Trinity. Three of the number were apprehended, one of whom died in prison, and the other two were put to death at Venice. The rest, comprising several of the names afterwards the most distinguished in this cause, effected their escape. Among them appears to have been Lælius Sozziri, or the elder Socinus, a native of Sienna, in Tuscany. After the dispersion of his friends at Vicenza, he withdrew to Zurich, from which place he travelled through various countries of Europe, and, among others, at two different times, into Poland, where he is said to have converted to his opinions the confessor of the queen. He wrote largely upon the Trinity, as afterwards appeared from manuscripts left in the possession of his nephew, but published nothing, and died a natural death at Zurich, at the age of thirty-seven. The inconveniences which Unitarians had hitherto encountered in avowing their faith, naturally leading them to look for some common retreat, their attention was directed to Poland, in consequence of the free institutions of that kingdom, and the lax sentiments of toleration which were attributed to its reigning monarch, Sigismund II. A large portion of the reformed clergy of Poland ranked themselves in their number, as early as 1565, in which year they were separated from the communion of the Calvinists and Lutherans. The period of their prosperity now began. They were included within the pacta conventa, or grant of freedom of worship. Their discordant opinions on minor points became harmonized, partly under the influence of Faustus Socinus, nephew of Lælius, who established himself among them in 1579, and, though at first received coldly, soon acquired the ascendency due to an earnest and disinterested character and singular powers of mind. From their settle.nent at Racow, where they had a college, which, at one time, numbered more than a thousand students, and from other places, they sent out numerous learned publications, spreading their views of the Christian system far and wide. In every part of the kingdom they had churches; and among their adherents were numbers of the principal nobility. The most accessible monument which remains of the abilities and erudition of their writers is in the collection called Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, made in 8 vols., folio, by Andrew Wissowatius and others, and containing works of the two Socini, Schlicting, Wolzogen, Crellius, Przipcovius and Wissowatius; to which,

in some copies, is found added a volume of writings of Brenius. Measures which followed, of combined hostility against them on the part of Catholics and other Protestants, were favored by the unsettled state of Poland during the seventeenth century. The disorderly conduct of some students of the college at Racow, who had broken down a cross at one of the gates of the town, was seized on for the occasion of severe measures of coercion; and, though the offenders were punished, and every satisfaction for the outrage offered by their parents and the governors of the college, this did not prevent the passage of a decree, by the diet of Warsaw, for the church and college to be closed, the press to be stopped, and the professors sent into exile. This decree was followed, through the twenty succeeding years, by others, with provisions more severe, till, in 1658, the Unitarians were forbidden, under pain of death, publicly to solemnize their worship, or profess their sentiments, and required to attach themselves, within three years, to the Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinistic communion, or quit the kingdom; and, in 1660, the time allowed in this alternative for disposing of their property, and making other arrangements for expatriation, was further abridged by a decree making immediate outlawry the penalty of delay. In the dispersion which followed, some went to England, some to different states of Germany, some to Holland (where the Bibliotheca, above mentioned, was published, and where, before ›ng, they became merged in the body monstrants), and some to Transy nia.— They continued to be known as a distinct community only in this latter country, where, under the auspices of George Blandrata, a Piedmontese physician, and a friend of Faustus Socinus, their doctrine had appeared not long after the period of its rise in Poland, and had beeu favored, in like manner, by a system of toleration, pursued by two successive monarchs. But, whether from other. causes, or owing to the toleration being limited to a particular form of the Unitarian doctrine (involving the obligation of invoking Christ), the number of professors never became large. The Unitarian still remains one of the four communions recognised by the Austrian government of Transylvania. According to the Conversations-Lexicon, it consists of 50,000 persons, divided among 164 churches, governed by a superintendent and two consistories. At Clausenburg, their prin

Re

cipal seat, and at Thoarda, they have schools. The most considerable publication which has proceeded from them, is the Explicationes Locorum Vet. et Nov. Test. ex quibus Trinitatis Dogma stabiliri solet, by George Enjedinus, their third superintendent. The most recent formal exposition of their views is believed to be found in the Summa Universæ Theologia secundum Unitarios (Clausenburg, 1784), attributed to professor Marcos.-In Holland, Erasmus John, rector of the college of Antwerp, published, in 1585, an anonymous work, favoring this system, entitled Antithesis Doctrina Christi et Antichristi de Uno Vero Deo. He was forthwith banished. Thirteen years after, Ostorode and Voidove, for similar publications, were ordered, by the states-general, to leave the United Provinces within ten days, and their writings to be burned. Brandt, as quoted by Mosheim, says that, when the multitudo had assembled to witness the execution of the latter part of the sentence, the books were no where to be found. The magistrates were curious to examine them, and had divided them among themselves and their friends. In 1627, Adolphus Venator, minister of Almaer, was banished for composing a work which savored of Socinianism, quod portenta Sarmatica saperet. It being still found, however, that there were many Unitarians in Holland, magnam in his terris Socinianorum messam esse (L'Amy), the synods of the Seven Provinces sent a delegation to the states-general, urging the necessity of further measures; whereupon that body, after consulting the divines of Leyden, issued an edict, bearing date September 19, 1653, forbidding the profession of the Socinian heresy, and the holding of its assemblies, under pain of banishment for the first offence, and punishment at discretion for the second. But-whether it was owing to impressions made by the Apology of Schlicting, published in the next year, to the opposition of public sentiment, to the numbers of the Unitarians themselves, or to the apparent inconsistency of the edict with the principles of toleration already asserted by the statesgeneral in several treaties, as well as in their articles of union-it does not appear to have been carried into rigid execution. To mention no other single names than those of Episcopius, Grotius, Le Clerc, and Wetstein, there has probably been always a large number of Unitarians among the Remonstrants of Holland. But the Remonstrants have not published their opinions freely, being, at all times, a de

pressed sect. Their ministers at one period were deprived, and at another banished; and, till the Dutch revolution in 1795, no Remonstrant could hold a public office, or be a professor in the universities, or a teacher in the public schools. A relaxation of attachment to hitherto current opinions may be inferred from the fact, that, in 1817, on the recovery of Dutch independence, an assembly of professors and divines was convened, which permitted candidates for the ministry to profess and teach the articles of the synod of Dort, as far as they are in accordance with the Bible. More recent publications of that country show that Unitarian opinions have there disseminated themselves to no inconsiderable extent.-Unitarianism in England dates almost as far back as the earliest translation of the Bible. Strype, in his Memoirs of Archbishop Cranmer, says, "There were other heresies now (1548) vented abroad, as the denial of the Trinity and the Deity of the Holy Ghost ;" and, two years after, the same writer reports, "Arianism now showed itself so openly, and was in such danger of spreading further, that it was thought necessary to suppress it by using more rugged methods than seemed agreeable to the merciful principles of the profession of the gospel." In 1551, a German, named George van Paris, was burned at London, for this heresy, and, four years after, another person, at Uxbridge. Joan Bocher, sometimes called the maid of Kent, was a more distinguished victim. She was a lady of family and education, and of heroic courage. Alluding to an opinion entertained by her concerning the corporeal substance of the Savior, "It is a goodly matter," said she to her judges,

66

Ed

to consider your ignorance. Not long ago, you burned Ann Askew for a piece of bread, and yet came yourselves to believe and profess the same doctrine for which you burned her. And now, forsooth, you will needs burn me for a piece of flesh; and, in the end, you will come to believe this also, when ye have read the Scriptures, and understand them." (Southey's Book of the Church.) ward VI could hardly be prevailed upon to consent to her execution, and signed the warrant, saying to Cranmer that he must be responsible for the sin. Under James I, a large number of persons, some of them of rank and consideration, were executed for the same offence. In Cromwell's time, they seem generally to have had milder treatment. Biddle, their leader, was at last, however, thrown by the

dictator into prison, where he died in 1662. The posthumous work of Milton, first published in 1825, shows him to have adopted their sentiments. An act of the long parliament, in 1648, making the profession of Unitarianism a felony, was so far mitigated, after the revolution, by statutes of the eighth and ninth of William III, as to make the offence punishable, in the first instance, by certain civil disabilities, and, in the second, by three years' imprisonment, and virtual outlawry. These statutes were not repealed till 1813. In the latter part of the seventeenth, and the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, besides other names of the first distinction, their claim to which is disputed, we find, among avowed English Unitarians, those of Firmin, Emlyn, Whiston, Samuel Clarke, and Lardner; and, to go higher, of Locke and Newton. Towards the close of the last century, several clergymen of the established church (Lindsey, Jebb, Wakefield, Disney, and others) resigned their benefices, in consequence of having adopted Unitarian views, while, at the same time, among numerous converts from the dissenting sects, appeared the names of doctors Priestley, Price, Aikin, Rees, and others of scientific and literary note. The English body of the three denominations, as it is called, is composed of the Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists. Of that portion of the latter class called General Baptists, a majority are acknowledged Unitarians. Such was, towards the close of his life, Robert Robinson, the author of the Village Sermons, and doctor Toulmin, the learned editor of Neal's History of the Puritans; and the Presbyterian churches, throughout England, are understood to be, with scarcely an exception, occupied by congregations of this sort. Their number was reckoned, ten years ago, at more than two hundred. (Unit. in Ang. Fid. Hist. Stat. Præsent. Brev. Expos.) In the Presbyterian churches in the north of Ireland, a vehement controversy has been carried on within the two or three last years, the event of which is understood to have been to detach about forty churches from the body of that communion, and unite them, as professed Unitarians, into a society of their own, consisting of several presbyteries. There are also congregations of this character in Dublin, and in other southern cities of the kingdom. In Scotland, there are Unitarian chapels in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other principal places. Among the leading periodical

publications devoted to this cause in Great Britain, are the Monthly Repository, printed in London; the Christian Reformer and Reflector, at Liverpool; and the Christian Pioneer, in Glasgow. There is a Scottish Unitarian Association lately formed; and the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, meeting annually at London, serves for a bond of union for professors of the belief throughout the three kingdoms. The principal supply of ministers is from Manchester college, at York; others come from the Scotch universities, and from that of Dublin.-As early as 1690, some English ministers complained to a synod, convened at Amsterdam, of the growing heterodoxy of the Genevan church. The first public measure of importance in the connexion, was a decree of the Company of Pastors, in 1725, dispensing candidates for ordination from subscription to the Helvetic confession, and substituting for this a profession of holding "the true doctrine of the holy prophets and apostles, as comprised in the books of the Old and New Testaments, and summarily set forth in the catechism." Vernet, theological professor in the academy, published, not long after, his disbelief in the consubstantiality of the Son. In 1757, the article Geneva, in the French Encyclopædia, announced, that "many of the ministers disbelieved the divinity of Jesus Christ, of which Calvin, their leader, was the zealous defender." In 1788, the catechism of Calvin was superseded by another, of a character to indicate the justness of this statement. In 1807, a liturgy, expurgated upon Unitarian principles, was substituted for that anciently in use; and, two years earlier, a professedly amended version of the Scriptures, which had been in preparation upwards of a century, was published under the authority of the Venerable Company of Pastors. At the present time, the twenty-seven pastors of the established church of the canton are understood, with two or three exceptions, to hold to Unitarian opinions. A controversy on the subject broke out in 1816, which, though much discouraged by the magistrates, continues to the present time. M. Chenevière, rector of the academy, the most distinguished writer of the dom inant party, published, in 1831, an Essai du Systéme Théologique de la Trinité, and an Essai du Péché original, in which are argued, at length, Unitarian views upon these points.-In America, Unitarian opinions appear (president Adams's letter to doctor Morse) to have been extensively

adopted in Massachusetts as early as the middle of the last century. In 1756, Emlyn's Humble Inquiry into the Scripture Account of Jesus Christ, was published in Boston, chiefly, it is said, by the agency of doctor Mayhew, of the West church, and came into wide circulation. One of the three Episcopal churches of that city adopted, in 1785, a liturgy excluding the recognition of the Trinitarian doctrine. In 1805, attention was extensively drawn to the subject by several publications, occasioned by the appointinent of a distinguished Unitarian to the divinity chair of the university of Cambridge. In 1816, the controversy was revived by a republication, in this country, of a chapter from Mr. Belsham's Life of Lindsey, with the title American Unitarianism. Up to this time, the doctrine had been hardly discussed out of New England, though a small society, dating from the visit of doctor Priestley, in 1794, existed in Philadelphia. In 1819, a congregation was gathered in Baltimore; and others now exist in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Charleston, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and other principal cities of the Union. The number of churches organized according to the Congregational form is reckoned at from 170 to 200. Their ministers are chiefly furnished from the divinity college of the university of Cambridge, in Massachusetts. Among the periodical publications which announce their views are the Christian Examiner, the Scriptural Interpreter, and the Unitarian Advocate, printed in Boston; the Unitarian Monitor, at Dover, N. H.; the Christian Monitor, at Brooklyn, Conn.; and the Unitarian Essayist, at Meadville, Penn. The annual reports of the American Unitarian Association, the government of which is established in Boston, circulate information respecting the progress of the doctrine. Besides the Congregational Unitarians, the denomination called Christians, which is numerous, particularly in the Western States, reckoning, in 1827, from 700 to 1000 churches (letter of General Christian Conference, in Christian Examiner, vol. iv), maintains Unitarian opinions; and they are understood also to prevail in the large sect of the Reformed Baptists, in the same region of the country.-In France, many of the Protestant clergy reject the Trinitarian scheme of Christian doctrine. The tone of their principal publication, the Revue Protestante, is hostile to it; and the principal sources of supply for the ministry of the French churches, are the

schools of Geneva and Montauban where the Unitarian system has ascendency. A society was forined last year, at Paris, called the Unitarian Association of France.

In British Asia, a native society of Unitarian Christians has existed, for several years, at Madras, under the care of William Roberts, a native; but a much more remarkable developement of opinion of this kind occurred in the case of the distinguished Bramin, Rammohun Roy, of Calcutta, who, in his publications in English, called the Precepts of Jesus, and First, Second and Final Appeal to the Christian Public, has directed the thoughts of numbers of his countrymen to the subjects therein proposed, and, since 1827, has been associated with conspicuous individuals of the native and European population, in the support of Christian worship according to the Unitarian faith.-Unitarians profess to derive their views from Scripture, and to make it the ultimate arbiter in all religious questions,thus distinguishing themselves from the Rationalists (otherwise called the Anti-supernaturalists) of Germany. They undertake to show that, interpreted according to the settled laws of language, the uniform testimony of the sacred writings is, that the Holy Spirit has no personal existence distinct from the Father, and that the Son is a derived and dependent being, whether, as some believe, created in some remote period of time, or, as others, beginning to live when he appeared on earth. Three of the passages of the New Testament, which have been relied on to prove the contrary (1 John v, 7; 1 Tim. iii, 16; and Acts xx, 28), they hold, with other critics, to be spurious. Others (as John i, 1, &c.; Romans ix, 5) they maintain to have received an erroneous interpretation. They insist that ecclesiastical history enables them to trace to obsolete systems of heathen philosophy the introduction of the received doctrine into the church, in which, once received, it has been sustained on grounds independent of its merits; and they go so far as to aver that it is satisfactorily refuted by the biblical passages, when rightly understood, which are customarily adduced in its support. According as their distinguishing doctrine has been professed in different times and places, it has been found in connexion with various others, which have been prominent subjects of controversy in the church, as those which respect the manner of baptism, philosophical liberty and necessity, the methods of Christ's media tion, &c. The Unitarians (sometimes

called Socinians) of Poland held to the obligation of invoking Christ-a view which no Unitarians of the present day, out of Transylvania, are believed to entertain. In America, Unitarian opinions are much divided upon the point of Christ's preexistence; while, on the other hand, the rejection of the tenet of his vicarious suffering (or suffering as men's substitute), along with that of his supreme Deity, appears to be universally characteristic of the sect. (See Bock, Historia Antitrinitari

VOL. XII.

51

orum; Lubieniecius, Historia Reformationis Polonice; Lampe, Historia Ecclesia Hungarica; Benko, Transylvania; Maimbourg, History of Arianism; L'Amy, History of Socinianism; Rees, Racovian Catechism.)

Unitarians is also sometimes used, in politics, to designate a party in favor of a central government, in contradistinction to one in favor of a federal government. Thus we hear of the Unitarians in Buenos Ayres.