I missed this,
published at Salon in 2014. The author has an academic book on a subject that is of interest to this blog. A taste:
Among
the many congratulatory letters George Washington received after
assuming the presidency was one from “the Convention of the Universal
Church, assembled in Philadelphia.” “SIR,” it began, “Permit us, in the
name of the society which we represent, to concur in the numerous
congratulations which have been offered to you.” The letter reassured
the president that “the peculiar doctrine which we hold, is not less
friendly to the order and happiness of society, than it is essential to
the perfection of the Deity.” One of its signers, Universalist minister
John Murray, had known Washington since serving as a chaplain in the
Revolutionary War. The minister and his second wife, Judith Sargent
Murray, had even stopped to dine with the Washingtons on their way to
the Convention. Thanks in large part to their efforts, universal
salvation was no longer an obscure creed espoused by a scattered few.
Now the Convention sought to establish Universalism as a recognized,
socially responsible faith.
Washington responded
favorably. “GENTLEMEN,” he began, thanking them for their well-wishes,
“It gives me the most sensible pleasure to find, that in our nation,
however different are the sentiments of citizens on religious doctrines,
they generally concur in one thing: for their political professions and
practices, are almost universally friendly to the order and happiness
of our civil institutions. I am also happy in finding this disposition particularly evinced
by your society.” Such affirmation of the Universalists’ civic
friendliness, from none other than the first president of the newly
United States, must have gratified the Convention. They were well aware
that other Protestant clergy, especially the Calvinists, disdained their
“peculiar doctrine.”
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