my doubts of the truth of the established views began with the systematic and devout study of the Scriptures which I undertook in 1814, when, free from the literary engagements which in the service of England as well as of my native country had occupied me during the four preceding years, I removed to Oxford, for the exclusive purpose of devoting myself to theology. In the year 1818 (as it may be distinctly proved by the journals I kept at that time, and which are still in my possession) I arrived at the Unitarian view of Christianity; but the perfect obscurity in which I was living, and the consideration that I had not then published any thing, except in Spanish, appeared to me a sufficient ground for not making a public avowal of my conviction. (2) Having, till about 1824, continued in that state, and, in spite of difficulties, resulting from the notion of Orthodoxy, faithfully attached to Christianity, a revival of my early mental habits, and of those devotional sentiments which are inseparably connected with the idea of intellectual surrender to some church, induced me again to acquiesce in the established doctrines—not from conviction, not by the discovery of sounder proofs than those which I had found insufficient, but chiefly by the power of that sympathy which tends to assimilation with those we love and respect. To an excess of that tendency, opposed by the unyielding temper of my understanding, I trace some of my most severe moral sufferings. Nevertheless, I have cause to rejoice, when I consider that since my present convictions have had to struggle, for many years, against that weakness of my heart, since they have triumphed over it, not only in the most perfect absence of all acquaintance with any Unitarians, but while I was surrounded by the most devout believers in the divinity of Christ—the reasons which have moved me cannot have derived any assistance from personal affection and partiality. But to proceed: not long after my strong attachment to many orthodox and highly religious persons had revived and given full sway to my deeply-seated

habits of attachment to a church (habits which, when it is remembered that, from the age of fourteen, I belonged to the most compact and best organized body of clergy which ever existed, must be found quite natural), my reason resumed its operations against the system which I had thus wilfully re-embraced; and my mental anxiety, growing every day more intolerable, brought on the most severe aggravation of my long and painful disease that I ever experienced before.

I had not yet at that time settled, to my entire satisfaction, the important point which forms the subject of the following Letters. I had long been convinced, that most of the questions which so hopelessly divide the church of Christ, are not essential to Christianity. I knew that the distinction between essential and non-essential articles of faith must be arbitrary, since there is no certain rule to distinguish them. But I had not fully made the application of that fact-the absence of a rule not subject to rational doubt-nor found, as I did soon after, that the absence of every rule of dogmatic faith is in perfect conformity with the tenour and spirit of the New Testament. As I had not yet obtained this conviction, and was not indifferent about my duty to God, I could not but feel distressed, when, still under a remnant of those early impressions of identity between saving faith and right opinions, I found my Orthodoxy crumbling to dust, day by day. I may add, with perfect truth, that my distress was increased by my real attachment to the Church of England, from which I feared I should find it necessary to separate myself. Nor is it difficult to explain the source of that attachment.

Abhorrence of the persecuting spirit which made me renounce my native country, is, perhaps, the most active sentiment of my heart. It was natural, therefore, that as soon as I became acquainted with the most powerful antagonist which Popery had ever met, I should cling to it with my whole heart. The Church

of England was to me what I conceive the Maltese knights must have been to a Christian slave who had escaped from the prisons of Algiers into one of the Order's gallies. A long experience must have been necessary, both to myself and the subject of my illustration, to make us perceive that neither of our places of refuge was the dwelling of the full liberty we sought. But regarding the Church of England (as it really has been for a long period) in the character of one of the most powerful opponents of the encroachments of Rome, my eyes were too dazzled to perceive the essential defects of her constitution and the narrowness of her toleration, till the events of the year 1829 disabused me, not without resistance and pain on my part.

The last fact I shall state is, that in my anxiety to avoid a separation from the Church by the deliberate surrender of my mind to my old Unitarian convictions, I took refuge in a modification of the Sabellian theory, and availed myself of the moral Unity which I believe to exist between God the Father and Christ, joined to the consideration that Christ is called in the New Testament the Image of God, and addressed my prayers to God as appearing in that image. I left nothing untried to cultivate and encourage this feeling by devotional means. But such efforts of mere feeling (and I confess with shame their frequency on my part for the sake of what seemed most religious) were always vain and fruitless. Sooner or later my reason has not only frustrated, but punished them. In the last-mentioned instance, the devout contrivance would not bear examination. Sabellianism is only Unitarianism disguised in words; and as for the worship of an image in its absence, the idea is most unsatisfactory. In this state, however, I passed five or six years; but the return to the clear and definite Unitarianism in which I had formerly been, was as easy as it was natural. An almost accidental (if the result had been to make me a Trinitarian, most people would call it providential) correspondence with a

gentleman (then personally unknown to me, and whom subsequently I have seen but once) who had some years ago resigned his preferment to profess himself a Unitarian, took place during part of last summer and part of the ensuing winter. This was the occasion of my becoming aware of the flimsiness of the veil which had long somewhat concealed from me the real state of my religious belief. This flimsy veil once torn, I had no difficult theological questions to examine: they had all been settled before. Whether I was to continue apparently a member of the Establishment, was a point on which I could not hesitate a moment. For the greatest part of more than twenty years I had employed all my powers, in a manner hardly justifiable except on enthusiastic principles, with the object of continuing in the Church. My only excuse for this, must be found in the religious habits which I deeply imbibed in youth. I do not absolutely reproach myself for having so long indulged the disinterested sympathies which made me linger in connexion with the Church, when my understanding had fully rejected her principal doctrines at all events, I derive from that fact the satisfaction of being assured, that, far from having embraced Unitarianism in haste, the only fault of which I cannot clear myself is, that of reluctance and dilatoriness to follow my conviction in its favour.

As the long and close friendship which I have had with many distinguished members of the clergy is generally known, I must add, in justice to them all, that their influence over me has uniformly acted against the settlement of the views I profess. Without exception, all and every one of them are, to my knowledge, conscientious believers in the divinity of Christ. It might be supposed that I had discussed with those nearest to me the subjects which so long and so fully have occupied my mind. But it is not so. It may be a fault in me, but I have always disliked consultation as a means of deciding questions respecting which all whatever can be said for either side, is within the

reach of every one. me the most unlikely method of satisfying oneself. Argumentative discussion on the divinity of Christ is particularly apt to allure the mind into the snares of verbal criticism concerning individual passages. That subject, on the contrary, should be settled by means of the collective impression conveyed by the writings of the New Testament; preceded, however, by a careful examination of the preconceived notions by which education has prepared us all to attach the orthodox meaning to certain leading words and phrases of Scripture. This is the great difficulty. We are brought up under the most deliberate party prejudices, sanctioned by the most awful spiritual fears. Unless, therefore, our first care is to examine their real worth, the unassisted reading of the Scriptures must mislead us. To refer a Trinitarian in doubt to the Scriptures only, has, indeed, a great air of candour; but if the person thus sent to that supreme but mute authority has been most assiduously taught to understand it only in one sense, and kept in perfect ignorance of all that has and may be said to prove that sense erroneous, his mental associations leave him no choice: it is like inviting a man to venture his all upon dice which have been previously cogged, and shaming him, on the score of impartiality, from listening to those who engage to shew him where the trick lies. Nevertheless, in my own case, I solemnly declare that I employed no Unitarian works to counterbalance the prejudices of my education. I never read any defence of Unitarianism, till, in 1818, the study of the New Testament alone, had made me a Unitarian.

Discussion upon such points appears to

I trust I may still venture to add a few words respecting what I have experienced and observed since I fairly and honestly began to act in full conformity with my conviction. Having never before been in any dissenting place of worship whatever, and conceiving from what I had heard that the absence of a regular