When the devout Jews rejected the novel doctrines of Jesus and his apostles, the virtues which they previously possessed either withered up or were withdrawn from them, and communicated to Infidels or Gentiles. So it is now. While the devout priests and churches reject the gospel ministered by an angel to Joseph, and confirmed by the signs following, their former virtuous principles forsake them. They become filled with the spirit of envy, hatred, and malice towards the Saints. They retail groundless slanders, and often are foremost in instigating mobs, refusing common civilities and hospitality to the servants of the Most High; and so sanguine is their opposition, that they even believe it would be well for the cause of religion, if the Saints were exterminated and put to death. So believed the devout Jews, who persecuted the prophets and slew the Holy and Just One. Thus, by step after step, the professedly pious are brought to become accessory to blood-guiltiness, and bring upon themselves all the blood that has been shed from the days of righteous Abel till now. Oh! my much-loved friend, will you not shudder at the sight of such a catastrophe before the modern churches? What an awful curse! Given up by God to believe Saints to be sinners, and then to war against them even to blood-guiltiness! Strange and deplorable infatuation! One would think that the snares and pitfalls into which God precipitated ancient persecutors, would prove an effectual warning to modern persecutors to beware how they plunged themselves into a worse destruction! Oh, how great the severity of God towards them that strive with their Maker, and spurn the faith once delivered to the Saints as no longer needed! The very _religion_ of modern christianity is now about as great a curse as can be inflicted upon its possessors, without doing violence to their power of agency. It is the prolific cause of judicial blindness and hardness of heart. A false religion is worse than no religion, because it is a lure and a lullaby, that excludes true religion from taking effect.