An Apology for Atheism | Page 8

clearly points out, and so clearly proclaims
a Creator of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, that whoever hears
not its voice and sees not its proofs may well be thought wilfully deaf
and obstinately blind.'
These are notable specimens of zeal turned sour.
Now, when it is considered that such writings are carefully put into
popular hands, and writings of an irreligious character as carefully kept
out of them, astonishment at human intolerance must cease. So far,
indeed, from wondering that the 'giddy multitude' shrink aghast from
Atheists we shall conceive it little short of miraculous, that they do not
fall upon and tear them to pieces.

Beattie, another Christian doctor, towards the close of his celebrated
Essay on the Immutability of Truth, denounces every sincere outspoken
unbeliever as a 'murderer of human souls,' and it being obvious that the
murderer of a single soul must to the 'enlightened' majority of our
people appear an act infinitely more horrible than the butchery of many
bodies, it really does at first view seem 'passing strange' that body
murderers are almost invariably hanged, whilst they who murder
'souls,' if punished at all, usually escape with some harmless abuse and
a year or two's imprisonment.
Even the 'tolerant' Richard Watson, Lord Bishop of Llandaff, wrote
with contemptuous bitterness of 'Atheistical madmen,' and in his
Apology for the Bible, assured Deistical Thomas Paine, Deism was so
much better than Atheism, he (Bishop Watson) meant 'not to say
anything to its discredit.'
The Rev. Mr. Ward, whose 'Ideal of a Christian Church' spread such
consternation in the anti-popish camp, describes his own hatred of
Protestantism as 'fierce and burning.' Nothing can go beyond that--it is
the ne plus ultra of bigotry, and just such hatred is displayed towards
Atheists by at least nine-tenths of their opponents. Strange to say, in
Christians, in the followers of him who is thought to have
recommended, by act and word, unlimited charity, who is thought to
have commanded that we judge not, that we be sat judged; the Atheist
finds his most active foe, his bitterest and least scrupulous maligner. To
exaggerate their bigotry would be difficult, for whether sage or simple,
learned or unlearned, priests or priest-led, they regularly practise the
denunciation of Atheists in language foul as it is false. They call them
'traitors to human kind,' yea 'murderers of the human soul,' and unless
hypocrites, or much better than their sentiments, would rather see them
swing upon the gibbet than murderers of the body, especially if like
John Tawell, 'promoters of religion and Christian Missions.'
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