Unitarianism | Page 5

Polish Unitarian Church fell under the persecution of both Catholics
and orthodox Protestants, and was finally crushed out in 1660.
Important for our present study is the fact that the literary output of
these Polish Socinians was both large and of high quality. Their
'Racovian Catechism' was translated into different languages, and early
found its way into England. James I promptly had it burned, despite the
fact that the Latin version was dedicated to himself! Other books and
pamphlets followed, and even if we abate something as due to the
exaggerating fears and suspicions of the authorities, there would seem
to have been no time as the seventeenth century went on when Socinian
literature was not widely circulated here, albeit at first in secret.
Into the details of this literature there is no need to go; it is sufficient to
observe its outstanding features. They correspond in the main to the
temper of the master mind, Socinus, a man who in the absence of
imaginative genius displayed remarkable talent as a reasoner, and a
liberal disposition considerably in advance of his times. The later
Socinian writings, preserved in eight large volumes issued by the
'Polish Brethren' (Amsterdam, 1666), exhibit in addition the results of
much diligent research and scholarship, in which the wide variety of
opinion actually held by the Fathers and later Church authorities is
proved, and the moral is drawn. In the presence of so much fluctuating
teaching upon the abstruser points of the creeds was it not desirable to
abandon the pretence of a rounded system complete in every detail?
Would it not he better to simplify the faith--in other and familiar words,
to reduce the number of 'essentials'? In order to discover these
essentials, surely the inquirer must turn to the Bible, the record of that
miraculous revelation which was given to deliver man's unassisted
reason from the perils of ignorance and doubt. At the same time, man's
reason itself was a divine gift, and the Bible should be carefully and
rationally studied in order to gather its real message. As the fruit of
such study the Socinians not only propounded an Anti-trinitarian
doctrine derived from Scripture, but in particular emphasized the
arguments against the substitutionary atonement as presented in the

popular Augustinian scheme and philosophically expounded in
Anselm's Cur Deus Homo. Socinus himself must be credited with
whatever force belongs to these criticisms on the usual doctrine of the
death of Christ, and it may be fairly said that most of the objections
advanced in modern works on that subject are practically identical with
those of three centuries ago.
Now there is good reason for believing that towards the end of the
seventeenth century this Socinian literature really attracted much
attention in England, and probably with considerable effect. But as a
matter of fact no English translation of any part of it was made before
John Bidle's propagandist activity in the middle of the century, and we
have the explicit testimony of Bidle himself and most of the earlier
Unitarians that they were not led into their heresy by foreign books. It
was the Bible alone that made them unorthodox.
A famous illustration of this is the case of John Milton (1608-74). In
1823 a long-forgotten MS. of his was found in a State office at
Westminster, and two years later it was published under the editorship
of Dr. Sumner, afterwards Bishop of Winchester. The work is entitled
A Treatise of Christian Doctrine. It was a late study by the poet,
laboriously comparing texts and pondering them with a mind prepared
to receive the verdict of Scripture as final, whether in agreement with
orthodoxy or not.
The most ardent of Milton's admirers, and even the most eager
Unitarian, must find the book a trial; but the latter can at least claim the
author of Paradise Lost as an Anti-trinitarian, and the former may
solace himself by noticing that here, as in all the rest, Milton's soul
'dwelt apart.' He emphatically denies that it was the works of 'heretics,
so called,' that directed and influenced his mind on the subject. We may
notice here the interesting fact that another great mind of that age, Sir
Isaac Newton, has left evidence of his own defection from the orthodox
view; and his correspondent John Locke, whose views appear to have
been even more decided, is only less conspicuous on this point because
his general services to breadth and liberality of religious fellowship are
more brilliantly striking.

Locke's Plea for Toleration is widely recognized as the deciding
influence, on the literary side, which secured the passage of the
Toleration Act in 1689. Deferring for the moment further allusion to
the position created by this Act, we must at once observe the scope of
one of Locke's works which is not so