[7] The Religion of Protestants, II. 411.

[8] John Hunt, Religious Thought in England, II. 99.

[9] John Hunt, Religious Thought in England, I. 340.

[10] John Hunt, Religious Thought in England, I. 340.




II.


THE LIBERAL SIDE OF PURITANISM.

Unitarianism was brought to America with the Pilgrims and the Puritans. Its
origins are not to be found in the religious indifference and torpidity of
the eighteenth century, but in the individualism and the rational temper of
the men who settled Plymouth, Salem, and Boston. Its development is
coextensive with the origin and growth of Congregationalism, even with that
of Protestantism itself. So long as New England has been in existence, so
long, at least, Unitarianism, in its motives and in its spirit, has been at
work in the name of toleration, liberty, and free inquiry.

The many and wide divergences of opinion which were an essential result of
the spirit and methods of Protestantism were shown from the first by the
Pilgrims and Puritans. In Massachusetts, stringent laws were adopted in
order to secure uniformity of belief and practice; but it was never