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    does the barbarous figment of christianized heathenism , the word Trinity , still prevail in the midst of us , and all who adopt it , though the senses in which it is taken vary as do the stars of heaven , are thereby passed safely and honourably into the comprehensive fold of orthodoxy . Be not mistaken by appearances .

    Words are not things . The substance is gone , the sound remains . This , too , is the order of nature , and at no very ' distaSf period will the sound itself pass into that innocent class of vocables which serve as a record to the intelligent of the progress of the race . Gradually will the sound grow fainter till It vanish , or , divested of its old ,, acquire new associations of sentiment , and those less abhorrent from the simple teachings of the Gospel .

    The last suggestion we have made , because there is a sense in which a Unitarian could recognise a Trinity , A three-fold operation for one great end the Gospel sets clearly forth ; the operation of the Father who devised the scheme ; of the Son who promulgated ; and the Spirit which , by the sanction of miraculous evidence , gave it success ; and , if this is all that men contend for , we object not to their faith , and wish them only an amended phraseology . To some such explanation of the doctrine of the

    Trinity as that which we have now hinted at , we expect men at no great distance of time to arrive . We do not think that Unitarians , as a sect , will become universal . In the progress of mental improvement sects perish and truth triumphs . The forms of doctrine disappear—the essence survives and prevails . Unitarianism , in its sectarian character , may , and we think it will , spread itself most widely—but this change is only one of a concurring cycle of changes which will bring about the triumph , not

    of a party , but of the Gospel . What we look for is a gradual declension on the part of the corrupted form ? , and a gradual growth on the part of the deficient forms of religion , which shall approximate all parties more nearly to each other , and to the ~ eqmmon standard of the Gospel . The circle of human diversities will insensibly narrow until it end inthat central point whence . it was originally generated , and this view is one , we confess , which

    is most fitted to gladden our hearts . Unitarianism is dear to us , but dearer is the Gospel ; Unitarianism we look upon not as . the best , but the next best of human blessings ; it is a name of war , not of peace ; it implies the diversity of a jarring world , not 'the unity of a peaceful heaven . Were there no other ism in the world , we would renounce it and cleave to the Gospel ; but as

    expositions of that Gospel abound , we are compelled to adhere to that which to us appears most like truth , most honourable to God , most benign to man . Let us not be thought to ^ disparage Unitarianism . But highly as we deem of it—and our estimate cannot easily be measured—we dare not think any human view of truth to be pure , and holy , and benign as truth itself . To that " sacred and lovely reality , to the pure full-well-harmonized

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    360 THE TRUTH TELLER .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 1, 1833, page 360, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2627/page/8/