ordinance of 1648 made denial of the Trinity capital, but it was a dead letter, Cromwell intervening in the cases of Paul Best (1590-1657) and John Biddle (1616-1662). In 1650 John Knowles was an Arian lay-preacher at Chester. In 1652-1654 and 1658-1662 Biddle held a Socinian conventicle in London; in addition to his own writings he reprinted (1651) and translated (1652) the Racovian Catechism, and the Life of Socinus (1653). His disciple Thomas Firmin (1632-1697), mercer and philanthropist, and friend of Tillotson, was weaned to Sabellian views by Stephen Nye (1648-1719), a clergyman. Firmin promoted a remarkable series of controversial tracts (1690-1699).
The term “Unitarian” first emerges in 1682, and appears in the title of the Brief History (1687). It was construed in a broad sense to cover all who, with whatever differences, held the unipersonality of the Divine Being. Firmin had later a project of Unitarian societies “within the Church”; the first preacher to describe himself as Unitarian was Thomas Emlyn (1663-1741) who gathered a London congregation in 1705. This was contrary to the Toleration Act of 1689, which excluded all who should preach or write against the Trinity. It is noteworthy that in England the Socinian controversy, initiated by Biddle, preceded the Arian controversy initiated by Samuel Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity (1712). Arian or semi-Arian views had much vogue during the 18th century, both in the Church and in dissent. The free atmosphere of dissenting academies (colleges) favoured new ideas. The effect of the Salters' Hall conference (1719), called for by the alleged heresy of James Peirce (1673-1726) of Exeter, was to leave dissenting congregations to determine their own orthodoxy; the General Baptists had already (1700) condoned defections from the common doctrine. In 1689 Presbyterians and Independents had coalesced, agreeing to drop both names and to support a common fund. The union in the London fund was ruptured in 1693; in course of time differences in the administration of the two funds led to the attaching of the Presbyterian name to theological liberals, though many of the older Unitarian chapels were Independent foundations, and at least half of the Presbyterian chapels (of 1690-1710) are now in the hands of Congregationalists. Leaders in the advocacy of a purely humanitarian christology came largely from the Independents, e.g. Nathaniel Lardner (1684-1768), Caleb Fleming (1698-1779), Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), Thomas Belsham (1750-1829).
The formation of a distinct Unitarian denomination dates from the secession (1773) of Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808) from the Anglican Church, on the failure of the Feathers petition to parliament (1772) for relief from subscription. Lindsey's secession had been preceded in Ireland by that of William Robertson, D. D. (1705-1783), who has been called “the father of Unitarian nonconformity.” It was followed by other clerical secessions, mostly of men who left the ministry, and Lindsey's hope of a Unitarian movement from the Anglican Church was disappointed. By degrees his type of theology superseded Arianism in a considerable number of dissenting congregations. The Toleration Act was amended (1779) by substituting belief in Scripture for belief in the Anglican (doctrinal) articles; in 1813 the penal acts against deniers of the Trinity were repealed. In 1825 the British and Foreign Unitarian Association was formed as an amalgamation of three older societies, for literature (1791), mission work (1806) and civil rights (1818). Attacks were made on properties held by Unitarians, but created prior to 1813. The Wolverhampton Chapel case began in 1817, the more important Hewley Fund case in 1830; both were decided against the Unitarians in 1842. Appeal to parliament resulted in the Dissenters' Chapels Act (1844), which secures that, so far as trusts do not specify doctrines, twenty-five years tenure legitimates existing usage.
The drier Priestley-Belsham type of Unitarianism, bound up with a determinist philosophy, was gradually modified by the influence of Channing (see below), whose works were reprinted in numerous editions and owed a wide circulation to the efforts of Robert Spears (1825-1899). Another American influence, potent in reducing the rigid though limited supernaturalism of Belsham and his successors, was that of Theodore Parker (1810-1860). At home the teaching of James Martineau (1805-1900), resisted at first, was at length powerfully felt, seconded as it was by the influence of John James Tayler (1797-1869) and John Hamilton Thom (1808-1894). The body has produced some remarkable scholars, e.g. John Kenrick (1788-1877), James Yates (1789-1871), Samuel Sharpe (1799-1881), but few very popular preachers, though George Harris (1794-1859) is an exception. Its year-book specifies 406 congregations in England and Wales. For the education of its ministry it supports Manchester College at Oxford (which deduces its ancestry from the academy of Richard Frankland, begun 1670), the Unitarian Home Missionary College (founded in Manchester in 1854 by John Relly Beard, D.D., and William Gaskell), and the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen.
English Unitarian periodical literature begins with Priestley's Theological Repository (1769-1788), and includes the Monthly Repository (1806-1838), The Christian Reformer (1834-1863), the Prospective Review (1845-1854), the National Review (1855-1864), the Theological Review (1864-1879), and now the Hibbert Journal, one of the enterprises of the Hibbert Trust, founded by Robert Hibbert (1770-1849) and originally designated the Anti-Trinitarian Fund. This came into operation in 1853, awards scholarships and fellowships, supported (1878-1894) an annual lectureship, and has maintained (from 1894) a chair of ecclesiastical history at Manchester College. The general activities of the body are conducted partly by its association (Essex Street, Strand), partly by its (triennial) National Conference, established 1882. It has two weekly papers, the Inquirer and the Christian Life.
Scotland.—Much has been made of the execution (1697) at Edinburgh of the student Thomas Aikenhead, convicted of blaspheming the Trinity. The works of John Taylor, D.D. (1694-1761) on original sin and atonement had much influence in the east of Scotland, as we learn from Robert Burns; and such men as William Dalrymple, D.D. (1723-1814) and William M‘Gill, D.D. (1732-1807), along with other “moderates,” were under suspicion of similar heresies. Overt Unitarianism has never had much vogue in Scotland. The only congregation of old foundation is at Edinburgh, founded in 1776 by a secession from one of the “fellowship societies” formed by James Fraser, of Brea (1639-1699). The mission enterprises of Richard Wright (1764-1836) and George Harris (1794-1859) produced results of no great permanence. There are now seven congregations. The Scottish Unitarian Association was founded in 1813, mainly by Thomas Southwood Smith, M.D., the sanitary reformer. The McQuaker Trust was founded (1889) for propagandist purposes.
Ireland.—Controversy respecting the Trinity was excited in Ireland by the prosecution at Dublin (1703) of Thomas Emlyn (see above), resulting in fine and imprisonment, for rejecting the deity of Christ. In 1705 the Belfast Society was founded for theological discussion by Presbyterian ministers in the north, with the result of creating a body of opinion adverse to subscription to the Westminster standards. Toleration of dissent, withheld in Ireland till 1719, was then granted without the requirement of any doctrinal subscription. Next year a movement against subscription was begun in the General Synod of Ulster, culminating (1725) in the placing of the advocates of non-subscription, headed by John Abernethy, D.D., of Antrim, into a presbytery by themselves. This Antrim presbytery was excluded (1726) from jurisdiction, though not from communion. During the next hundred years its members exercised great influence on their brethren of the synod; but the counter-influence of the mission of the Scottish Seceders (from 1742) produced a reaction. The Antrim Presbytery gradually became Arian; the same type of theology affected more or less the Southern Association, known since 1806 as the Synod of Munster. From 1783 ten of the fourteen presbyteries in the General Synod had made subscription optional; the synod's code of 1824 left “soundness in the faith” to be ascertained by subscription or by examination. Against this compromise Henry Cooke, D.D. (1788-1868), directed all his powers, and was ultimately (1829) successful in defeating his Arian opponent, Henry Montgomery, LL.D. (1788-1865). Montgomery led a secession
