burnt a part of the Roman City, charged it upon the Christians, and enacted laws to destroy them, and multitudes of them were burnt alive in his garden, for nightly illumination: in this Persecution, it is supposed _Paul_ and _Peter_ suffered death. About the year 72 _Domitian_ raised a new Persecution, but he was soon murdered by his wife. About three years after it began, in 105, _Trajan_, the Emperor, raised a third Persecution, which lasted about two years. Then a fourth Persecution by _Adrian_, which lasted ten years—besides, vast numbers of Christians were murdered by the Jewish rebels. For a long time the Church was quiet from outward Persecution, but awfully infested with errors, which became an internal Persecution. About the year 302, the infernal Emperor raised a dreadful one against the Christians; many were scourged to death, had their flesh torn off with red hot pincers, and mangled with broken pots. They were cast to wild beasts, beheaded, crucified, burnt, drowned, torn to pieces between trees, roasted by gentle fires, and some, having holes made in the body, had melted lead poured into their bowels. In Egypt alone, an hundred and forty thousand were cut off by violent deaths, and seven hundred thousand by banishment and hard labour. In every part of the Empire churches were razed to the ground, and the copies of the Scriptures burnt. Now they thought they had utterly abolished the Religion of Jesus; but the vengeance of God followed the hellish tyrant, as it had _Herod_, _Nero_, & _Domitian_ before. _Cæsar_ obliged him to resign his post, and retire to a private life, where he soon ended his days by a draft of poison. God raised up _Constantine_, the Man Child spoken of in the 12th chapter of _Revelations_; he tolerated the Christians. His colleague revoked it in the East, and, instigated by the Heathen Priests, made war against _Licinius_. The brother-in-law of _Constantine_, enraged at his army being routed, he murdered a multitude of the Priests, who had promised him the victory. He was just going to venture a second battle, when he was smitten with blindness and terrible pain: he poisoned himself, and amidst rage, pain, and despair, acknowledged his trouble the just reward for his cruelty to the Christians. _Licinius_ for a time seemed to favor the Christians, yet soon turned a bitter Persecutor; but _Constantine_ being now a Christian, marched a great army against him, and defeated him in three great battles, in the last of which an hundred thousand were slain, _Licinius_ taken, and put to death. Thus we see the Bush long burning, and not consumed, because the _Angel of the Covenant_ was in it—and this is he that was with the Church in the Wilderness.