the prophets in succession reviled and persecuted by the people amongst whom they dwelt : as our Lord says, " Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute?" Every one of them might adopt the language of David, and say, " They that render evil for good are against me, because I follow the thing that good isc."
If under any circumstances a holy person could escape persecution, we might well suppose that our blessed Lord would have escaped it ; both because his whole life was em- ployed in doing good to the bodies, as well as the souls, of men ; and because his wisdom infinitely exceeded that of any other of mankind, seeing that " he spake" on all occasions " as never man spake." But so far was he from being an exception to the general rule, that he was an object of more inveterate hatred in proportion to the transcendent excellence of his cha- racter. There never existed upon earth one so spotless as he, nor one who was an object of such universal hatred and abhorrence d. His Apostles after him were all treated with the same kind of indignities, wherever they went ; their con- verts also in every country experiencing the same lot; even as many of our own countrymen did at the time of the Reforma- tion. There has in all places existed the same " enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman e," and the same opposition betwixt "light and darkness, Christ and Belial f."]
Nor is it less true at the present hour —
[The person "who departeth from evil maketh himself a prey" to all around him, and becomes, as it were, a legi- timate object for every one to pursue with whatever degree of malignity he may see fit. There is no other member of society, of a decent character, that is so universally hated and con- temned. Every other person, if he do amiss, has some one to extenuate his fault : and, if he be treated, either in word or deed, with an undue measure of severity, he will have some to resent the injury, and to vindicate his cause. But let a godly man be reviled, let his very motives have sentence passed upon them, let him be stigmatized with the most opprobrious names, and who will take his part ? Who will vindicate his character? who will shew resentment on his account ? If even a word of palliation be spoken in his behalf, it will be almost a miracle : but a real friend, who feels for him, who enters into his cause, who espouses his interests, he will not find in the whole world, unless it be one who is under the same condemnation with himself. As it is said of our blessed Lord, " His manner of
c Ps. xxxviii. 20. d Isai. xlix. 7.
e Gen. iii. 15. f 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15.