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A Dialogue, Containing Some Reflections on the Late "Declaration and Remonstrance" - 13

thinking themselves most Orthodox, and condemning and charging their Dissenting Brethren with Error, Heresy and Schism, who don’t jump into each of their Opinions. ----For the Proof of this we need not go beyond the Seas; even in this City it is too glaringly manifest, by the intestine Broils and Schisms that have lately happened; so that not the meek and peaceful Spirit of the great Founder of Christianity prevails, but unhappily a Spirit of a very contrary Nature; though we are expressly told in sacred Writ, that where Contention is, there is every evil Work. ‘Tis grievous to see what Heat and Bitterness subsists in the Breasts of many PRESBYTERIANS in this Town, as well as in the Country, against the People called QUAKERS. ----It truely seems as if some make it their Study, as well as Boast, to asperse, vilify and blacken the fair Character they have generally maintained for so many Years in all Places throughout the Christian World, where there are any of that Society living.----And let me further observe here, the extreme severe and cruel Treatment these People met with in New England, where they not only endured cruel Mockings and Scourgings, but Imprison­ment, and even Death, for CHRIST’S Sake.--- Let us not recount the Cruelty of PAPISTS, when even DISSENTERS have been guilty of persecuting Dissenters, breaking up their Meetings for publick Worship, plundering their Houses, hauling Men and Women to Prison, stripping, whipping and cutting off their Ears, banishing, and at last, hanging them, till they, as their cruel Judges used often to express it, till they were dead.
Posit. Mr. Lovell, I will hear no more; nor can I believe your Narrative to be true.
Lovell. One Minute’s Patience more, and I have done. If I should recount but even the hundredth Part of those cruel Wrongs and Indignities practised against those [sic] innocent and useful Body of People on account of their Religion, the Time would fail me: I shall therefore only refer you to Sewell’s and Bess’s Histories of the Sufferings of that People, from those who call

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