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    greatest supports which the doctrine of the Trinity has received , is the idea that it is a fundamental point of Christianity , Tim . gives * h e Trinitarian an advantage in his arguments , with the great majority of inquirers , such as the Roman Catholic church well knows how to use . He tells a man that the doctrine of the Trinity is true , and that unless he believes it , he hazards the interests of his soul . We tell a man . that the same doctrine is false : but

    we dare not add that its reception would endanger his salvation . Though by this course , we think we gain in consistency , we are sure we lose in power ; though we adhere to Scripture , we lose sight of policy . If we could so far violate our convictions as to declare that the future happiness of an individual is endangered by his reception of any speculative doctrine , we might present an appalling picture of the evil of believing the Trinity , We should then have an influence with the timid , the melancholy , the desponding , which the Trinitarian possesses , but which we do not covet . We

    could appeal to the fears , with the strength with which we would address the understanding . While , then , I concede to him the advantage of proselytism which he enjoys , in making a belief in the Trinity essential to salvation , I must be permitted to remind him , that it is an advantage which he enjoys in common with the Roman Catholic , who makes a belief in Transubstantiation essential to salvation . The Catholic regards the Protestant with the same pity , for not being able to agree with him , which the latter manifests for the Unitarian , for not being able to agree with him . The Protestant laments over our blindness , in rejecting the Trinity ; the Catholic laments with equal compassion over the Protestant , in rejecting Transubstantiation . The Trinitarian warns me of the danger of attending a Unitarian church ; the Catholic will warn him of the danger of attending a Protestant church : if , then , I give in to the idea that I must return to the pale of

    Trinitarianism for safety and religious comfort , I must be consistent and follow my Catholic brother into the bosom of the Holy Mother of the church : for not a single argument can be brought to prove the necessity of a belief in the Trinity , which he cannot urge with equal , I had almost said with tenfold force , to prove the necessity of a belief in Transubstantiation . 6 . The two doctrines correspond in their origin . Neither of them , it is acknowledged , is contained in the recorded discourses of the apostles . Neither is found in the confessions of faith required of the primitive

    converts . Neither is recognized in the earliest controversies which agitated the church . No traces of the Trinity or of Transubstantiation are found in ecclesiastical history until after the apostolic age . But after Christianity began to be corrupted by the speculations of philosophers , both the doctrines were developed and became the subjects of eager contention . The doqtrine of Transubstantiation received its present form at the fourth council of the Lateran , in the year 1215 , according to the decree of Pope Innocent the

    Third , who embodied in definite language the floating opinions that had risen like a mist on the purity of the church . But it seems to have been forgotten , that the Trinity , though it dates from an earlier period , is proved by faithful history to have sprung up subsequentl y to the times of . the apostles . On this point , credit may be given to a Trinitarian writer , the popular Mosheim , who was too candid , at least in this instance , to sacrifice historical

    accuracy to theological prejudice . In his account of the fourth century , having spoken of a certain «* schismatic pestilence" which troubled the church , he says , " in the year three hundred and seventeen , a new contention arose in Egypt upon a subject of much higher importance , and with consequences of a yet more pernicious nature . The subject of this fatal

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    Doctrines of the . Trinity and of Transubstantiation . 815

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1828, page 815, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2567/page/15/