The ministry or service of prophets and witnesses, mourning and prophesying in sackcloth, God has directly commissioned and upheld all during the reign of the beast and antichrist of Rome. This witness is probably near finished, and the bloody storm of slaughter is yet to be expected and prepared for.

Even if the civil magistrate is so gifted as to prophesy in the church, yet in the sphere of his civil duties he is forbidden to call down fire from heaven, that is, to procure or inflict any corporal punishment upon offenders in religious doctrine or practice, remembering Christ's admonition that He came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them.

I do not condone hostility toward any church simply to vent personal malice or umbrage.

The magistrates of whom Paul wrote were natural, ungodly, persecuting, and yet lawful magistrates, to be obeyed in all lawful civil things.

Health requires healthy food.

The Christian church [in its true identity] does not persecute; any more than a lily scratches the thorns, or a lamb pursues and tears the wolves, or a turtledove hunts the hawks and eagles, or a chaste and modest virgin fights and scratches like whores and harlots.

'Tis but worldly policy and compliance with men and times (God's mercy overruling) that holds your hands from the murdering of thousands and ten thousands, were your power and command as great as the bloody Roman emperors' formerly was.