“Millions on millions of the human family have never heard even the name of Christ. They bow down before dumb idols and worship the works of their own hands. They pay their devotions in temples whose inmates never yet dreamed that such a being as Jesus of Nazareth, even had an existence. Besides all this, even in Christian countries there are many, very many, who go down to the grave in infancy, or in the early morning of their existence, ere yet their minds are capable of exercising faith in Christ, or of understanding his doctrines. All these must be lost, if it be true that none but believers can be saved; for they all die without faith.
I ask you–Is there consistency or reason, or even humanity, in a doctrine which teaches that God will curse with endless wo, “the distant islands of the sea,” merely because they did not believe on him, of whose name they have never heard, and of whose religion, the very circumstances in which God has placed them, compel them to be as profoundly ignorant as they are of the inhabitants of the distant stars? Is it reasonable to curse all who die in infancy, merely because he saw proper to take them out of the world before they were capable of exercising faith in the Gospel? There are necessary and unavoidable conclusions from the position, that God has made faith a condition of future salvation, and I warn you not to embrace that position, unless you are prepared to go the whole length, and damn all who do not come up to the condition.”
–Rev. I.D. Williamson, An Exposition and Defence of Universalism, in a Series of Sermons Delivered in the Universalist Church, Baltimore, MD. New York: Universalist Book Establishment, 1840: 188-189.
