e meaning of which was to me doubtful,--or
say and unsay in consecutive breaths. It was too clear, that a
doctrine which muddles the understanding perverts also the power of
moral discernment. If I had committed some flagrant sin, they would
have given me a fair and honourable trial; but where they could not
give me a public hearing, nor yet leave me unimpeached, without danger
of (what they called) my infecting the Church, there was nothing left
but to hunt me out unscrupulously.

Unscrupulously! did not this one word characterize _all_ religious
persecution? and then my mind wandered back over the whole melancholy
tale of what is called Christian history. When Archbishop Cranmer
overpowered the reluctance of young Edward VI. to burn to death the
pious and innocent Joan of Kent, who moreover was as mystical and
illogical as heart could wish, was Cranmer not actuated by deep
religious convictions? None question his piety, yet it was an awfully
wicked deed. What shall I say of Calvin, who burned Servetus? Why have
I been so slow to learn, that religion is an impulse which animates
us to execute our moral judgments, but an impulse which may be half
blind? These brethren believe that I may cause the eternal ruin of
others: how hard then is it for them to abide faithfully by the laws
of morality and respect my rights! My rights! They are of course
trampled down for the public good, just as a house is blown up to
stop a conflagration. Such is evidently the theory of all
persecution;--which is essentially founded on _Hatred_. As Aristotle
says, "He who is angry, desires to punish somebody; but he who hates,
desires the hated person not even to exist." Hence they cannot endure
to see me face to face. That I may not infect the rest, they desire
my non-existence; by fair means, if fair will succeed; if not, then by
foul. And whence comes this monstrosity into such bosoms? Weakness of
common sense, dread of the common understanding, an insufficient faith
in common morality, are surely the disease: and evidently, nothing so
exasperates this disease as consecrating religious tenets which forbid
the exercise of common sense.

I now began to understand why it was peculiarly for unintelligible
doctrines like Transubstantiation and the Tri-unity that Christians
had committed such execrable wickednesses. Now also for the first
time I understood what had seemed not frightful only, but
preternatural,--the sensualities and cruelties enac