It is related of Hart, a Baptist minister, that he was so good a preacher and so bad a liver that it was said to him once, "Mr. Hart, when I hear you in the pulpit, I wish you were never out of it; when I see you out of it, I wish you were never in it." One Mr. Nicholls, a Yorkshire clergyman in the days immediately succeeding the Reformation, who was "much addicted to drinking and company-keeping," used to say to his companions, "You must not heed me but when I am got three feet above the earth," that was, into the pulpit. "I have heard of a witty parson," says Dr. Beattie, "who having been dismissed for irregularities, used afterward, in conversation, to say, that he thanked God he was not cashiered for ignorance and insufficiency, but only for vice and immorality." Foster, in a note to one of his Essays, refers to a Spanish story of a village where the devil, having made the people excessively wicked, was punished by being compelled to assume the appearance and habit of a friar, and to preach so eloquently, in spite of his internal repugnance and rage, that the inhabitants were completely reformed.
Cotton Mather has preserved a choice specimen of invective against Dr. Owen, by one of the primitive Quakers, whose name was Fisher. It was, says Southey, a species of rhetoric in which they indulged freely, and exceeded all other sectarians. Fisher addressed him thus: "Thou fiery fighter and green-headed trumpeter; thou hedgehog and grinning dog; thou bastard, that tumbled out of the mouth of the Babylonish bawd; thou mole; thou tinker; thou lizard; thou bell of no metal, but the tone of a kettle; thou wheelbarrow; thou whirlpool; thou whirligig; oh, thou firebrand; thou adder and scorpion; thou louse; thou cow-dung; thou moon-calf; thou ragged tatterdemalion; thou Judas: thou livest in philosophy and logic, which are of the devil." Mather in turn was alike severe upon the Quakers. He applied to them such language as "upstart sect;" "sink of all heresies;" "the grossest collection of blasphemies and confusions that ever was heard of;" "dangerous villains;" "choke-weed of Christianity;" "the quaking which distinguished these poor creatures was a symptom of diabolical possession;" "devil-driven creatures;" "for pride, and hypocrisy, and hellish reviling against the painful ministers of Christ, I know no people can match them." "He was a wise and a good counsellor in Plymouth-colony, who propounded 'that a law might be made for the Quakers to have their heads shaved.' I confess," he said, "the punishment was in some sort capital; but it would have been the best remedy for them; it would have both sham'd and cur'd them." He quotes some choice language of Penn--"Thou gormandizing Priest, one of the abominable tribe; thou bane of reason; thou pest, to be spared of mankind; thou mountebank Priest"--and says, "these are the very words (I wrong them not!) which they vomit out against the best men in the English nation, that have been so hardy as to touch their 'light within:' but let the quills of these porcupines fly as fast as they will, I shall not feel them." The good Luther was a violent saint sometimes. Hear him express himself on the Catholic divines: "The papists are all asses, and will always remain asses. Put them in whatever sauce you choose, boiled, roasted, baked, fried, skinned, beat, hashed, they are always the same asses." Hear him salute the pope: "The pope was born out of the devil's posteriors. He is full of devils, lies, blasphemies, and idolatries; he is Antichrist; the robber of churches; the ravisher of virgins; the greatest of pimps; the governor of Sodom, etc. If the Turks lay hold of us, then we shall be in the hands of the devil; but if we remain with the pope, we shall be in hell. What a pleasing sight would it be to see the pope and the cardinals hanging on one gallows, in exact order, like the seals which dangle from the bulls of the pope! What an excellent council would they hold under the gallows!" And hear him upon Henry VIII.: "It is hard to say if folly can be more foolish, or stupidity more stupid, than is the head of Henry. He has not attacked me with the heart of a king, but with the impudence of a knave. This rotten worm of the earth, having blasphemed the majesty of my King, I have a just right to bespatter his English majesty with his own dirt and ordure. This Henry has lied." The good Calvin was alike violent. He hated Catholic and Lutheran. "His adversaries are never others than knaves, lunatics, drunkards, and assassins. Sometimes they are characterized by the familiar appellatives of bulls, asses, cats, and hogs." Beza, the disciple of Calvin, imitated his master.