MASTER NEGATIVE NO. 92-80773-10 MICROFILMED 1 992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code ~ concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material . . . Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR CARPENTER, J. ESTLIN TITLE: UNITARIANISM PLACE: LONDON DATE: 1922 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record Master Negative # mmm §. fe38,7 '0226 Carpenter, Joseph Estlin, 1044-1^^^37 • Unitarianisn, an historic survey, by J. Estlin Carpenter... London, The Lindsey press, 1922. 60 p. 19*- cm. Reprinted from The Encyclopaedia of Keligion and' ethics. ' " Literature:.", leaf following p. 60. Restrictions on Use: [ 68737 TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA b< REDUCTION RATIO: FILM SIZE: IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA fiK IB IIB DATE FILMED: ik^Llllr INITIALS tl^y. HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE. CT 112. D Association for Information and Image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue. Suite 1100 Silver Spring. Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 12 3 4 ii J md niiliiiilii 1 Inches 1^1 1 im 6 7 8 iilimliiiiliii ^1 T 1.0 I.I 1.25 9 iir 10 11 12 13 14 15 mm i IimiImiiIiiiiIiiii IiiiiIi|iiIiiii l|ll|l|ll iiiiliiii 4 5 ^ J 3.2 IM I 2.5 UL US IS ■lUU 14.0 1.4 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.6 1 MRNUFRCTURED TO flllM STRNDRRDS BY RPPLIED IMRGE. INC. ^^ iiiMi Hi' m^ Mr' ■.A I iji* ife--t Is '-- • . Vx H..- Unitarianism An historic survey BY J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, M.A., D.Litt. Price 1/- net THE LINDSEY PRESS S ESSEX STREET, 6TBAND, L0m>ON, W.C. 2, 1922 ^ " t>l .- Columbia Smberfitttp iiittieCitpo(^h>|?orb LIBRARY ( . I . f Unitarianism An historic survey BY J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, M.A., D.Litt. f t y THE LINDSEY PRESS 5 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, LONDON, W.C. 2. 1922 1 I < 2-2. - 2- ?^ 7 PRINTKD BY ELSOM AND CO. MARKET PLACE, HULL. PUBLISHERS' NOTE Dr. Carpenter's essay on ' Unitarianism ' was written for ' The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics/ This reprint is by arrangement with and the permission of Messrs. T. & T. Clark, the pubhshers of the Encyclopaedia. Essex Hall, London. July, 1922. r UNITARIANISM UNITARIANISM, an English term derived from the Latin unitarius (first used of a legaHzed reUgion in 1600^), is appHed to a mode of rehgious thought and organization founded on the conception of the single personality of the Deity in contrast to the orthodox doctrine of his triune nature. The cor- responding term " Trinitarian " was first used in the modern sense by Ser- vetus in 1546. The adjective " Unitar- ian " has sometimes been employed be- yond the limits of Christianity — e.g., in connexion with Muhammadanism ; this article deals only with the development of modern Unitarianism on Christian lines. The place of the corresponding doctrine in the New Testament and the early Church must be studied in the usual authorities on historical theology. ^See §4 below. 1 2 UNITARIANISM I. BEGINNINGS ON THE CONTINENT The general movement of humanism at the opening of the i6th cent, led to a variety of speculation which was largely stimulated by the publication of the Greek text of the New Testament by Erasmus (151 6). His omission of the famous Trinitarian verse, i John 5"^, and his aversion to the scholastic type of dis- putations, produced a marked effect on "many minds. The earliest literary trace of anti-Trinitarian tendencies is usually found in a treatise of Martin Cellarius (1499-1564)5 pupil of Reuchlin, and at first a follower and friend of Luther. In 1527 he published at Strassburg a work entitled de Operibus Dei, in which he used the term deus of Christ in the same sense in which Christians also might be called dei as " sons of the Highest." The first treatise of Servetus (15 11-53), de Trtnttatts Erroribus, followed in 1531- The minds of the young were on the alert. Teachers, theologians, lawyers, physicians, mathematicians, men of letters and science, were all astir. They travelled and discussed, and new views i >' UNITARIANISM 3 were carried far and wide. In Naples a young Spaniard, John Valdes, became the centre of a religious group of noble ladies for the study of the Scriptures till his death in 1541 ; and in 1539 Melanch- thon found it necessary to warn the Venetian senate of the existence of wide- spread Servetianism in N. Italy. Out of this circle comes Bernard Ochino (1487-1565) of Siena, who passes slowly through Switzerland to London, serves as one of the pastors of the Strangers' Church (1550-53) till it is broken up by Queen Mary, takes shelter again in Zurich, and finally migrates to Poland in 1559, and joins the anti-Trinitarian party. There Catherine Vogel, a jewel- ler's wife, had been burned at the age of 80 in 1539 at Cracow for believing in ^' the existence of one God, creator of all the visible and the invisible world, who could not be conceived by the human^ intellect."^ An anti-Trinitarian move- ment showed itself at the second synod of the Reformed Church in 1556, and in * Wallace, Antitrinitarian Biography, ii. 139, quoting Polish historians. r 4 UNITARIANISM 1558 secured a leader in the person of a Piedmontese physician, George Bland- rata. Dutch Anabaptists started vari- ous heretical movements, and David Joris of Delft (1501-56) declared in his Wonder-book (1542) that there is but " one God, sole and indivisible, and that it is contrary to the operation of God throughout creation to admit a God in three persons." Thousands of Pro- testants from Germany, Alsace, and the Low Cpuntries, migrated to England in the reign of Henry VIII, and the Strangers' Church under Edward VI, contained also Frenchmen, Walloons, Italians, and Spaniards. 2. BEGINNINGS IN ENGLAND English thought was not unaffected. In the 15th cent. Reginald Peacock, bishop of Chichester, had opened the way by his two treatises, the Repressor of overmuch Blaming of the Clergy^ and the Book of Faith^ to the discussion of the relative values of Scripture, tradi- 1 Ed. C. Babington (Rolls series, xix. i, 2), London, i860. 2 Ed. J. L. Morison, Glasgow, 1909. t mO UNITARIANISM 5 tion, and reason as grounds of faith, and had pleaded for freedom of investiga- tion. Lollard and Anabaptist diverged in different directions from orthodoxy along independent lines. On 28th Dec. 1548 a priest named John Assheton ab- jured before Cranmer the " damnable heresies " that " the Holy Ghost is not God, but only a certain power of the Father," and that " Jesus Christ, that was conceived of the Virgin Mary, was a holy prophet . . . but was not the true and living God." In the following April a commission was appointed to search out all Anabaptists, heretics, or contemners of the Common Prayer. A number of London tradesmen were brought before this body in May. The opinions which they recanted included the statements " that there was no Trinity of persons ; that Christ was only a holy prophet and not at all God ; that all we had by Christ was that he taught us the way to heaven."^ Occasional 1 Gilbert Burnet, History of the Reformation of the Church of England, London, 1679-81, bk. i., new ed., Oxford, 1829, ii. 229. \i ^ «^' il 6 UNITARIANISM executions took place, such as that of the surgeon George van Parris, of Mainz, in 155 1 for saying that God the Father was the only God, and Christ was not very God. The Eastern coun- ties, being in constant communication with Holland, supplied most of the victims, down to Bartholomew Legate, of Essex, who declared Christ a " mere man," but " born free from sin," and who was the last sufferer by Smithfield fires (161 2), and Edward Wightman, who was burned a month later at Lich- field, charged with ten various heresies as incongruous as those of Ebion, Valentinus, Arius, and Manes. ^ One foreign teacher, Giacomo Aconzio (Lat- inized as Acontius, born at Trent about 1520), held his own through the troubled times. Engineer and theologian, philo- sopher and lawyer, mathematician and poet, he came to England in 1559, and received a post at EHzabeth's court, 1 Anti-Trinitarian opinions were developed in the first Baptist Church founded in London in 1613. by Thomas Helwj-^. See W. H. Burgess, John Smith, the Se-Baptist, London, 191 x. » \ i ' 1 Mi UNITARIANISM 7 which he managed to retain even when Bishop Grindal excommunicated him two years later for advocating toler- ance to Anabaptists. In his Stratage- mala Satance^ he drew a distinction be- tween articles of faith necessary to sal- vation and beliefs derived from them which might be matters of dispute. Adhering to Scripture, he declared the Father to be "the only true God"; affirmed the moral, not the essential, filiation of Jesus Christ; and asserted the subordination of the Holy Spirit to the Father. But the time was not yet come for his full influence in England. 3. TYPES OF SPECULATION Three types of speculation were thus in the European field by the middle of the 1 6th century, (i) That of Servetus was founded on the " dispositio " of Irenaeus and the " economy " of Ter- tullian;* the Trinity was a Trinity of manifestations or modes of operation; when God is aU in all (i Cor. 15^8), " the 1 Basel, 1565. 2 D^ jrin. Error, p. 48. s UNITARIANISM Economy of the Trinity will cease." ^^ His theology was Christocentric : "There is no other person of God but Christ , . . the entire Godhead of the Father is in him. "2 (2) Many of the Anabaptists were Arians. (3) A humanitarian view of Jesus, recognizing a miraculous birth, was beginning to claim attention. The last of these succeeded in estabHshing itself in the east of Europe before Eng- lish Unitarians began to move. 4. THE SOCINIAN DEVELOPMENT When Blandrata reached Poland in 1558, he found that there were already some anti-Trinitarians in the Protestant synod. Seven years later they were ex- cluded, and they consequently formed a small group which refused to call itself by any other name than Christian, though other titles (such as the Minor Church) were sometimes applied to it. In 1579 the settlement of Faustus Socinus in their midst led to the estab- lishment of a new theological type to be 1 lb. p. 82. 2 lb. pp. 112 f. i •C •■ / p UNITARIANISM 9 long known in Western Europe as Socinianism. Socinus (15 39-1604) belonged to a distinguished Italian family, the Sozini, in Siena. His uncle Lelius Socinus (1525-62) had evaded the Inquisition by flight to Switzerland in 1547. He be- came the friend of Calvin and Melanch- thon; he visited England; he travelled to Poland. He did not escape con- troversy and suspicion; he would not deny the doctrine of the Trinity, but he would accept it only in the words of Scripture. Faustus Socinus was of a more aggressive temper. At twenty- three years of age he published his Explicatio primoe partis primi capitis Evangelii Johannis^ in which he as- cribed to Christ only an official and not an essential deity. A long series of works followed, and in 1578 he accepted an invitation from Blandrata, then in the service of Prince John Sigismund of Transylvania, and went to Kolozsvar (Kluj). Blandrata had invoked his aid against Francis David, who rejected all 1 Rakow, 1662. J J^"' "i^^ 10 UNITARIANISM forms of cultus addressed to Christ.^ Socinus pleaded for the adoratio Christi as obligatory on all Christians, and urged that the invocatio Christi should not be forbidden. In 1579 he settled in Po- land, where the rest of his life was spent. The members of the Mfnor Church were converted to his views, which found ex- pression in the Racovian Catechism issued in Polish in 1605, a year after his death.^ A Latin edition followed in 1609. The PoHsh adherents of Socinus failed, however, to hold their ground. Deprived of their right to office, their leaders were powefles^.- Rom^afi Catho- lic reaction triumphed. Their college at Rakow was* suppressed, and finally in 1660 they were offered the option of conformity or exile. Some went to Ger- many and Holland; some carried their worship to Transylvania, and main- tained a slender separate existence till 1793. But the influence of Socinus was perpetuated in the massive volumes of 1 See below. 3 The town of Rakow, founded in 1569, was the ecclesiastical base, with a school and university (1602). UNITARIANISM II .< » «'-^i the Bibliotheca fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant, published at Amster- dam (1665-69). His theology rested on a rigid view of the authority of Scrip- ture.^ The modern methods of his- torical criticism were of course un- known. Philosophy raised no difficul- ties about the supernatural, but reason started objections from the side of the multiplication-table. "The essence of God is one," says the Racovian Catechism, " not in kind but in number. Wherefore it cannot in any way contain a plurality of persons, since a person is nothing else than an individual intelligent essence. Wherever then there exist three numerical persons, there must necessarily in like manner be reckoned three individual essences, for in the same sense in which it is affirmed that there is one numerical essence, it must be held that there is one numerical person. "2 But Socinus admitted the application of the term " God " to Christ in an inferior sense (John lO^^O^ ^^^ argued 1 His treatise de Atictoritate S. Scripture, written in 1570, was first published at Seville, and claimed by a Jesuit Lopex as his own. Commended in 1728 in a charge by Bishop Smallbrooke, it was translated into English by Edward Combe in 1731. 2 Eng. trans, by Thomas Rees, London, 18 18, § iii. ch. i. p. 3$. 12 UNITARIANISxM from John 3^^ that after his baptism Christ had been conveyed to heaven, where he had beheld his Father, and heard from him the things which he was afterwards sent back to earth to teach. Raised again to heaven after his resur- rection, he was made the tead of all creation, with divine authority over the world, and in that sense God. He was thus no " mere man," and deserved divine honour. Modern Unitarianism has departed widely from this Christo- logy. Apart from the necessarianism of Priestley, it is nearer to Socinus in its view of human nature, which he treated (against the Calvinists) as endowed with free will, and capable of virtue and religion. But the Polish Unitarians did not regard it as intrinsically immortal. A future life would be a gift direct from K God, its conditions being made known A by Christ. For those who did not fulfil \ them there was no hell, only extinction. ^"nUnitarianism acquired ecclesiastical status also in the adjoining province of Transylvania. In 1563 Blandrata was invited by Queen Isabella to the court of ft^i UNITARIANISM 13 her son Prince John Sigismund. At Kolozsvar he was brought into con- tact with Francis David, who had been sent by his Roman Catholic teachers to Wittenberg. There David had passed into Lutheranism, but afterwards, dis- satisfied with its doctrine of the sac- raments, he joined the Calvinists. His distinction led to his appointment (1564) as bishop of the Hungarian churches in Transylvania. Under Blan- drata's influence he began to doubt the separate personality of the Holy Spirit, and became involved in dis- cussions with the Calvinist leader, Peter Melius. In these debates Melius is said to have first used the word Unitarius. David was strong enough to carry large numbers of clergy and laity with him. In 1568 a royal edict was issued, grant- ing entire freedom of conscience and speech, and giving legal recognition to " the Four Religions," Roman Catho- licism, Lutheranism, Calvinism (or Re- formed), and " the Klausenburg Con- fession." More than 400 preachers with their churches, and many pro- 14 UNITARIANISM III fessors in colleges and schools, ranged themselves under David's supervisor- ship. David, however, soon advanced another step, and questioned the pro- priety of prayer to Christ. Blandrata's attempt to influence him through Faustus Socinus (1578) did not con- vince him, and in the following year, under a Roman Catholic prince, David was tried for innovation in doctrine and sentenced to imprisonment. Five months later (Nov. 1579) he died in the castle of Deva in his seventieth year. The name Unitarius first appeared in an authoritative document in a decree of the Synod of Lecsfalva in 1600. It was formally adopted by the Church in 1638. For two centuries after David's death the community was in frequent danger from political and religious vicissitudes. Their churches were trans- ferred to Calvinists or to Roman Catho- lics ; they were deprived of their schools ; they were debarred from public office. A statute of 1791, however, confirmed their position as one of " the Four Religions," and they have since en- UN ITARI AN ISM 15 M ,>- joyed ecclesiastical peace.^ They have now about 140 churches, chiefly among the Szeklers of Transylvania, with a few in Hungary, including a vigorous mod- ern foundation in Buda-Pesth. Till 1919 their bishop sat in the Hungarian House of Peers. At Kolozsvar they have a university, and they have de- voted great attention to education. No doctrinal subscription is imposed upon their ministers, and under the influence of progressive change, and contact with Unitarian teaching in England and America, the Socinian Christology has been abandoned. The official hymn- book of 1865 inade no provision for the worship of Christ. 5. GROWTH OF UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND The teaching of Socinus gradually made its way into England. The Latin ^ Cf. Michael Lombard Szentabrah4mi, Summa UniverscB Theologies ChristiancB secundum Unitarios, Klausenburg, 1787. The above was written before the great majority of Unitarian Churches passed under Rumanian rule by the Peace of 191 9. i6 UNITARIANISM UNITARIANISM 17 version of the Racovian Catechism was sent to England with a dedication to James I; it was formally burned in 1614. Two Socinian works appear in the first two catalogues of the Bodleian Library (1620-35), but a considerable number may be traced in the catalogue by Thomas Hyde in 1674. ^ Bishop Barlow, himself once librarian, in Direc- tions for the Choice of Books in the Study of Divinity (originally drawn up in 1650 and expanded after 1673), named numerous others in connexion with a syllabus of the principal questions at issue between Socinians and other Re- formed communions.^ Theology was deeply concerned with the claims of the Roman Catholics on the one hand and the controversies of the Puritans on the other, and from the days of Richard Hooker (15 5 3-1 600) a series of writers discussed the respective authority of the Church, the Scriptures, and reason. Doubtless revelation was necessary, but Scripture was its medium. If it was the 1 The Genuine Remains of Dr. Thomas Barlow, laic Bishop of Lincoln, London, 1693. teacher of theology, what was theology, asked Hooker, but the science of divine things ? and " what science," he went on to ask, " can be attained unto with- out the help of natural discourse and reason ? " ^ The Arminian revolt against Calvinism tended in the same direction7 and " the ever memorable " John Hales (i 584-1656), when he left the Synod of Dort after hearing Episcopius expound John 3^^, " bid John Calvin good night. "^ A stream of protest flowed on against the attempt to define the mysteries of the Godhead beyond the terms of Scripture. It had been the plea of Acontius in the Stratagemata Satance; and William Chillingworth (1602-44) owned him as his teacher of the mischief of creeds which led to the " persecuting^ burning, cursing, damning of men for not subscribing to the words of men as the words of God."^ Chillingworth was ^ Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, bk. iii. ch. viii. ii, ed. Keble, Oxford, 1836, i. 473. 2 Letter of Anthony Farindon (17th Sept. 1657) pre- fixed to the Golden Remains, London, 1659. * The Religion of Protestants, Oxford, 1638, iv. § 16, referring to Acontius, vii. B i8 UNITARIANISM indebted for acquaintance with Socinian literature to Lord Falkland. He had seen some volumes in the rooms of Hugh Cressy of Merton College, Oxford, who *' claimed to have been the first to bring in Socinus's books." Cressy afterwards became a Benedictine monk; Falkland was designated by John Aubrey " the first Socinian in England." Other and wider influences were at work. Lord Herbert of Cherbury (i 583-1648) in his de Veritate^ analysed the whole faculties of the mind, and discovered among its notitioe communes^ innate, of divine origin, and indisputable, certain " com- mon notions " of religion in five articles. These he exemplified historically twenty years later in the de Religione Gentilium (completed in 1645), ^^^ ^^ ^^^ earliest treatises in comparative theology. The great authority of Grotius (i 583-1645) gave special weight to his exposition of Christianity in the de Veritate Religionis Christiance? He discourses of the attri- butes of God, but is silent about his triune nature. He proves that there 1 Paris, 1624, London, 1633. * Leyden, 1627. \ UNITARIANISM 19 ^l f^' was such a person as Jesus, that he rose from the grave and was worshipped after his death. He vindicates his character as Messiah, but never mentions the Incarnation. His Annotationes on the New Testament were equally free from traditional dogma. It was not surpris- ing that Stephen Nye, the author of the Brief History of the Unitarians also called SocinianSy^ should affirm that he " inter- preted the whole according to the mind of the Socinians." Under such influ- ences diversity of opinion was re- cognized as inevitable. Writers so dif- ferent as Hales, Jeremy Taylor,^ and Milton^ declare in almost the same words that heresy is not a matter of the understanding; the faithful pursuit of reason did not make a heretic; the mis- chief lay in the influences that perverted the will. Chillingworth thought it pos- sible to reduce all Christians to unity of communion by showing that diversity ^ London, 1687. 2 In the Liberty of Prophesying, London, 1646; ed. 18 17, sect. ii. p. 32. » In his last tract, Of True Religion, Heresy, Schism. Toleration, London, 1673, P- 6. Nt 20 UNITARIANISM of opinion was no bar to it. That all Christians should think alike was an impossibility; it remained for them to be " taught to set a higher value upon those high points of faith and obedience wherein they agree than upon those points of less moment wherein they differ."^ Such writers did not adopt the theology of Socinus, but they were in agreement with him in his plea for Scriptural statements rather than dog- matic creeds. " Vitals in religion," said Benjamin Whichcote (1609-83), the leader of the Cambridge Platonists, " are few."^ Meanwhile an occasional English tra- veller^like Paul Best (1590-1657) had visited Poland and returned infected. Milton noticed in the Areopagitica^ the " stay'd men " sent by " the grave and frugal Transilvanian " to learn the " theologic arts " of England. The danger of Socinianism was spreading. The Convocations of Canterbury and ^ Religion of Protestants, iv. § 40, pp. 209 f . 2 Moral and Religious Axioms, ed. Salter, London, 1753. • London, 1644. « J .. t; UNITARIANISM 21 York agreed in June 1640 to prohibit the import, printing, or circulation of Socinian books; no minister should preach their doctrines; laymen who embraced their opinions should be excommunicated.^ A series of angry writers denounced them with shrill abuse. Parliament made the denial of the Trinity a capital crime (1648), but an English translation of the Racovian Catechism was published in 1652 at Amsterdam, followed by A Twofold Scripture Catechism from the pen of John Biddle in 1654. These works led the Council of State to order John Owen, whom Cromwell had made Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of the university of Oxford, to prepare a reply. His Vindicice Evangelical ap- peared in 1655. " Do not look upon these things," he wrote with heat, 2 '« as things afar off wherein you are little con- cerned; the evill is at the doore; there is not a Citty, a Towne, scarce a Village in England, wherein some of this poyson is not poured forth." * Canons iv. and v. 69. il 22 J UNITARIANISM 6. INFLUENCE OF BIDDLE AND LOCKE John Biddle (1616-62) has often been called the father of English Unitarian- ism. Sprung from the family of a Gloucestershire yeoman, he came up to Oxford in 1634, and graduated M.A. in 1641. The Gloucester magistrates ap- pointed him shortly after to the master- ship of the free school in the parish of St. Mary de Crypt. There his Biblical studies led him independently to doubt the doctrine of the Trinity, the particu- lar difficulty being the deity of the Holy Ghost. Imprisonment in Gloucester and at Westminster did not prevent him from publishing his views, which became more and more opposed to the prevail- ing orthodoxy. Released in 1652, he founded for the first time gatherings for the exposition of the Scriptures on anti- Trinitarian lines, and these developed into regular meetings for worship. Biddle's catechism shows distinct So- cinian influence in the views that Christ as man was taken up into heaven to be instructed for his prophetical office, that God's love was universal, and that V A ' V i UNITARIANISM 23 Christ died to reconcile man to God, not God to man. But Biddle did not adopt the Socinian practice of prayer to Christ. In spite of imprisonment and exile in the ScUly Islands (1654-58) he gathered followers in increasing numbers. They were sometimes called Biddelians, some- times Socinians, but they are said to have preferred the name Unitarian to all others.^ The death of Biddle in 1662 and the Act of Uniformity checked the move- ment as an organization for worship^ but it continued as a mode of thought* The constant plea for a return from the creeds to the Scriptures led Milton finally into an Arian Christology. Thomas Firmin (1632-97), a wealthy and generous mercer, who had been the friend of Biddle and also had close relations with Archbishop Tillotson (1630-94), promoted the circulation of literature. The Brief History of the ^ The name has been found by Alex. Gordon in a controversy between Henry Hed worth and William Penn in 1672. The pamphlets are preserved in the Friends' Library at Devonshire House, Bishopsgate,. London, E.C. ^i.: f II ^4 UNITARIANISM i Unitarians^ also called Socinians^ was published at his request in 1687. The Toleration Act of 1689 excluded those who denied the Trinity on the one side, and Roman Cathohcs on the other. But an active controversy broke out the following year, which resulted in the production of a long series of Unitarian tracts (1691-1705) largely financed by Firmin, in which the chief ecclesiastical disputants, John Wallis and William Sherlock,^ were cleverly played off against each other, and the argument was enforced on grounds of Scripture and early patristic testimony. The Unitarian influence was so strong that Parliament found it necessary (1698) to threaten the profession of the obnoxi- ous heresy with cumulative penalties amounting to the loss of all civil rights, and three years' imprisonment. But in the meantime a new and powerful in- fluence had entered the field. In 1695 John Locke (1632-1704) had published * Of. John Barling, A Review of Trinitarianism, London, 1847, p. 71 ; John Hunt, Religious Thought in England, 3 vols.; do. 1870-73, ii. 210 ff. « I II UNITARIANISM 25 his treatise on The Reasonableness of Christianity. Locke's Letters concerning Toleration^ and his Essay concerning Human Under- standing^ had already placed him at the head of contemporary English thinkers. It was a lamentable sign of the heated temper of the time that the inquiry into the essential nature of Christianity was published anonymously. Locke did what Grotius and Hobbes (in the Leviathan^) had done before him. He went back to the Gospels and the first preachers of the new faith, and found that their message consisted in the pro- clamation of Jesus as the Messiah, the proof of this character resting on his fulfilment of prophecy and his miracles, especially the Resurrection. He had in- deed already confided to his journal in 1 68 1 the pregnant remark that the miracles were to be judged by the doctrine, and not the doctrine by the miracles. But he could still say in 1703 that the Scripture had God for its * London, 1689-92. 2 London, 1690. 3 London, 1651. 11 26 UNITARIANISM authority and truth without any mix- ture of error for its matter. This did not, however, prevent him from re- cognizing the occasional character of the apostoHc letters; and in the para- phrases of the Epistles of St. PauP (pubHshed after his death), by treating their teaching as relative to the age and persons for whom it was designed, he really laid the foundation of the histori- cal method. His whole theory of know- ledge, however, and his polemic against innate ideas, led him to fall back on the conception of revelation, and to find in Scripture an ultimate authority for religious truth. Meanwhile the violence of some of the Trinitarian controversial- ists drove many minds along the paths already trodden by Milton and Sir Isaac Newton in the direction of some form of Arianism. William Whiston (1672- 1752), who had succeeded Newton at Cambridge as Lucasian professor in 1703, was deprived for this heresy in 1 A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, and Ephesians, London, 1709. 4 I UNITARIANISM 27 1 7 10; and it was in the background of the treatise of Samuel Clarke (1675- 1729) on The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity^'^ though he objected to the ancient Arian statement, " there was [a time] when there was no Son." The formularies of the Church of Eng- land prevented anything like general change within its ranks. But Protest- ant Dissent was not organized on the basis of dogmatic creeds. The English Presbyterians under the leadership of Richard Baxter (161 5-91) had ardently desired comprehension in the Estab- Hshment, but they had as ardently repudiated what they called " human impositions." Driven out of the Angli- can Church, and unable to create a Presbyterian polity, they found them- selves side by side with the Congrega- tionahsts in 1689. When they took out licences for places of worship, their trustees avoided doctrinal tests, though they themselves were mainly Calvin- is tic. They often devoted their chapels to " the worship of God by Protestant 1 London, 1712. A. ^' i 28 UNITARIANISM Dissenters." Sometimes the Presby- terians were named, sometimes the Independents, sometimes both con- jointly. They reserved to themselves, in the language of Timothy Jollie of Sheffield (1659-1714), " Hberty to re- form according to Scripture rule in doctrine, discipline and worship."^ The way was thus open to gradual theologi- cal modification. The process was slow, and its operation unequal in different places. Pastors and people did not always move together. The transition through varying types of Arianism naturally took place at varying rates; e,g,y Nathaniel Lardner (1684-1768), after resting in Clarke's Arianism, finally abandoned it in his Letter on the Logos. ^ The result was that at the beginning of the 19th cent, nearly 200 chapels were occupied by Unitarians, whose principles were unfavourable to sectarian activity. When the Manchester Academy (now ^ Pastoral Care Exemplified (funeral sermon for his father), London, 1704, p. 28. 2 A Letter writ in the Year 1730, concerning the Question whether the Logos supplied the Place of a Human Soul in the Person of Jesus Christ, London, 1759. 1 1 UNITARIANISM 29 I Manchester College, Oxford) was opened in 1786, its first principal, Thomas Barnes, who dedicated it " to Truth, to Liberty, and to Religion," was him- self an Arian. His colleague, Ralph Harrison, became a Unitarian. True to the practice of their forefathers, the founders refrained from imposing any tests on either tutors or students. The Presbyterian Board, established in 1689, governs the Presbyterian College at Carmarthen — the continuator of a series of academies, the first of which was founded on the same basis by Samuel Jones, sometime fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, one of the 2000 ejected ministers of 1662. 7. THE WORK OF PRIESTLEY AND BELSHAM The process of theologic change was promoted from another side. Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), bred among the Independents, threw off the Calvinistic theology of his youth, and, after resting a little while in Arianism, reached in %. 30 UNITARIANISM 1768, while minister at Leeds, a simple humanitarian view of the person of Jesus. His scientific studies had al- ready gained him the fellowship of the Royal Society (1766), and his Appeal to the Serious and Candid Professors of Christianity'^ carried his name in 30,000 copies all over England. His industry, his wide range of knowledge, his clear- ness of thought and style, his fearless utterance, his untiring earnestness, his elevation of purpose and purity of life, his simple piety, secured for his theologi- cal and philosophical teaching a domin- ant position in Unitarian thought. At Doddridge's Academy at Daventry he had studied Hartley's Observations on Man,^ and adopted a materialist view of human nature. But this in no way im- paired the religion which he learned from the Gospels. The teachings of Jesus, guaranteed by his miracles and triumphantly established by his resur- rection, supplied him with a positive ground for faith; and the identification of the God of revelation with the Sole 1 London, 1770. 2 London, 1749. UNITARIANISM 31 ^> Cause of all phenomena, including every form of human activity, created a type of religious sentiment which long pervaded Unitarian devotion. In his Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Il- lustrated ^ he afiirmed that his doctrine should produce " the deepest humility, the most entire resignation to the will of God, and the most unreserved confidence in his goodness and provid- ential care."^ Among the Yorkshire"! acquaintances of Priestley was Theo- philus Lindsey (i 723-1 808), vicar of Catterick on the .Tees. A movement had been started by a small group of the clergy of the Establishment for the re- laxation of the terms of subscription. The failure of a petition to Parliament led Lindsey to resign his living (1773) and make his way to London. There in 1774 he opened an auction-room in Essex Street, Strand, as a Unitarian chapel, and thus " first organized Unit- arian Dissent as a working force in the religious life of England."^ He used * London, 1777. ^ § ix. 3 J. H. Allen, History of Unitarians, etc., p. 152. 32 UNITARIANISM the Anglican liturgy adapted to " the worship of the Father only.'' The London movement was rein- forced in 1789 by the appointment of Thomas Belsham (1750-1829), once like Priestley an Independent, to a theologi- cal tutorship in a college at Hackney. A scholar of no small attainments, he wielded a vigorous pen, and took a leading share in promoting the develop- ment of denominational activity. This was opened in 1791 by the foundation of the " Unitarian Society for promoting Christian knowledge and the Practice of Virtue by the Distribution of Books.'* Lindsey, Priestley, and Belsham were its leaders. The preamble and rules, drawn up by BcIsham^ contained the first public profession of belief in the proper unity of God, and of the simple humanity of Jesus Christ, in opposition both to the Trinitarian doctrine of three Persons in the Deity and to the Arian hypothesis of a created Maker and Pre- server of the world. Tlie love of civil and religious liberty prompted a petition the next year (1792) for the abolition of UNITARIANISM 53 the penal laws affecting religion, to which Charles James Fox lent his aid, and this was accomplished in 181 3 (so far as Unitarians were concerned) by the repeal, through the efforts of William Smith (1756-1835), M.P. for Norwich, grandfather of Florence Nightingale, of the clauses of the Toleration Act which rendered the profession of Unitarianism illegal. Meanwhile local Unitarian asso- ciations had been founded, and a de- nominational literature was springing up. Chapels long closed were reopened ; new congregations were assisted; a Unitarian Fund was started; and mis- sionaries were sent out to various parts of the kingdom. Endowed by the Act of 18 1 3 with civil rights, the Unitarians proceeded to form an association for protecting them (1819); and finally in 1825 a number of separate organizations were amalgamated in the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. This body was created to promote the principles of Unitarian Christianity, But its founders refrained from im- posing any definition of them on its ^i) 34 UNITARIANISM adherents. In the spirit of the English Presbyterians of a century and a half before, they left each member free to interpret them for himself. The type of Unitarianism then pre- vailing was largely shaped by the writ- ings of Priestley and Belsham. There were still Arians of different degrees (designated as " high " and " low ") among both ministers and congrega- tions. But the emphasis of contro- versy fell more and more clearly on the humanity of Jesus, and the proof of this lay in the Scriptures. The doctrine of their plenary inspiration was indeed denied. Criticism had already distin- guished different documents in Genesis. The narratives of the birth of Jesus were inconsistent with each other, and one or both might be rejected. But both the Old Testament and the New Testament contained "authentic records of facts and of divine interpositions," and Charles Wellbeloved, principal of Manchester College, York, could write in 1823: " Convince us that any tenet is authorized by the A UNITARIANISM 35 Bible, from that moment we receive it. Prove any doctrine to be a doctrine of Christ, emanating from that wisdom which was from above, and we take it for our own, and no power on earth shall wrest it from us."^ On this basis Jesus was presented as " a man constituted in all respects Hke other men, subject to the same infirm- ities, the same ignorance, prejudices and frailties,"^ who was chosen by God to introduce a new moral dispensation into the world. For this end the Holy Spirit was communicated to him at his baptism. He was instructed in the nature of his mission and invested with voluntary miraculous powers during his sojourn in the wilderness, and, thus equipped as the Messiah, was sent forth to reveal to all mankind without dis- tinction the great doctrine of a future life in which men should be rewarded according to their works. Of this the supreme proof was found in the Resur- rection, to which his death on the cross * Three Letters to Archdeacon Wrangham, London, 1823, p. 51. 2 Belsham, A Calm Inquiry into the Scripture Doctrine concerning the Person of Christ, London, 181 1, p. 447. v 36 UNITARIANISM as a martyr to the truth was a necessary preliminary; and he was destined to reappear to raise the dead and to judge the world. From this scheme all theor- ies of atonement and satisfaction dis- appeared. Priestley with his usual frankness had admitted that a neces- sitarian " cannot accuse himself of having done wrong in the ultimate sense of the words."^ But, though this type of Unitarianism was deficient in the sense of sin and produced a curious reluctance to recognize the existence of a " soul," its teachers lived habitually at a high moral tension, demanding a constant conformity of the will of man to the will of God. Asso- ciated with the emphatic assertion of the Father's wisdom and beneficence, such views naturally anticipated the final victory of good. Thomas South- wood Smith (i 788-1 861) in his Illustra- tions of the Divine Government^ — a book warmly admired by Byron, Moore, 1 Illustrations of Philosophical Necessity, 1777, § xi. {Works, ed. Rutt. iii. 518). 2 Glasgow, 1 8 16. UNITARIANISM 37 Wordsworth, and Crabbe— powerfully impressed on Unitarian thought the doctrine of universal restoration, which had already found utterance in one of Cromwell's chaplains, and gained vari- ous champions (Hartley among them) in the i8th century.^ 8. LEGAL DIFFICULTIES The modifications of belief which had brought many of the occupants of chapels erected by Presbyterians and Independents to Unitarian theology at last aroused the attention of those who remained orthodox. Besides a number of meeting-houses, the Unitarians were in possession of two important trusts — Lady Hewley's Charity in York (1704), and Dr. Williams's Trust in London (1716). A suit was instituted against Lady Hewley's trustees in 1830. Legal proceedings were slow and costly, and on 23rd Dec. 1833 judgment was finally given against them. One of the trustees 3 See art. Universalism. 38 UNITARIANISM was the minister of St. Saviourgate Chapel (which Lady Hewley had habitu- ally attended), Charles Wellbeloved. It was at once seen that the whole tenure of the chapels was endangered. A long period of litigation followed, but the Law Lords finally confirmed the first decision in 1842. Meanwhile numbers of suits were threatened for the recovery of the buildings, burial-grounds, and endowments which had descended in undisputed succession through genera- tions of pastors and laity. Between Lady Hewley's pastor, John Hotham, and Charles Wellbeloved there had been but one ministry, that of Newcome Cappe (1755-1800); the three pastorates covered 144 years. In the presence of such continuity of tenure the claim of the existing occupants was irresistible, and in 1844 the Dissenters' Chapels Act, introduced by the Government, gave the needed relief. Without naming either Presbyterians or Unitarians, it secured to such Dissenting congregations as had no creeds or tests the right to change their opinions as they saw fit in the h UNITARIANISM 39 \j f^^'^^^i "i^ lapse of' time.^ The chapels subse- quently built by Unitarians, and the funds raised for the support of their ministers, have been almost invariably founded on the principle known as " open trust." The consciousness of this historic evolution supplies the key to the conflict of tendencies in modern Unitarianism between the impulse to theological denominationalism and the desire to realize on however small a scale the " Catholic communion " which had been the ideal of the English Pres- byterians who followed Baxter. 9. MARTINEAU Al^D THE MODERN SCHOOL , The most potent personal influence in the latter direction was that of James Martineau (1805-1900). In his first work, The Rationale of Religious Inquiry ^^ he abandoned the position of the older Unitarianism, which would 1 Of. the speech of W. E. Gladstone, on the second reading. Parliamentary Debates on the Dissenter s*^ Chapels Bill, London, 1844 p. 165. 2 London, 1836. !' 40 UNITARIANISM UNITARIAN ISM 41 r I I have accepted the doctrines of the « Trinity, the Atonement, and everlasting torments, if they could be found in the Scriptures. " No seeming inspiration," he affirmed, " can establish anything contrary to reason."^ Three years later in the famous Liverpool controversy {1839), in the midst of incisive criticisms of the evangelical scheme of salvation, he laid the foundations of a new view of revelation no longer as a communication of truth, certified by miracles, but as an appeal to the conscience and affections — and a fresh interpretation of the moral life on the basis of free will instead of necessity. Meanwhile he was read- ing Strauss, and soon reached the con- clusion that belief in miracles was not essential to Christianity. The Mes- sianic function of Jesus was thus under- mined. Wellbeloved had already in- sisted on the contemporary significance of many of the prophecies supposed to refer to Christ. When the miracles were disowned, the second guarantee of the supernatural character of Jesus fell 1 Rationale, p. 127. i away : the followers of Locke found themselves deprived of their "reason- able " Christianity, and the faith of Christ seemed to become only a superior kind of natural religion. Martineau meanwhile pursued a double line of study. In a group of articles in the Westminster Review he expounded the Tubingen reconstruction of the origins of Christianity on its critical side, while on the philosophical he vindicated the communion of the human spirit with the Divine, and presented Jesus as the ex- pression, within the limits of our nature, of the righteousness and love of God. Revelation was thus transformed from supernatural instruction into the realiza- tion of more exalted character; its medium was not a written word, but a higher personality. To establish the principles of spiritual theism and find a place in man's soul for that " dweUing in God and God in him " which Priestley had described as the highest type of personal devotion was the aim of a long series of brilliant articles in the Pro- spective and National Reviews^ which cul- V "^^^M ,f 111 42 UNITARIANISM minated In two great treatises, Types of Ethical Theory'^ and A Study of Religion,^ By these works, as well as by his ser- mons and occasional Addresses^ he exercised an influence which went far beyond his own denomination, so that Gladstone described him as " the great- est of living [English] thinkers."^ Other writers were not inactive be- side him. The saintly John James Tayler (1797- 1869), in his Retrospect of the Religious Life of England,^ delineated with singular breadth of view and literary charm the significance of con- trasted principles of authority and free- dom; and from his pen came the first formal discussion of the Johannine question in England in his Attempt to ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel.^ A long series of scholars had pleaded for the revision both of the text and of the translation of the New Testa- ment; and by the advice of the veteran 1 2 vols., Oxford, 1885. 22 vols., Oxford. 1888. 3 J. E. Carpenter, James Martineau, Theologian and Teacher, London, 1905, p. 413. * London, 1845, new ed. by J. Martineau, do. 1876. 5 London, 1867. "%% UNITARIANISM 43 John Kenrick, George Vance Smith was invited to join the company of the Re- visers (1870). In James Drummond (1835-1918) Unitarianism possessed a theologian of the old school of learning, whose works on The Jewish Messiah (1877), Philo Judceus (1888), Inquiry into the Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel (1903), and Studies in Christian Doctrine (1908) maintained the tradition of devout scholarship. John Relly Beard (1800-76) led the way to modern dictionaries of the Bible by his People^ s Dictionary of the Bible^^ and made other valuable contributions to theological literature. Cultivated lay- men, also, such as Edgar Taylor, Samuel Sharpe, and H. A. Bright, rendered no small services to the Unitarian cause. Most influential of all, perhaps, in its protest against prevailing supernatural- ism was The Creed of Christendom^ by William Rathbone Greg. Francis WilHam Newman and Frances Power Cobbe found many readers; and the * 2 vols., London, 1847-48. 2 London. 1851, 8th ed., 2 vols., 1883. N) I 44 UNITARIANISM writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker, together with the studies of Max Muller, opened the way to religion beyond the bounds of Christi- anity. The Hibbert Trustees, who sought to promote the spread of Christi- anity, in " its simplest and most intel- ligible form," were the first to inaugur- ate in 1878 a series of lectures on the history of religions, and Manchester College included that subject in its theological course as early as 1875. The discourses of Martineau, J. Hamil- ton Thom, and Charles Beard provided varied illustration of the preacher's power; and the sermons and hymns of Stopford Brooke, after his withdrawal from the Church of England in 1880, presented, with a rich glow of poetic beauty, the main features of religion as understood by Unitarians. 10. CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS While English Unitarians have been active in education and philanthropy (witness their domestic missions in im- UNITARIANISM 45 portant urban centres, established on unsectafian principles after the visit of Joseph Tuckerman of Boston, Mass., in 1833), they have not attempted to secure large numerical increase. New- chapels have been built, but denomi- national zeal has never been active. Congregational independence has been sturdily maintained. In 1882 a Nation- al Conference was organized, which has now 357 congregations in the United Kingdom on its roll, but they have no common name. Proposals for united action on Presbyterian lines were made by Martineau in 1888, but the demand for congregational autonomy defeated them. The individualism fostered by the constant plea for Hberty is unfavour- able to the growth of corporate church- life. Generous funds have been raised in aid of ministers' incomes and insur- ance, and the Conference has found it necessary to lay down educational quahfications for access to these bene- fits, and has thus constituted an accred- ited class of religious teachers. Unit- arianism has thriven actively in some f widely. It was found all the way from Portland (Maine) to Charleston (South Carolina). In 1803 William EUery Channing (i 780-1 842) came to Boston and began the ministry which so powerfully in- fluenced Unitarian thought. In re- action against a still powerful Calvin- ism, with its doctrines of human de- pravity, the wrath of God, and the atoning sacrifice of Christ, he pro- claimed " one sublime idea," which he defined as " the greatness of the soul, its divinity, its union with God by spiritual likeness, its receptivity of his Spirit, its self-forming power, its destination to ineffable glory, its immortality."^ This was the real challenge to New England orthodoxy; it operated with no less force in dispelling the materialism of Priestley and giving a fresh impulse of spiritual life to Unitarianism on both sides of the ocean. With this exalted view of man's true being, Channing de- * J. W. Chad wick, William EUery Channing, Boston, 1903. p- 246, quoting without date " one of the letters of his later life." D *r» 50 UNITARIANISM dared himself surer that his rational nature was from God than that any book is the expression of his will; and reason and conscience were thus en- throned in the ultimate seat of judg- ment. Neither philosopher nor scholar in the technical sense, he exercised by his rehgious genius and the force of his ethical appeal a far-reaching influence both in the United States and in Europe. " Always young for liberty," he pro- tested against every form of sectarian narrowness. He cheerfully took the name Unitarian because unwearied ef- forts were made to raise against it a popular cry, and he never was in any sense a Trinitarian. But he beHeved in Christ's pre-existence; he accepted his miracles. He would not, however, ex- clude from his fellowship the stoutest humanitarian, though he might repudi- ate the miracles altogether. For such a mind denominational aggressiveness was impossible, and this spirit was infused into the leaders of the movement which culminated in the foundation of the Divinity School of Harvard University f r -> UNITARIANISM 51 . in 1 8 16, when the Unitarian controversy was at its height. " It being understood," said the constitution, " that every encouragement be given to the serious, impartial, and unbiassed investigation of Christian truth; and that no assent to the peculiarities of any denomination be required either of the Students, or Professors, or Instructors." The movement of which Channing was the most distinguished representa- tive soon demanded some kind of organization. Literature must be cir- culated, congregations assisted, and churches built. In 1825, on the same day on which English Unitarians formed their association,^ the American Unitar- ian Association was constituted. A noble line of eminent scholars, theo- logians, historians, jurists, poets, states- men, accepted its principles and gave dignity to its profession of faith. It was not long, however, before new forces appeared on the field. The study of German philosophy produced a school of New England transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) re- ^ See § 7. It ! 52 UNITARIANISM signed the pulpit of the Second Church in Boston on the question of the observ- ance of the Lord's Supper, and six years later his famous " Address to the Har- vard Divinity School " (1838) signalized the breach of the new thought with the older views of revelation and miracle. Theodore Parker (1810-60) emphasized the same theme in a much criticized sermon on " The Transient and Perma- nent in Christianity " (1841), followed by his widely read " Discourse of Mat- ters pertaining to Religion " (1842). A new type of Christianity without miracle was thus presented, emphasizing the divine immanence in nature, and hold- ing up the religion of Jesus— the love of God and the service of man— as the " absolute religion." Unitarianism fell into the snare from which Channing would fain have saved it, and developed an orthodoxy of its own. When Henry Whitney Bellows of New York proposed to organize the churches (1865) m a National Conference, and its members adopted the declaration that they were " disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ," a UNITARL\NISM 53 group of bolder spirits formed a " Free Religious Association," where Emerson's name appeared first on the list. In 1894, however, the Conference repudi- ated all authoritative tests, and simply accepted " the religion of Jesus, holding, in accordance with his teaching, that practical religion is summed up in love to God and love to man."^ The de- velopments of criticism, science, and philosophy, the study of comparative religion, the desire for the widest pos- sible fellowship, and the growing de- mands of philanthropy, have all con- tributed to broaden the outlook in every direction, and in 1900 the " Inter- national Council of Unitarian and other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers" was formed in Boston. It has since held large and successful gatherings in London, Amsterdam, Geneva, Boston, Berlin (1910), Paris (191 3), and Boston (1920), assembling a wide representa- tion of different nationaHties and faiths. As in England, so also in America, 1 George Willis Cooke, " Unitarianism in the United States," Ency. Bnt.^^ xxvii. 596. 1^ 54 UNITARIANISM Unitarianism has been an Important in- fluence in religious thought. It repre- sents a mode of approach to the great problems of human life and destiny in which it is closely allied with the time- spirit. Its looseness of denominational organization makes its advance over so vast an area slow and hesitating, but its churches steadily increase, and in 1 92 1 the list (including Canada) comprised 452 societies. The Divinity School at Harvard University gradually broadened out under the administration of Charles W. Eliot (1869-1909) into a school of scientific theology and inde- pendent research. The Meadville Theo- logical School (Pennsylvania), founded in 1844, and the Unitarian Theological School at Berkeley (California), founded in 1904, have remained more definitely within Unitarian lines. 12. WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE {a) The Colonies and India.— ^^^ British Dominions, Canada, AustraHa, New Zealand, Africa, all have Unitar- UNITARIANISM 55 ian churches. EngHsh and American Unitarians are also in close touch with the Theistic churches of India, and with Unitarian work in Japan, and receive students from the Far East into their theological colleges, besides sending out representative ministers to preach and lecture. (b) Germany, — Continental thought has been affected by the same general influences which produced the Unitarian movement in England and America. The writings of the EngHsh Deists of the 1 8th cent, helped to foster German rationalism, and the critical study of the Scriptures led to the abandonment of doctrines of mechanical inspiration and Biblical authority. Belief in miracles was partly undermined by the influ- ences of science and philosophy; and the Leben Jesu^ of D. F. Strauss, together with the investigations of F. C. Baur into the development of the early Church, opened new paths for the historical treatment of the origins of Christianity. The results reached by 1 3 vols., Tubingen. 1835. f< ^^ 56 UNITARIANISM UNITARIANISM 57 [til Baur were modified by the subsequent researches of some of his own pupils, but a powerful school of thought, led by teachers such as H. Holtzmann (Strass- burg), C. Holsten (Heidelberg), Carl von Weizsacker (Tubingen), A. E. Bieder- mann (Zurich), R. A. Lipsius (Jena), O. Pfleiderer (Berlin), reached a posi- tion which was substantially Unitarian, though it did not employ the name or lead to withdrawal from the State Church. In 1863 a liberal union was founded under the title of the " Pro- testantenverein," which gave practical expression to this mode of thought. It still exists, though in a state of some- what diminished activity. Recent theo- logical liberaHsm has tended to take one of two directions. Under the influence of Albrecht Ritschl of Gottingen, a higher value has been ascribed to the person of Jesus, quite apart from exter- nal miracle, than was usual among the older "liberal" theologians. Among the leaders in this direction are A. Harnack, W. Herrmann (Marburg), and H. H. Wendt (Jena). On the other hand, the study of Christianity in con- nexion with the religions of the empire has led younger scholars to emphasize its relations with contemporary pheno- mena; and along these lines the late professors W. Wrede, J. Weiss, and W. Bousset, and the brilliant group led by H. Gunkel, E. Troeltsch, C. Clemen, H. Weinel, W. Heitmiiller, and H. Lietz- mann have all been working. The valu- able translation and commentary issued under the general editorship of Johannes Weiss,^ and the long series of Religions- geschichtliche Volksbucher^ represent the general attitude of liberal theology on the problems of primitive Christianity. {c) France, — A similar movement of thought, though more limited in range, may be traced in France, since the ap- pearance of Renan's Vie de Jesus^^ with- in the Reformed Church, represented especially by A. Coquerel (fils)^ Albert and Jean Reville, and a distinguished group of scholars and preachers. When ^ Die Schriften des Oottingen, 1906. 2 Paris, 1863. Neuen Testaments, 2 vols., \* 58 UNITARIANISM the " Separation " took place in 1905, the Reformed Church split into two bodies, the " National Union of Evan- gelical Reformed Churches " retaining a Confession of 1872, and the liberal group designating itself the " National Union of Reformed Churches," which is power- fully represented in the Theological Faculty of Paris, and exercises the greater influence both in the pulpit and in the press. Liberal Lutherans like Maurice Goguel and Eugene Ehrhardt share the same general view. {d) Switzerland, — Swiss Protestantism has been affected in like manner. The abolition of formal tests of orthodoxy by the Genevan Church opened the way for a type of Christianity essentially Unit- arian; and in German Switzerland the theologians of Basel and Zurich have made important contributions to both Biblical and dogmatic studies on sinii- lar lines. Practical interest in social questions Is now to some extent with- drawing attention from the critical and historical inquiries of the older Hberal- ism, and even leading to a partial ./' i> UNITARIANISM 59 reaction towards the language and ideas of orthodoxy. (/) Holland, — A similar tendency shows itself in Holland. In the second half of the 19th cent, the Dutch Re- formed Church, the Remonstrants, the Mennonites, and the Lutherans were all affected by the philosophical and scien- tific modes of thought which generate Unitarian theology. Scholars like J. H. Scholten, A. Kuenen, and C. P. Tiele educated successive generations of stud- ents in the newer methods of critical investigation. Many of the younger ministers of the present day, however, without returning to orthodoxy, are more inclined to recognize spiritual values in some of the old doctrines of the Church, and, while they claim to be " liberals," are at the same time un- willing to be classed as " modern." Their view of human nature is not optimistic. The natural man must be regenerated by the Spirit of Christ; for this generation there is no other way. (/) Other countries, — In Italy a little group, assisted by various university 6o UNITARIAN ISM professors, is conducting a monthly periodical, // Progresso Religioso, on Unitarian lines with the names of Mazzini and Channing blazoned upon its cover. There are Unitarian con- gregations in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The veteran poet Matthias Jochumssen in Iceland (ti92o) espoused the same cause, and communicated his enthusiasm to his countrymen in the United States. Even among the edu- cated negroes of Lagos on the W. African coast religious thought has pro- duced spontaneously an active move- ment in the same direction. *, LITERATURE Antitrinitarian Biography 3 vols, London, 1850, by R. WaUace. Retrospect 0} the Religions Life oj England, London, 1845, by J. J. Tayler. 3rd Edition, ed. by James Martineau, 1876. Des Origines dti Christianisme iinitarie chez les Anglais, Paris, 1881, tr. E. P. Hall, Early Sources oj English Unitariunism, London, 1884, by G. Bonet-Maury. Heads oj English Unitarian History, London, 1895, and Ency. Brit.^, s.v. " Unitarianism," by A. Gordon. " The Unitarians,'* in A Hisory oJ the Unitarians and Universalists in the United States, New York, 1894, pp. 1-246, by J. H. Allen. Heralds oj a Liberal Faith, 3 vols., Boston, U.S.A., 1910, by S. A. Eliot. Biographies of Martineau, Channing, and Theodore Parker. ^ ■ ■ ' ■ ■ Cr. 8vo. ClotK 3/- mU Stiff Covers, 2/- net. aspects of Modern Unitarianism Editor. ALFRED HALL, M.A., B.D. I. INTRODUCTION The Editor. II. OUR UNITARIAN HERITAGE S. H. Mellone, M.A., D.Sc. III. MAN R. NicoL Cross, M.A. IV. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD R. NicoL Cross, M.A. V. REVELATION W. Whitaker, B.A. VL JESUS J. Cyril Flower, M.A. VII. ATONEMENT AND SALVATION The Editor. VIIL FELLOWSHIP W. Whitaker, B.A. IX. THE IMMORTAL HOPE S. H. Mellone, M.A., D.Sc. The essays In this volume deal only with a selection from many religious subjects on which Unitarianism has a dis- tinctive message. It is, however, hoped thev will adequately demonstrate the fact that Unitarian thought is not unpro- gressive, and that it will have some effect on the constancy with which statements of faith made by Unitarians a century ago are quoted as representative of the modern message. ^ UNDSEY PRESS. 5 ESSEX STREET. STRAND. LONDON. W.C2. ** A superb achievement.' — Scotsman, THE TWELFTH AND FINAL VOLUME OF THE ENCYCLOPyEDlA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS 75 NOW PUBLISHED Editor, Dr. JAMES HASTINGS Messrs. T. & T. Clark wish it to be distinctly understood that there Is no abridged edition of this great work — in fact no abridgment of it would be adequate. Professor J. MoFFATT writes: — ** It is onlv justice to say that Dr. Hastings' Encyclopaedia is far ahead of any similar work. Those who use it most will appreciate it best. It is a rare achievement of modern scholarship." The Right Hon. the Earl of Balfour, K.G.. writes :— " It is so incomparably better than any other work attempting to cover the same ground as to give it an absolutely unique position. * Prof. W. T. Davison, Richmond, says:—" It contains /in twelve admirably arranged volumes the substance of twelve hundred.** In Beautiful Cloth Binding . . 35/- net per vol. In Half Morocco .. .. 48/- »> »> f» Full particulars from all Booksellers or jrom the Publishers: TQ nr r^T apt^ ^ george street, , CC 1 . ^l->/^XVJV, EDINBURGH. . «? <'j ^»' i f5ity**BIA UNIVERSITY 0032215193 r CM O ro rsl l^. n V ^B yj y; If K.iT" '■.«*^" / 1"; * 3; «: h V