Excerpt from Lectures on the Doctrines of Christianity, in Controversy Between Unitarians and Other Denominations of Christians: Delivered in the First Independent Church of Baltimore In commencing, then, a course of Lectures on Chris' tian Doctrine, I cannot do amiss when I attempt to lay, as he did, the foundation of religion in the Unity of God. But on the very threshold of our inquiries we meet a difficulty, we encounter what seems to us an Opposite doctrine, that God is three persons. Before we make any progress, then, we must examine this doc trine. To this subject, therefore, our first three lec tures will be devoted. And While we discuss the doc trine of the Trinity, let nothing which may be said be construed into disrespect, either for the understanding or the integrity of those who hold it. It is a doctrine for which the present generation are not. Responsible. It has been handed down to them by their fathers, With the venerable associations of antiquity; it is interwoven with literature and devotion, and thus has a sacredness in their eyes which takes the place of evidence, and almost precludes calm and dispassionate investigation. The duty of theepresent age is inquiry. Truth is par amount both to authority and sacred association. Our first allegiance is due to Truth. I invite all, then, to the discharge of a duty, when I' invite them to follow me in this discussion. If they adopt my conclusions, in justice to their understandings I should hope it will not be on insufficient ground. If they fail to do so, they will at least exchange a faith derived from tradi tion for one founded on evidence. In the course of these Lectures I shall frequently quote from the Confession of Faith of the divines at Westminster, and from the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England 3 not from any unkindness towards those who profess these creeds, or with a de sign to hold them up to odium or derision, but merely because they contain the most formal and authentic statement of the doctrines I shall discuss, and because they are the public and acknowledged standards of large and respectable bodies of the Christian church. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.