* * * * *

Such had been the progress of my mind, towards the end of what I will
call my Third Period. In it the authority of the Scriptures as to
some details (which at length became highly important) had begun to be
questioned; of which I shall proceed to speak: but hitherto this
was quite secondary to the momentous revolution which lay Calvinism
prostrate in my mind, which opened my heart to Unitarians, and, I may
say, to unbelievers; which enlarged all my sympathies, and soon set me
to practise free moral thought, at least as a necessity, if not as
a duty. Yet I held fast an unabated reverence for the moral and
spiritual teaching of the New Testament, and had not the most remote
conception that anything could ever shatter my belief in its great
miracles. In fact, during this period, I many times yearned to proceed
to India, whither my friend Groves had transferred his labours and his
hopes; but I was thwarted by several causes, and was again and again
damped by the fear of bigotry from new quarters. Otherwise, I thought
I could succeed in merging as needless many controversies. In all
the workings of any mind about Tri-unity, Incarnation, Atonement, the
Fall, Resurrection, Immortality, Eternal Punishment, how little had
any of these to do with the inward exercises of my soul towards God!
He was still the same, immutably glorious: not one feature of his
countenance had altered to my gaze, or could alter. This surely was
the God whom Christ came to reveal, and bring us into fellowship with:
this is that, about which Christians ought to have no controversy, but
which they should unitedly, concordantly, themselves enjoy and exhibit
to the heathen. But oh, Christendom! what dost thou believe and teach?
The heathen cry out to thee,--Physician, heal thyself.