"
He maintained that human nature, made in the image of God, is not totally
depraved, that the current doctrine of original sin, election, and eternal
punishment "misrepresents the Deity" and makes him a monster. This view
was speedily adopted by the majority of cultivated people in and around
Boston. The Unitarian movement rapidly developed and soon became dominant
at Harvard College. Unitarianism was embraced by the majority of
Congregational churches in Boston, including the First Church, and the
Second Church, where the great John Cotton (see p. 14.) and Cotton Mather
(p. 46.) had preached the sternest Puritan theology. Nearly all of the
prominent writers mentioned in this chapter adopted liberal religious
views. The recoil had been violent, and in the long run recoil will
usually be found proportional to the strength of the repression. Dr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes even called the old theology largely "diabology."
The name of one of his poems is _Homesick in Heaven_. Had he in the early
days chosen such a title, he would either, like Roger Williams, have been
exiled, or, like the Quakers, have suffered a worse fate.
Many adopted more liberal religious beliefs without embracing Unitarianism.
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