“I make no more difference between the faith of a righteous heathen, and the faith of a father in Christ, than I do between daybreak and meridian light:—That the light of a sincere Jew is as much one with the light of a sincere Christian, as the light of the sun in a cold, cloudy day in March is one with the light of the sun in a fine day in May:—And that the difference between the saving faith peculiar to the sincere disciples of Noah, Moses, John the Baptist, and Jesus Christ, consists in a variety of _degrees_, and not in a diversity of _species_; saving faith, under all the dispensations, agreeing in the following essentials: 1. It is begotten by the revelation of some saving truth presented by free grace, impressed by the Spirit, and received by the believer’s prevented free agency. 2. It has the same original cause in all, that is, the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. 3. It _actually_ saves all, though in various degrees. 4. It sets all upon _working righteousness; some bearing fruit thirty, some sixty, and some a hundredfold_. And 5. Through Christ, it will bring all that do not make shipwreck of it to one or another of the ‘_many mansions_,’ which our Lord is gone to prepare in heaven for His _believing_, _obedient_ people. “And here honesty obliges me to lay before the public an objection, which I had for some time against the _appendages_ of the Athanasian Creed. I admire the scriptural manner in which it sets forth the Divine Unity in Trinity, and the Divine Trinity in Unity; but I can no longer use its damnatory clauses. It abruptly takes us to the very top of the _Christian_ dispensation, considered in a doctrinal light. This dispensation it calls _the Catholic faith_; and, without mentioning the faith of the inferior dispensations, as our other Creeds do, it makes us declare, that ‘_except everyone keep that faith_’ (the faith of the highest dispensation) ‘_whole_ and _undefiled, he cannot be saved; without doubt, he shall perish everlastingly_.’ This dreadful denunciation is true with regard to proud, ungodly infidels, who, in the midst of all the means of _Christian_ faith, obstinately, maliciously, and finally set their hearts against the doctrine of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; equally despising the Son’s atonement, and the Spirit’s inspiration. But I will no more invade Christ’s tribunal, and pronounce that the fearful punishment of damnation shall ‘_without doubt_’ be inflicted upon ‘_every_’ Unitarian, Arian, Jew, Turk, and heathen, _that fears God and works righteousness_, though he does not _hold the faith_ of the Athanasian Creed _whole_. For, if you except the last Article, thousands, yea, millions, are never called to hold it _at all_; and therefore shall never perish for not _holding it whole_. At all hazards, then, I hope I shall never use again those damnatory clauses, without taking the liberty of guarding them