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An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles by Charles Southwell
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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 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,
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