tory, did not make an open profession of the doc-Y trine of the Trinity; at all events, they did not make the profession of this or any other tenet not to be found in the scripture an essential requisite to admission into their community. Their most eminent and distinguished writer, W. Penn, in his "Sandy Foundation Shaken," has given as clear a view of the pure Unitarian doctrine, and as able an examination of many of the texts commonly adduced in support of the opposite system, as is any where to be found. The monthly meeting at Philadelphia, in their correspondence with George Keith (an active heresiarch, who had been endeavouring to sow divisions among them, and who, having afterwards seceded, was ordained a clergyman of the established church), declare their determination to keep to the plainness and simplicity of scripture language in all discourses about matters of faith, divinity, and doctrine; not believing subjects above the investigation of human reason and knowledge to be necessary to salvation, further than they are clearly revealed in the scripture. The declaration of their faith on these points presented to both Houses of Parliament, as preserved in Sewell's History of the Quakers, is strictly and properly Unitarian.* Their descendants in this country have for the most part deserted the faith and practice of their forefathers in this respect; and have not only adopted in their public declarations the tenets and language of

See the Monthly Repository, viii. 647. For a collection of prayers delivered by twelve preachers of note in this society towards the close of the 17th century, expressed for the most part in terms which no Unitarian would hesitate to use, see the same publication, vol. ix. 167.

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modern orthodoxy, but in various instances have not hesitated formally to expel from their body. those who adhered to the sentiments and professions of its original founders. In America it would appear that an influence of an opposite kind has been in operation, the liberal principles of the founders having carried a great majority into an open avowal of Unitarianism, while a Trinitarian minority has seceded.

If there could before have been any rational doubt entertained as to the religious opinions of Mr. Locke, the extracts from his Adversaria Theologica, inserted in the life of this great man by the late Lord King, must have completely removed them. We find there a statement of the arguments relied on by the opposite parties, expressed in terms, and drawn up in a form, which could have been used only by one who had already pretty decidedly made up his mind on the question in debate. On this subject, however, no one can doubt who reads with attention and impartiality his wellknown treatise entitled "The Reasonableness of Christianity," which is "just such a treatise as a Unitarian would, and as no Trinitarian could by possibility, have written," or who observes the obvious tendency of many of the criticisms in his valuable and excellent Commentary on several of St. Paul's Epistles. It has even been said that he was the author of one of the papers published at this period, and collected under the title of Socinian tracts; but of this there is no sufficient evidence.

Another layman, of still greater eminence and celebrity, Sir Isaac Newton, who likewise devoted a large portion of his time and thoughts

to theological studies, especially in the latter part of his life, is also with good reason included in the catalogue of Unitarian worthies. The evidence, however, is less direct in his case than in that of Mr. Locke, and may, perhaps, be thought by some to be less decisive; a circumstance which may be accounted for partly by Newton's constitutional reserve and timidity, his great aversion to personal controversy, in which an open avowal of such opinions would almost inevitably have in- ! volved him,--and, perhaps, a not unreasonable apprehension of unpleasant consequences from the same parties who in his own time expelled his successor Whiston from the mathematical chair at Cambridge. But the manner in which he has stated the evidence for the true reading, in his very valuable treatise entitled "An historical Account of two remarkable Corruptions in the New Testament, 1 John v. 7, and 1 Tim. iii. 16," two of the main pillars of the received doctrine of the Trinity, on which, more than on any others, its less learned supporters are accustomed chiefly to rely; and this unaccompanied with any caveat, which a trinitarian critic would almost infallibly have added under such circumstances, but in surrendering a part of the evidence for orthodoxy he should be suspected of giving up the doctrine itself, would alone be sufficient ground for a strong suspicion that he had abandoned both the one and the other. We have, in addition to this, the direct testimony of Mr. Hopton Haynes, one of his most intimate associates during the latter part of his life, himself a very diligent student of scripture, and a zealous Unitarian,-that Newton was not only an anti-trinitarian, but much lamented that

his friend Dr. Clarke had stopped at Arianism, which opinion he feared had been, and still would be, if maintained by learned men, a great obstruction to the progress of Christianity.

Besides these distinguished men, whose names are an honour to any cause, there were, towards the close of the 17th century, not a few learned and able advocates of the pure simplicity of the Gospel; whose writings remain, though their names have been withheld from the knowledge of posterity. The authors of the Socinian tracts, already referred to, have left us a vindication of the genuine evangelical doctrine, which in many particulars may fairly be said to have exhausted the subject. To these publications we shall take another opportunity of adverting; at present it may be enough to observe, that the very circumstance of the extensive circulation of so many works of this description is in itself a strong ground for believing, that they did not fail to meet with numerous and willing readers. The impression they produced on the public mind was such as to alarm the patrons of received opinions; who were roused to come forward as usual, not with the spiritual armour of sound argument and fair discussion, but with the carnal weapons of pains and penalties. The statute enacted in King William's reign, against blasphemy, as it was called, provided that all persons denying that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were separately and distinctly God, or maintaining that there were more Gods than one, should be incapable of holding any office or place of trust, and for the second offence be disabled from bringing any action, or from acting as guardian, executor, legatee, or purchaser

of lands, and shall suffer three years' imprisonment without bail. Happily this statute seems to have been found from the first to be a step beyond what the improving spirit of the times would bear. Though there were many, both obscure and distinguished, who notoriously came within its danger, it does not appear to have been put in force against those whose only crime was speaking or writing against the doctrine of the Trinity, and it remained nearly a dead letter, till long after it had been actually swept from the statute book, when it occurred to the promoters of a recent attack on Presbyterian endowments to make it the basis of an argument not less inconclusive than it was illiberal and unjust.

The writers of these anonymous tracts approached most nearly to the system of Socinus; but in the succeeding age, the learning and high reputation of Clarke and Whiston in the Church of England, and of Emlyn and Peirce among the Dissenters, led the greater part of those who quitted the standard of orthodoxy to embrace the Arian hypothesis. This accordingly appears to have been the system generally adopted by most of the eminent lights of the rational dissenters who are commemorated in this volume. In the larger, and perhaps the juster, sense of the word, however, we include them all under the denomination of Unitarians, inasmuch as they agreed in the great principle of acknowledging one, and but one, object of supreme worship,-namely, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We may add, that, on whatever minor points they may have differed (as in fact it is scarcely possible that those who truly inquire and think for them