arned 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