Superstition Unveiled | Page 7

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 me 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 Universalists 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 their utter extermination a religious duty.
That our street and field preaching Christians, with very few exceptions,
heartily sympathise with the fire and faggot sentiments of Bishop 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 forsake, 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.'
The millions of Christian people who have been trained up in the way
they should not go, by this active class of fanatics, are naturally either
opposed to reason or impervious to it. They are convinced not only that
the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, but that wisdom with
God is foolishness with the world; nor will any one affirm their
'moderation' in respect to unbelievers one tittle more moderate than
Bishop Hall's; or that they are one tittle less disposed than 'that good
and great man,' to think those who bring heretics to the stake at Geneva

or elsewhere, 'do well approve themselves to God's Church.' Educated,
that is to say duped as they are, they cannot but think disbelief highly
criminal, and when practicable, or convenient, deal with it as such.
It is, nevertheless, true, that Universalists have been helped to some of
their best arguments by adversaries. Bishop Watson, to wit, has
suggested objections to belief in the Christian's Deity, which they who
hold no such belief consider unanswerable. In his famous 'Apology' he
desired to know what Paine thought 'of an uncaused cause of
everything, and a Being who has no relation to time, not being older to
day than he was yesterday, nor younger to day than he will be
to-morrow--who has no relation to space, not being a part here and a
part there, or a whole anywhere? of an omniscient Being who cannot
know the future actions of man, or if his omniscience enables him to
know them, of the contingency of human actions? of the distinction
between vice and virtue, crime and innocence, sin and duty? of the
infinite goodness of a Being who existed through eternity without any
emanation of his goodness manifested in the creation of sensitive
beings? or, if it be contended that there was an eternal creation, of an
effect coeval with its cause, of matter not posterior to its maker? of the
existence of evil, moral and natural, in the work of an Infinite Being,
powerful, wise, and good? finally, of the gift of freedom of will, when
the abuse of freedom becomes the cause of general misery?' [15:1]
These questions imply much. That they flowed from the pen of a
Bishop, is one of many extraordinary facts which have grown out of
theological controversy. They are questions strongly suggestive of
another. Is it possible to