The impropriety of "anything like compulsion to make men think alike by other than their own temperately induced convictions is never more clear than in regard to religion; for the aim of Christianity is general benevolence and individual humility—benevolence even to the forgiveness of error. Has not this been illustrated in the highest degree by its Supreme Author, when He said, 'Father, forgive them; they know not what they do?' Does not Christianity enjoin the very reverse of that which we are constantly pursuing, by which we excite dissension and cultivate an arrogance incompatible with the character of a Christian."
He concludes one chapter thus:
If we said to others, who agree in the main points of religion, "We are brothers, let each think as his own mind dictates,—it is probable that all would soon think alike, because all would think without passion or prejudice."
He considers the most exalted of all manifestations of divine mercy, "the atonement of sin by the sufferings of Christ, and the promulgation of precepts which, if practised, ensure temporal and eternal happiness." And, in another place, he speaks of the gratitude that man should feel in "that his Creator has thus condescended to be his Redeemer," &c.
Of the Scripture precept—"To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God"—he observes, "that it contains precepts so clear as to be intelligible to any capacity—so strikingly just as to gain our immediate accordance—and so comprehensive as to include every event which can occur in life," &c. Yet he says, "it is the property of truth, however beautiful it may appear at first sight, to seem more and more so, in proportion as it is minutely examined." MSS.