They are separated from the mass, set apart that they may be a peculiar people to the Lord. - Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrugge

In their enmity to the truth, they set up another religion, an idol-worship, wherein the creature, with its works and its fleshly righteousness, has something to boast of. This they do in order to render vain the work of Christ, and to destroy the work of the Spirit. They do it also that they may have a wide mantle under which to cloak their crimes.

Compared with the rest of mankind, these believers were small in number and in power; here, might be but a single individual, there, two or three; here, might be found ten persons, and there some seventy or a hundred. In their manner of life and of thought, as well as in their worship, they were too different from other men to admit of their uniting with them, or walking after their ways. And because they could not walk as others walked, they were constantly misunderstood, and were exposed to all manner of suffering.

Let each of us hear this letter with the conviction that it is addressed especially to him; let him say in his heart, All this is for me.