"Men differ in opinions as much as in features. No two minds are perfectly accordant. The shades of belief are infinitely diversified. Amidst this immense variety of sentiment, every man is right in his own eyes. Every man discovers errors in the creed of his brother. Every  man is prone to magnify the importance of his own peculiarities and to discover danger in the peculiarities of others. This is human nature. Every man is partial to his own opinions, because they are his own, and his self-will and pride are wounded buy contradiction.

  It's truly astonishing that Christians aren't more aware of the unbecoming spirit, the arrogant style, of those who overlook the exemplary lives of other Christians because they differ in opinion on some of the most subtle, and difficult subjects of theology.  Their language towards them is virtually this: "We pronounce you to be in error, and in most dangerous error. We know that we are right, and you are wrong, in regard to the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel. You are unworthy of the Christian name, and unfit to sit with us at the table of Christ. We offer you the truth, and you reject it at the peril of your souls." Such is the language of humble Christians to men, who in devotion, apparent obedience and holiness are equal to them. 

But those who judge so object and say, "Did not the Apostle denounce the erroneous doctrines of others and pronounce a curse on the "abettors of another Gospel?" This is the stronghold of the those who exclude others. But let us never forget that the Apostles were inspired men, capable of marking out with unerring certainty those who substituted "another gospel" for the true. Show me their successors, and I will cheerfully obey them.

Let us not forget that the debate of the present day is not between the Apostles themselves and men who oppose their known instructions, but uninspired Christians who equally receive the Apostles as authorized teachers of the Gospel, and who only differ in judgment as to the interpretation of there writings.   

I maintain that we have no right as individuals or as an association, to bear our "solemn testimony" against these opinions, by menacing with ruin the Christian who listens to them, or by branding them with the most terrifying epithets, for the purpose of preventing candid inquiry into their truth. To do so is a common weapon which will always be most successful in the hands of the proud, the positive and overbearing, who are most impatient of contraction, and have the least regard to the rights of their brethren.

But whatever may be the right of Christians, as to bearing testimony against opinions which they deem injurious, I deny that they have any right to pass a condemning sentence, on account of these opinions, on the characters of men whose general deportment is conformed to the Gospel of Christ. Both scripture and reason unite in teaching that the best and only standard of character is the life; and he who overlooks the testimony of a Christian life, and grounds a sentence of condemnation on opinions about which he, as well as his brother, may err, violates most flagrantly the duty of just and candid judgment, and opposes the peaceful and charitable spirit of the Gospel. Jesus Christ says, "By their fruits shall ye know them." 

William Ellery Channing.