Mr. Emlyn had not as yet divulged his abandonment of the prevailing views of the Trinity, which were zealously maintained by his colleague, and doubtless by at least a large majority of his congregation. He abstained from touching upon controverted topics in the pulpit, where his discourses were for the most part practical; though their morality was invariably founded upon the precepts, and carefully enforced by the peculiar motives and sanctions suggested by the Christian scriptures.
‘I own’ (he tells us in his very interesting narrative of the proceedings against him) ‘I had been unsettled in my notions from the time I read Dr. Sherlock's book of the Trinity, which sufficiently discovered how far many were gone back towards polytheism; I long tried what I could do with some Sabellianturns, making out a Trinity of somewhats in one single mind. I found out that, by the tritheistical scheme of Dr. Sherlock and Mr. Howe, I best preserved a trinity, but I lost the unity; by the Sabellian scheme of modes and subsistences, and properties, &c., I best kept up the divine unity; but then I had lost a trinity, such as the Scripture discovers, so that I could never keep both in view at once. Till I had upon much serious thought and study of the holy scriptures, with many concerned addresses to the Father of lights, found great reason first to doubt, and after by degrees to alter my judgment, in ’
