Unitarianism

by W. G. Tarrant

This man was one of the sixteenth-century Italian Reformers who were speedily crushed or dispersed by the vigilance of the Inquisition. Those who escaped wandered far, and some were at different times members of the Church for 'Strangers,' or foreigners, to which Edward VI assigned the nave of the great Augustine Church, still standing at Austin Friars in the heart of the City of London. It is Interesting to observe here that a Dutch liberal congregation lineally inherits the place to-day. Careful investigation has shown that among the refugees here in the sixteenth century were some whose opinions were unsound on the Trinity; possibly they affected English opinion in some small degree. Loelius Socinus (1525-62), uncle of Faustus (1539-1604), was for a short time in London, but interesting thinker as he was, his nephew who never set foot in England really exerted much more influence upon English thought.

It was, however, in Poland especially that the influence of Faustus Socinus first became prominent. That country, then flourishing under its own princes, early became (as we have seen) the home of an Anti-trinitarian form of Protestantism. Socinus joined this group, and during the latter half of the sixteenth century effected much improvement among them, organizing their congregations, establishing schools, promoting a Unitarian literature. The educational work thus begun achieved great success; but in his own lifetime Socinus met with fierce opposition and even personal violence. He died in 1604; the 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 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.