It [is often] perceived, that the class of people usually stigmatized as infidels are the true exemplars in practical morality, and the true benefactors of society. And Christian countries owe them a debt of
gratitude for all the reforms and improvements which have proved sueh signal blessings to society within the last few hundred years, and for their own elevation out of the groveling ignorance of barbarism into the glorious sunlight of civilization. What withering self-reproach, what shameful mortification and self-condemnation, they ought therefore to feel in view of having committed so many of them to the flames, or otherwise maltreated and killed them! For, according to the above Christian testimonies, they were the world's real benefactors; and the following list will show that those victims perished at the hands of Christians as infidel martyrs: In 1511 Herman of Ryswick was
burned for heresy; in 1546 Aonius Polearius was hung, and then burned for skepticism; in 1574 Geofroi Vallie was burned for publishing a Heretical book; In 1546 Stephen Dolet, a printer and bookseller, was burned at Paris for atheism; in 1579 Matthew Hamont had his ears cut off, and was then burned alive, in England, for denying that Christ is God; in 1583 John Lewes was burned at Norwich, England for "denying the Godhead of Christ;" in 1589 Francis Kett, a member of a college in Cambridge, Eng., was burned for holding "divers detestable opinions against Christ, our Savior;" In 1611 Bartholomew Legate was burned to ashes at Smithfleld for denying that Christ was God; in 1644 Edward Wightman was burned at Litchfield for denying the divinity of Christ; in 1619 Lucilio Vanini, an Italian, was burned for atheistical opinions; in 1574 John Gonganelle was poisoned for his infidelity by the Holy Sacrament; in 1629 Alexander Leighton had his nose slit and his ears cut off, and was imprisoned for eleven years for publishing a work against miracles. To make the matter short, without extending the list, it has been estimated that forty thousand perished at the hands of Christians in forty years for infidelity, heresy, or other opinions deemed unsound by orthodox! And Thus it will be perceived that infidelity has had its martyrs as well as Christianity; and that
Christians, in putting these men to death, were robbing the world (according to "The New-York Evangelist") of its real benefactors. Oh, shame! Christianity, where is thy blush?
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