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.
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