In addition to this prodigious theological engine of war there was
kept up a fire of smaller artillery in the shape of texts and
scriptural extracts.
But the war grew still more bitter, and some weapons used in it are
worth examining. They are very easily examined, for they are to be
found on all the battlefields of science; but on that field they
were used with more effect than on almost any other. These weapons
are the epithets "infidel" and "atheist." They have been used
against almost every man who has ever done anything new for his
fellow-men. The list of those who have been denounced as "infidel"
and "atheist" includes almost all great men of science, general
scholars, inventors, and philanthropists. The purest Christian
life, the noblest Christian character, have not availed to shield
combatants. Christians like Isaac Newton, Pascal, Locke, Milton,
and even Fenelon and Howard, have had this weapon hurled against
them. Of all proofs of the existence of a God, those of Descartes
have been wrought most thoroughly into the minds of modern men; yet
the Protestant theologians of Holland sought to bring him to
torture and to death by the charge of atheism, and the Roman
Catholic theologians of France thwarted him during his life and
prevented any due honours to him after his death.
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