It is impossible for Christians to deny that the persecutions and burnings, the cruel torture, and every infliction of cruelty practised by one sect towards others, who honestly differed from the most powerful, were all in consequence of the different sects embracing and maintaining opposite doctrines; all of which were founded on the teaching of Jesus. Can we, then, believe that the Almighty Ruler of all worlds would have sent his Son to teach mankind something that should involve the human race in a never-ending quarrel, by teaching so obscurely that two persons, equally honest and intelligent, should form opposite opinions; knowing, as the Almighty must, that such teaching would engender hatred and malice, and be the cause of producing unheard of cruelty and torture? How dreadful it is to reflect on the mad fury of religious zeal, when the persecutor and the persecuted are equally sincere! The first, believing he ought to put to death those who differ from him, for the glory of God; and the latter, considering that his crown of glory can be obtained only by sufferings death the most horrid to bear! Poor, unfortunate creatures! Both parties are objects of pity. The evils resulting from the different doctrines collected from the teaching of Jesus, have, for eighteen hundred years, converted the otherwise happy world into a pious mad-house. The doctrine of human depravity, although it may not have been so productive of evil as some others, is a libel on human nature. It is taught by Jesus; the preachers repeat it weekly from the pulpit; and the necessity of a new birth results from it. A thousand pulpits thunder forth vengeance against man because of the hardness of his heart. We are told that he has rebelled against his God; that he is at enmity with him, and that he has turned his back to his Maker. All this is done to humble man, and to bring about his conversion. The Scriptures also represent the Almighty as angry with poor, feeble man, and that he will eventually pour out his wrath in never-ending torments! These doctrines, so earnestly taught, and so fully credited, constitute a principal part of what comes from ten thousand preachers; and if we examine the truth of them, none can we find. As it respects man’s rebelling, and turning his back on his Creator, man’s error and misfortune has ever been in trying to find out something about his Maker.