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

and yet let a Christian then have but God by the hand, and he will not fear the most hideous and horrid representations of death. Dan. 3. 24. Then Nebuchadnezzar the King was astonied, and rose up in hast, and spake and said unto his Counsellors, did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the King, true O King. Verse 25. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. The presence of the Son of God turned the fiery Furnace into a garden of delights, a gallery of pleasure. This divine presence in the midst of fire and flame, kept them from fainting, sinning, and shrinking, and filled their souls with comfort, peace, ease, and heavenly refreshing. One of the Ancients rhetorically speaking to Nebuchadnezzar, ¹who said, He saw one like the Son of God, whence came this (saith he) who told thee that this was the Son of God, what Law, what Prophet? he is not yet born into the world, and the similitude of him, that was to be born, is known to thee; whence came this? who told thee this, but the divine fire enlightening thee within, that whilst thou beholdest these three as thine enemies in the fire, thou mightest give testimony to the Son of God. This heathenish Prince looked upon the fourth person, as one like a Son of the Gods, or like some young God, most bright and glorious, exceeding fair and excelling in beauty, as if he were not of humane but of divine off-spring. But what ever notions or apprehensions Nebuchadnezzar had, we may very safely understand this fourth to be, as the words do literally bear, the very true Son of God, our Lord and Saviour, who is signally present with his People, in their greatest extremities, and most deadly dangers. Zach. 1. 8. I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red Horse, and ⟨p. 12⟩he stood amongst the myrtle-trees that were in the bottom and behind him were there red borses, speckled and white. The man riding upon the red Horse, is the Man Christ ²Jesus, 'tis the Captain of the Lords Host, and the Captain of our Salvation: Christ is here represented in his Kingly state, under the Type of a Man riding on a red Horse, and having his Royal Attendants;