its
pastor. I replied that I was too unsettled in my opinions to be settled
anywhere. The congregation then proposed to me to come and preach [47]
a year to them, postponing the decision, both on their part and mine, to
the end of it. I was very glad to accept this proposition, for a year of
retired and quiet study was precisely what I wanted. I spent that year
in examining the questions that had arisen in my mind, especially
with regard to the Trinity. I read Emlyn's "Humble Inquiry," Yates and
Wardlaw, Channing and Worcester, besides other books; but especially I
made the most thorough examination I was able, of all the texts in both
Testaments that appeared to bear upon the subject. The result was an
undoubting rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity. The grounds for
this, and other modifications of theological opinion, I need not give
here; they are sufficiently stated in what I have written and published.

And here let me say that, although I had my anxieties, I had none about
my personal hold upon heart-sustaining truth. It was emphatically a year
of prayer, if I may without presumption or indelicacy say so. Humbly
and earnestly I sought to the God of wisdom and light to guide me; and
I never felt for a moment that I was perilling my salvation. I had a
foundation of repose, stronger than mere theology can give, deep and
sure beneath me. I had indeed my anxieties. I felt as if I were putting
in peril all my worldly welfare. All the props which a man builds up
around him in his early studies, all the props of church relationship
and religious friendship, seemed to be suddenly falling away, and I
was [48] about to take my stand on the threshold of life, alone,
unsupported, and unfriended.

I soon had practical demonstration of this, not only in the coldness
and the withdrawal of friends, all natural enough, I suppose, and
conscientious, no doubt, but in the summons of the Presbytery of the
city of New York, from which I had taken out my license to preach, to
appear before it and answer to the charge of heresy. The summons was
made in terms at war, I thought, with Christian liberty, and I refused
to obey it. The terms may have been in consonance with the Presbyterian
discipline, and perhaps I ought not to have refused. What I felt was,
and this, substantially, I believe, was what I said, that, if "the
Presbytery propose to examine me simply to ascertain whether my opinions
admit of my standing in the Presbyterian Ch