Robert Hall was a Divine of solid learning and unquestionable piety, whose memory is reverenced by a large and most respectable part of the Christian world.  He ranked amongst the best of his class, and generally speaking, was so little disposed to persecute his opponents because of their heterodox opinions, that he wrote and published a Treatise on Moderation, in the course of which he eloquently condemns the practice of regulating, or rather attempting to regulate opinion by act of parliament:  yet, incredible as it may appear, in that very Treatise he applauds Calvin on account of his conduct towards Servetus.  Our authority for this statement is not ‘Infidel’ but Christian—­the authority of Evans, who, after noticing the Treatise in question, says, ’he (Bishop Hall) has discussed the subject with that ability which is peculiar to all his writings.  But this great and good man, towards the close of the same Treatise, forgetting the principles which he had been inculcating, devotes one solitary page to the cause of intolerance:  this page he concludes with these remarkable expressions:  “Master Calvin did well approve himself to God’s Church in bringing Servetus to the stake in Geneva."’

Remarkable, indeed! and what is the moral that they point?  To the Author of this Apology they are indicative of the startling truth, that neither eloquence nor learning, nor faith in God and his Scripture, nor all three combined, are incompatible with the cruelest spirit of persecution.  The Treatise on Moderation will stand an everlasting memorial against its author, whose fine intellect, spoiled by superstitious education, urged him to approve a deed, the bare remembrance of which ought to excite in every breast, feelings of horror and indignation.  That such a man should declare the aim of Atheists is ‘to dethrone God and destroy man,’ is not surprising.  From genuine bigots they have no right to expect mercy.  He who applauded the bringing of Servetus to the stake must have deemed the utter extermination of Atheists a religious duty.

That our street and field preaching Christians, with very few exceptions, heartily sympathise with the fire and faggot sentiments of Robert Hall, is well known; but happily, their absurd ravings are attended to by none save eminently pious people, whose brains are unclogged by any conceivable quantity of useful knowledge.  In point of intellect they are utterly contemptible.  Their ignorance, however, is fully matched by their impudence, which never forsakes them.  They claim to be considered God’s right-hand men, and of course duly qualified preachers of his ‘word,’ though unable to speak five minutes without taking the same number of liberties with the Queen’s English.  Swift was provoked by the prototypes of these pestiferous people, to declare that, ’formerly, the apostles received the gift of speaking several languages, a knowledge so remote from our dealers in the art of enthusiasm, that they neither understand propriety of speech nor phrases of their own, much less the gift of tongues.’