first proposition this would be your conclusion. The pharisees and those who adhered to them, built the sepulchres of the prophets, whom their fathers killed, and said; "If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets." These _holy_ men were sure that they were much better than their fathers who persecuted the prophets; they had no disposition to persecute; all the wealth in the world could not have tempted these _godly saints_ to kill a prophet of God. However, St. Paul writing to the Thessalonians, says, "For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God, which in Judea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews; who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men." But the Jews would not have put Jesus to death if he had been a pharisee, and had not departed from their traditions and superstitions. But he was not a pharisee, nor did he adhere to their superstitions; and for this cause he was to them "a root out of dry ground." To them, he had no form nor comeliness, no, nor had he any beauty that they should discern him. Say, brother, is not this the superstition which you are urging as unfavourable to the evidences of christianity? And does not the passage above quoted from Thessalonians go to prove what all ecclesiastical history as well as the New Testament proves, that the Christians were persecuted by the Jews and by the Gentiles? Did any thing but superstition ever persecute? It surely does not aim to build up that which it persecutes: and therefore in room of its being evidence against the genuineness of what it opposes, is justly admitted as a valid evidence in its favour. It is well known that our Christian doctors, clergy, and laity have been long persuaded that a glorious day of universal peace and gospel light is not only promised, but fast approaching; and if their prayers have any influence, it is evident that the time is hastened by their means. All this looks very well, and a man would be thought to be impious, if not insane, who should intimate that these saints were superstitous or illiberal, or that they possessed the spirit of persecution.--But what has been their spirit for, say, twenty-five years past towards a doctrine which teaches universal peace on earth and good will towards man? Is there any thing bad which they have not spoken against this doctrine? Have they not treated its preachers with all the contempt and even ridicule of which they were capable? Have they not used all their influence to keep the doctrine from being preached in their meeting houses, and have they not dealt with church members who have believed this benign doctrine of love, with excommunications attended with as many aggravations as they could invent? In a word, is there one bitter herb in all the ground which