thereupon he resolved to engage himself no further, but retired to a private life: This is a good copy for the Persecutors of the day to ³write after. O Sirs! what folly and madness is it for weakness to engage against strength, the Creature against the Creator, an Arm of flesh against the Rock of Ages? What is the chaff to the whirl-wind, stubble and straw to the devouring flames? no more are all the Enemies of Zion to the great and glorious God, that is signally present with his People in their greatest troubles, and deepest distresses, &c. There was not one of those persecuting Emperors, that carried on the ten bloody Persecutions against the Saints, but ca•e to miserable ends, yea Histories tell us of three and forty persecuting Emperors, that fell by the hand of revenging Justice; first or last the presence of God with his People, will undo all the Persecutors in the world. But

I will not spare you, till I have made ¹you curse your crucified God, and adore the Sun; he was afterwards (like another Senacherib) deposed and murthered by his own Siroes: When the Divine presence is armed against the great ones of the World, they must certainly fall. In Dioclesian's time, under whom was the last and worst of the ten persecutions, though then Christian Religion was more desperately opposed than ever, yet such was the presence of God with his