Unitarianism | Page 6

the historical portion of the New Testament, and presents the result. Practically, this amounts to the verdict that it is sufficient for the Christian to accept the Messiahship of Christ and to submit to his rule of conduct. The orthodox critics complained that he had omitted the epistles in his summary of doctrine; his retort is obvious: if the gospels lead to the conclusion just stated, the epistles cannot be allowed, however weighty, to establish a contrary one. Of course, Locke was called a 'Socinian'; but the effect of his work remained, and we should remark that if it looked on the one hand toward the orthodox, on the other it looked toward the sceptics and freethinkers who began at that time a long and not ineffectual criticism of the miraculous claims of Christianity. Locke endeavoured to convince such minds that Christianity was in reality not an irrational code of doctrines, but a truly practical scheme of life. In this endeavour he was preceded by Richard Baxter, who had written on the 'Unreasonableness of Infidelity,' and was followed during the eighteenth century by many who in the old Dissenting chapels were leading the way towards an overt Unitarianism.
III. THE OLD NONCONFORMISTS
The reader must be reminded here of a few salient facts in the religious history of the seventeenth century. All these undercurrents of heterodox thought, with but few and soon repressed public manifestations of its presence, were obscured by the massive movement in Church and State. During the Commonwealth the episcopal system was abolished, and a presbyterian system substituted, though with difficulty and at best imperfectly. After the Restoration of Charles II the Act of Uniformity re-established episcopacy in a form made of set purpose as unacceptable to the Puritans as possible. Thereupon arose the rivalry of Conformist and Nonconformist which has ever since existed in England. Severely repressive measures were tried, but failed to extinguish Nonconformity; it stood irreconcilable outside the establishment. There were distinct varieties in its ranks. The Presbyterians, once largely dominant, were gradually overtaken numerically by the Independents. Perhaps it is better to say that, in the circumstances of exclusion in which both were situated, and the impossibility of maintaining a Presbyterian order and organization, the dividing line between these two bodies of Nonconformists naturally faded out. There was little, if anything, to keep them apart on the score of doctrine; and in time the Presbyterians certainly exhibited something of the tendency to variety of opinion which had always marked the Independents. Besides these bodies, the Baptists and Quakers stand out amid the sects comprised in Nonconformity. In both of these there were distinct signs of Anti-trinitarianism from time to time; as to the former, indeed, along with the earlier Baptist movements in England and on the Continent (especially in the Netherlands) there had always gone a streak of heresy alarming to the authorities. Among the Quakers, William Penn is specially notable in connection with our subject. In 1668 he was imprisoned for publishing The Sandy Foundation Shaken, in which Sabellian views were advocated. It need hardly be pointed out that among the still more eccentric movements, if the term be allowed, heterodoxy as to the Trinity was easy to trace.
When the Toleration Act was passed the old Nonconformity became 'Dissent,' that being the term used in the statute itself. Dissenters were now granted freedom of worship and preaching, but only on condition that their ministers subscribed to the doctrinal articles of the Church of England, including, of course, belief in the Trinity. Unitarians, therefore, were excluded from the benefit of the Act, and the general views of Dissenters upon the subject are clear from the fact that they took special care to have Unitarians ruled out from the liberty now being achieved by themselves. Locke and other liberal men evidently regretted this limitation, but the time was not ripe, and in fact the penal law against Unitarians was not repealed till 1813. Unluckily, too, for the Unitarians, a sharp controversy, due to their own zeal, had broken out at the very time that the Toleration Act was shaping, and as this had other important results we must give some attention to it.
IV. THE 'UNITARIAN TRACTS'
There are six volumes, containing under this title a large number of pamphlets and treatises, for and against the new views, published about this period. It is the first considerable body of Unitarian literature. Its promoter was Thomas Firmin, a disciple of John Bidle, on whose behalf he interceded with Oliver Cromwell, though himself but a youth at the time. Firmin, a prosperous citizen of London, counted among his friends men of the highest offices in the Church, some of whom are said to have been affected with his type of thought. Apart from his Unitarianism he is remarkable as an