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.

A false worship will not hurt the civil state if the worshipper breaks no civil law.

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.

It is only the Lord who is able to give [unbelievers] repentance and recover them out of Satan's snare.

We find not in the Gospel, that Christ hath anywhere provided for the uniformity of churches, but only for their unity.

'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.

Whatever tumults and strifes await God's witnesses, it remains clear that the doctrine of persecution for the sake of conscience is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace.