it is for the testimony of Jesus, that we are in bonds and in prison; but we say unto you, that we consider our condition better, notwithstanding our sufferings, than those who have persecuted and smitten us, and have borne false witness against us; and although our enemies seem to have a great triumph over us for the present, we most assuredly believe and know, that their triumph will be but short, and that God will deliver us out of their hands, notwithstanding their bearing false witness and otherwise. We want you, brethren, to remember Haman and Mordecai, you know that Haman could not be satisfied, so long as he saw Mordecai, at the kings gate, consequently he sought the life of Mordecai, and the whole Jewish people. But the Lord so ordered it, that Haman was hanged upon his own gallows: so shall it come to pass with poor Haman in the last days.
Those who have sought by their unbelief and wickedness; as well as by the principle of mobocracy, to destroy us and the people of God, by killing and scattering them abroad, and wilfully and maliciously delivering us into the hands of murderers, desiring us to be put to death, and having us dragged about in chains and cast into prison! and for what cause? It is because we were honest men, and were determined to defend the lives of the saints, at the expense of our own; I say unto you that those, who have thus vilely treated us, shall like Haman be hanged on their own gallows, or in other words, shall fall into their own gin and ditch, which they have prepared for us, and shall go backward and stumble, and fall, and their names shall perish, and God shall reward them according to all their abominations.
Dear brethren, do not think that our hearts are faint,as though some strange thing had happened unto us, for we have seen these things before hand, and have an assurance of a better hope, than our persecutors, therefore God has made our shoulders broad, so that we can bear them: We glory in our tribulations, because we know that God is with us, that he is our friend, and he will save us. We do not care for those that can kill the body; knowing that they cannot harm our souls. We ask no favors at the hand of mobs, of the world or of the devil; nor yet of any of his emmissaries, the desenters. We have never dissembled nor will we for the sake of our lives: inasmuch then as we know we have been endeavouring, with all our mights, minds, and strength to do the will of God in all things whatsoever he has commanded us, we feel a satisfaction which we would not part with for any worldly advantage whatever. As to our light speeches which may have escaped our lips from time to time, they have nothing to do with the fixed principles of our hearts; and those who have taken offence at any thing which may inadvertantly have escaped our lips, we would refer them to Isaiah’s description of those, who make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for those that reprove in the gate: We have no retraction to make, we have reproved in the gate, and men have laid snares for us; we have spoken words and men have made us offenders; yet notwithstanding all this, our minds are not darkened, but we yet feel strong in the Lord. But behold the words of the Savior, “If the light which is in you became darkness, how great is that darkness: Look at the dissenters.— And again. “If you were of the world the world would love its own.[”]
Look at those men, viz: , and , by whom we were led into the camp, as the Savior was led, like lambs prepared for the slaughter and as sheep before the shearers are dumb, so we opened not our mouths. But the men being greedy of gain sold us into the hands of those who loved them, for the world loved his own.—We would also remember who came to us as one of Job’s comforters: God suffered such kind of beings to afflict Job, but it never enter-ed into their hearts that Job would get out of it all.
This poor man who professes to be much of a prophet, has no other dumb ass to ride, but or to forbid his madness, when he goes up to curse Israel; but this not being of the same kind of Balaam’s, therefore, notwithstanding the angel appeared unto him, yet he could not sufficiently penetrate his understanding, but that he brays out cursings instead of blessings. Poor ass, wheover lives, will see him [p. 83]