be from
the pen of Dr. Benjamin Rush; and a resolution was adopted declaring the
holding of slaves to be "inconsistent with the union of the human race
in a common Saviour, and the obligations to mutual and universal love
which flow from that union."

It was along still another line of argument, proceeding from the assumed
"rectitude of human nature," that the Unitarians came, tardily and
hesitatingly, to the Universalist position. The long persistence of
definite boundary lines between two bodies so nearly alike in their
tenets is a subject worthy of study. The lines seem to be rather
historical and social than theological. The distinction between them has
been thus epigrammatically stated: that the Universalist holds that God
is too good to damn a man; the Unitarian holds that men are too good to
be damned.

No controversy in the history of the American church has been more
deeply marked by a sincere and serious earnestness, over and above the
competitive zeal and invidious acrimony that are an inevitable admixture
in such debates, than the controversy that was at once waged against the
two new sects claiming the title "Liberal." It was sincerely felt by
their antagonists that, while the one abandoned the foundation of the
Christian faith, the other destroyed the foundation of Christian
morality. In the early propaganda of each of them was much to deepen
this mistrust. When the standard of dissent is set up in any community,
and men are invited to it in the name of liberality, nothing can hinder
its becoming a rallying-point for all sorts of disaffected souls, not
only the liberal, but the loose. The story of the controversy belongs to
later chapters of this book. It is safe to say at this point that the
early orthodox fears have at least not been fully confirmed by the
sequel up to this date. It was one of the most strenuous of the early
disputants against the "liberal" opinions[227:1] who remarked in his
later years, concerning the Unitarian saints, that it seemed as if their
exclusive contemplation of Jesus Christ in his human character as the
example for our imitation had wrought in them an exceptional beauty and
Christlikeness of living. As for the Universalists, the record of their
fidelity, as a body, to the various interests of social morality is not
surpassed by that of any denomination. But in the earlier days the
conflict against the two sects called "liberal" was waged ruthlessly,
not as against defectiv