Unitarianism | Page 6

popularly known. This is his
Reasonableness of Christianity, which with his rejoinders to critics
makes a considerable bulk in his writings. In pursuance of the aim to
'reduce the number of essentials' and to discover that in the Christian
religion which is available for simple people--the majority of
mankind--Locke examines 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