83 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Unitarians
ner, Isaac Watts, and Philip Doddridge (qq.v.). The first chapel with the Unitarian name was founded in Essex Street, London, in 1778 by Theophilus Lindsey (q.v.), who on the refusal of parliament (1772) to receive a petition for the relaxation of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles (q.v.) had resigned his living in Catterick, Yorkshire. In his London Chapel he used Clarke’s revision of the English liturgy. Lindsey was aided by the sympathy of Presbyterians, who had made their chapels built since 1688 free from dogmatic restrictions, and, seeking conformity with the Bible alone, had relinquished Calvinistic views and the doctrine of the Trinity. The decisive influence in this change was exercised by the eminent scientist, publicist, and theologian, Joseph Priestley (q.v.). As an avowed Socinian Priestley ministered to congregations in Leeds (1768-80) and Birmingham (1780-91). His expression of favor for the French Republic led to an attack by a Birmingham mob in 1791, who burned his chapel and destroyed his house, books, and scientific instruments. In 1794 he removed to Northumberland, Penn., where he organized a Unitarian church and where he died in 1804. His prolific authorship gave an impetus to the Unitarian cause. The successor of Priestley in Birmingham and of Lindsey in London (1795) was Thomas Belsham (q.v.), who sought to make “‘ the simple and proper humanity of Christ ’’ the acknowledged Unitarian view. Another notable leader was Lant Carpenter (q.v.), preacher in Bristol. In 1813 the legal disabilities of Unitarians were removed and in 1825 the British and Foreign Unitarian Association was formed by a union of Presbyterian and Baptist churches to which were later joined small Methodist groups like the ‘“ Christian Brethren.’”’ By the Dissenters’ Chapels Act of 1844 the possession of ancient endowments and chapels was secured. The national conference, a purely deliberative body, was founded in 1881. In 1911 there were 378 ministers, and 374 churches, of which 295 arein England. Theological instruction is given in Manchester College, Oxford, and the Home Missionary College at Manchester. The Hibbert Fund, instituted by Robert Hibbert, a Jamaica planter (died 1849), has promoted scholarship and established relations with the theological liberalism of the continent. To this foundation are due the famous Hibbert lectures (q.v.) and the Hibbert Journal (since Oct., 1902). Welsh Unitarianism began with the Arminian revolt from Calvinism of Jenkin Jones in Llwynrhydowen in 1726. His successors adopted Arian views. There are thirty-four churches in South Wales and a college at Carmarthen. Irish Unitarianism began in 1726, when the presbytery of Antrim separated from the general synod in order to establish worship without subscription to creed. In 1830 the Remonstrant Synod of Ulster was formed on similar principles, and in 1835 an Association of Irish Non-Subscribing Presbyterians united these free churches. There are thirty-eight churches, chiefly in the counties of Antrim and Down. In Scotland there are seven churches, the oldest (Edinburgh) dating from 1776. ;
In America the avowal of Unitarian views began
in 1785, when, at the persuasion of its pastor, James
Freeman (q.v.), King’s Chapel, the oldest Episcopal church in Boston, omitted from the Book of Common Prayer all reference to the Trinity
5. Unita- and to the deity of Christ. The chief rianism in origin of American Unitarianism, how- America. ever, was in the Congregational parishes of Eastern Massachusetts,
where Arminian tendencies began before the middle of the eighteenth century. Aversion to creedal control and a strict adherence to Biblical teaching differentiated these churches from those responsive to the new Calvinism of the school of Jonathan Edwards (q.v.). While individuals criticized the doctrine of the Trinity, the topic was not debated in sermons and publications, and the growing liberalism directed itself mainly against the Calvinist view of human nature. The division of Congregationalism came to pass through the efforts of Jedidiah Morse and others to organize the independent congregations into a denomination with a prescribed creed and a polity admitting close relations to the Presbyterian general assembly. This aggressive element founded the Andover Theological School (1808), secured the election of orthodox pastors in and near Boston, and began to refuse the fellowship of pulpit exchanges with the liberals. Its literary organ was The Panoplist (1805-20). Liberalism controlled Harvard University, had eloquent preachers in Joseph Stevens Buckminster and William Ellery Channing (qq.v.) and literary organs in the Monthly Anthology (1803 sqq.) and the Christian Disciple (1813 sqq.). While Morse’s plan to Presbyterianize the church polity was rejected by his associates (1815), he provoked a crisis by a sensational exposure of the progress of Unitarian views and by summoning the orthodox to separate from the liberals (1815). As spokesman of the latter group Channing made a sharp protest against the ““ system of exclusion and denunciation,” but orthodox secession from liberal parishes began (about 80 divisions 1815-35) and new churches were founded with the avowal of Unitarianism. Recognizing the breach as inevitable, Channing boldly challenged his opponents by his Baltimore sermon on ‘‘ Unitarian Christianity ’’ (1819) and his Moral Argument against Calvinism (1820). In 1820 the first step to the association of liberals was taken by the beginning of the Berry Street conference of ministers in Boston. The American Unitarian Association was formed in 1825 for the work of church extension, but for a long time was feebly supported, as the free congregations were averse to the building of a denomination. During the Civil War the experience of Unitarians with the concerted task of organizing and conducting the Sanitary Commission gave new vigor and enthusiasm to the work of the Unitarian Association and led to the first representative convention of the churches in New York, 1865, with the formation there of the National Conference of Unitarian and other Christian Churches. Suggestions of a creed were rejected, but many were dissatisfied with what they regarded as an implied creed in the name of the conference and the preamble of its constitution. This discontent became a distinction of eastern and western views. A Western Unitarian Conference had been founded in 1852 with
Unitarians THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 84
United Brethren in Christ
very conservative utterances respecting the office of Jesus and the significance of miracles, but it had broadened its basis, and in 1875 welcomed “‘ all who desire to work with it in advancing the kingdom of God.” ‘These differences were harmonized by the action of the national conference at Saratoga in 1894, which made its preamble declare: ‘ these churches accept the religion of Jesus, holding, in accordance with his teaching, that practical religion is summed up in love to God and love to man.”
In 1910 there were 504 societies in the United States and Canada, and the ministers enlisted in the fellowship were 538. There are theological schools at Meadville, Penn. (founded 1844) and Berkeley, Cal. (founded 1904). Students are also trained in the Harvard Divinity School, founded in 1817 and maintained as a Unitarian institution to 1878, when it became the undenominational theological school of Harvard University.
The latest phase of the Unitarian movement is the effort to increase cooperation among those in all lands ‘‘ who are striving to unite pure religion and perfect liberty.” The International Council organized for this purpose in Boston in 1900 has held congresses in London (1901), Amsterdam (1903), Geneva (1905), Boston (1907), and Berlin (1910).
Unitarian religious thought has had successive phases. It began as a method of inquiry, the method
of Socinians and Arminians. No truth
6. Genius was allowed prior validity to the Bible,
of Uni- the Bible was interpreted by reason
tarianism. and conscience, and the results obtained from the Bible by this method
were held as historic revelation. The pioneer in a movement beyond this position was Channing. Refusing to characterize man by the sin which deprived him of his true being as man, he found the essence of human nature in the moral principle of disinterested justice and benevolence, which is soyereign over the whole self. Religion and virtue are the mind itself, are human nature, and nothing else. Therefore, ‘‘ we must start in religion from our own souls. In these is the fountain of all divine truth. An outward revelation is possible and intelligible only on the ground of conceptions and principles previously furnished by the soul.’ ‘“‘ We have faculties for the spiritual as truly as for the outward world.” A further development of this view with a polemic against dependence on miracle and mere Biblicism enabled Theodore Parker (q.v.) to inaugurate the freer critical historical valuation of the Bible and to rescue the movement from the rationalism of Locke’s school, while the more poetic and romantic transcendentalism of Emerson operated as a powerful stimulus to independent spiritual intuition and emancipation from convention and formula. All these leaders infused into the movement an ardor of mystical communion with God, without ecstasy or loss of self, and at the same time an active passion for all philanthropic reforms. Others, among whom James Freeman Clarke (q.v.) was of greatest eminence, united the insistence on inner personal grounds for faith with more historic feeling for the Christian past. The most eminent philosopher of the Unitarian school was James Martineau (q.v.),
who, with splendor of diction, speculative profundity, and intense ethical interest, elaborated a view of experience in which idealistic rationalism was blended with: a refined spiritual mysticism. The most complete exposition of Unitarian theology in a form related to the traditional dogmatics is found in James Drummond’s Studies in Christian Doctrine (London, 1908). Francis A. CHRISTIE.
BrBiioGRAPHY: On Unitarian history consult: W. Turner, Jr., Lives of Eminent Unitarians, with a Notice of Dissenting Academies, 2 vols., London, 1840-43; O. Fock, Socinianismus, i. 263-287, Kiel, 1847; R. Wallace, Anti- Trinitarian Biography, London, 1850; J. Ferenc, Kleiner Unitarierspiegel, Vienna, 1879; G. Bonet-Maury, Les Origines du christianisme unitaire chez les Anglais, Paris, 1881, Eng. transl., Early Sources of English Unitarian Christianity, London, 1884; J. Stoughton, Religion in England, 1800-60, i. 23, 211 sqq., ib. 1884; G. d’Alviella, Religious Thought in England, America, and India, ib. 1885; A. H. Drysdale, Hist. of the Presbyterians in England, i. 522 sqq., 622 saqq., ib. 1889; A. S. Dyer, Sketches of English Nonconformity, ib. 1893; J. H. Allen, in American Church History Series, vol. x., New York, 1894; A. Gordon, Heads of English Unitarian Hist., London, 1895; W. J. van Douwen, Socinianen en Doopsgezinden, 1569-1626, Leyden, 1898; G. E. Evans, Midland Churches; a Hist. of the Congregations on the Roll of the Midland Christian Union, Dudley, 1899; W. Lloyd, The Story of Protestant Dissent and English Unitarianism, London, 1899; W. C. Bowie, Liberal Religious Thought at the Beginning of the 20th Century, ib. 1901; G. W. Cooke, Unitarianism in America, Boston, 1903; W. G. Tarrant, The Story and Significance of the Unitarian Movement, ib. 1910; W. C. Bowie, Unitarian Churches in Great Britain and Ireland, London, 1905; Memorable Unitarians, ib. 1906; F. B. Mott, Short Hist. of Unitarianism, ib. 1906; H. Triepel, Unitarismus und Féderalismus im deutschen Reiche, Tiibingen, 1907; A. Rasmussen, Unitarismen, dens Historie og Theologi, Copenhagen, 1907; S. A. Eliot, Heralds of a Liberal Faith, 3 vols., Boston, 1909; The Fifth World Congress of Free Christians and Other Religious Liberals at Berlin . . . 1910, Boston, 1910; lLichtenberger, ESR, xii. 263-271.
For the doctrines consult: The writings of Joseph Priestley, W. E. Channing, J. Martineau, and M. J. Savage (qq.v.) and the literature under the articles on them; J. Wilson, Concessions of Trinitarians, Manchester, 1842; J. R. Beard, Unitarianism, Exhibited in its Actual Condition, London, 1846; J. F. Clarke, Orthodoxy, its Truths and Errors, Boston, 1870; R. B. Drummond, Free Thought and Christian Faith, Edinburgh, 1890; R. Bartram, Religion and Life, London, 1891; J. Wright, Denials and Beliefs of Unitarians, ib. 1901; T. R. Slicer, One World at a Time, New York, 1902; W. G. Tarrant, Unitarianism Restated, London, 1904; J. E. Manning, The Religion and Theology of Unitarians, ib. 1906; R. T. Herford, Unitarian A ffirmations, 2d ed., ib. 1909; J. P. Hoff, The Unitarians’ Justification, ib. 1910; E. Emerton, Unitarian Thought, New York, 1911.