fi * " >, -,$a a ri 7 'I * as- h1in-g & t!estP; ton BrLLnch," LONDON t,. GEORGE ALLEN &' UNWIN- LID v- ' MUSEUM STREET FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1934 ACE * i& ITwas by invitation of The Hibbert Trustees, to whom all interested in "Christianity in its most simple and intel- indebted, that what follows lieibleV form" have long been was written. For the opinions expressed the writer alone is responsible. His aim has been to give some account of the work during two centuries of a small group of religious thinkers, who, for the most part, have been overlooked in the records of English religious life, and so rescue from obscurity a few names that deserve to be remembered amongst pioneers and pathfinders in more fields than one. Obligations are gratefully acknowledged to the Rev. V. D. Davis. B.A., and the Rev. W. H. Burgess, M.A., for a few fruitful suggestions, and to the Rev. W. Whitaker, I M.A., for his labours in correcting proofs. MANCHESTER October 14, 1933 At1 yigifs ~ese~vcd 1L' PRENTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY UNWIN BROTHERS LTD., WOKING CON TENTS A 7.. I. BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP' PAGE BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 1 3 iI. EDUCATION CONFORMIST ACADEMIES 111. THE MODERN UNIVERSITIES 111. JOURNALS AND WRIODICAL LITERATURE . THE UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTI:ON TO PERIODICAL . LITERATURE ?aEz . AND BIOGR AND BELLES-LETTRES 11. PHILOSOPHY 111. HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY I IV. LITERATURE ....:'. INDEX OF PERIODICALS "INDEX OF PERSONS p - INDEX OF PLACES :>$ ';: GENERAL INDEX C. A* - CHAPTER l BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 9L * KING of the origin of Unitarian Christianity in this country, James hiartineau said :I "There is one unorthodox influence so powerful and so extensively diffused as al~bst to supersede inquiry into the personal pedigree of ~n~ish Unitarianism-I mean, the English Bible," and, again, "The earlier Unitarians, not~ithstahdin~~theirrepute of ration- alism, drew their doctrines out of the Scriptures, much to their own surprise, and did not import it into them." Historically beyond cavil, these statements evoke the question, Why, then, did Unitarian opinions not sweep over the country like a mighty torrent instead of being represented only by isolated rivulets, once the English vecsion of the Scriptur ecame the priceless possession of the masses of the peop1?r 'in the century after the Reforma- tion? The answer is to be found in the characrer of that great movement. It did not abolish, but only qualified, the character of the creeds and catechisms of the Church, sub- scription to which was required of clergy and laymen alike, and these formulae not only professed to embody the - v doctrine of the Scriptures as interpreted by patristic and + ecclesiastical tradition, but also provided the limits within which alone the application of reason to Scripture was tolerated. Unitarian doctrine could only be discovered in the Bible by men who, in Martineau's phrase, had "the repute of rationalism"; in other words, by a few men of independent mind like John Bidle (I 6 I 6-62), sometimes called the "father of EngIish Unitarianism," who, as he said, "experienced Bonet-Maury, Ear& Sources of English Unitarian Christianity, Introduction, P. xii, 1884. L C *P BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 14 THE XJ~SITARIAN MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND 1s * - 9 his first doubts respecting the Trinity fn feading the e found in Scripture." In the Preface to his Bible." A' Sbe-4 Scrzptlre Divi~io,printed for the use of his .W? . These thinkers, refusing to be fettered in their inquiries he adjured his readers "to attend to evidence as by the decisions of councils and synods, formulated for if lies in the holy,scriptures, or in the nature of things and <W 4b themselves what afterwards was more widely recognised as the dictates of reason, to assent to nothing taught by him the principle of "the sufficiency of Scripture." This principle, except as it appeared to be supported and justified by proper after much controversy amongst Dissenters in the West of evidence from Revelation or the reason in things ;to suspect ~Jgland,was adopted in 1719 by a small majority of the or reject any principle or sentiment advanced by him wGZh Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists at the Salters' Hall afterwards upon careful examination should appear doubtful or false ;and finally to keep their minds always open to fresh ;A &, Synod, when an acrimonious debate resulted in a decision - 4 announced by a spectaior, Sir Joseph Jekyll, in the words : truth, to banish prejudice, and steadily to assert and fully "The Bible has it by four." allow to others the inalienable right of judgment and con- It was not mere hap or chance that the doctrine giving science." Later, Charles Wellbeloved, at Manchester College, rise to the dispute, whose settlement was the occasion of York (180j-40), "carefully read over with his students the the Synod, had first arisen in the Exeter Academy whole of the Old and New Testaments, and from these pure (1690?-1722). In the Nonconformist academies, or, more sources encouraged them, each for himself, to form his accurately, in the more liberal of them during the eighteenth own views of the important doctrines of revelation." He century, the principle of "the sufficiency of Scripture7' was never referred to commrntatop except for the purpose of implicitly or overtly accepted by tutors in their elucidation criucism, and taught Hebrew without points, nqt merely 3 of Christ~andoctrine. Calvinist tutors, or tutors supported to facilitate the study, but "under the reasonable Eonviction by a fund with a dogmatic basis, in their examination of that the Massoretic pointing when it pronounces upon a Scripture naturally adopted as at once a guiding and matter otherwise doubtful is only an element of interpre- restraining standard of judgment one or other of the tation." "At. the beginning of their Biblical studies he was current "schemes" or "bodies" of Divinity, which differed accustomed to read to each new class of students Dr. John Taylor's sole- charge, already quoted, formerly given at 'F 3:. 3 in important detail but not in principle from the articles and Warrington." bi? .$f catechisms of the Established Church or of the Westminster t. ~arliiranticipations of the same attitude towards Assembly. The most famous of these "schemes," however, -. that of Philip Doddridge, published posthumously in 1773 Scripture may be met with at Taunton (1670?-17~8), *' .. C. Hoxton (I701-8 j), Kendal (1 73 3-1 3), ~i&dern(I 71o?-g 4) and used even ih manuscript in many academies, by its and elsewhere.1 numerous references to authors of differing opinions, easily c. -S lent itself to a somewhat free interpretation of Scripture. Unintelligent reading of the Bible by men of little or no c education has frequently given rise to singular and even wiJd -*The more candid principle of free inquiry was first clearly opinions, alike political and doctrinal, as in the period of the enunciated by John Taylor, D.D., Tutor at Warrington Commonwealth in England and hardly less in the America Academy, 1717-61, who had "discovered that many points , of theological doctrine, which were universally accepted, McLdchlan, Edzlcation Under the Test Acts, p. 27. A - .+W this is the fountain head. What Spinoza is to the school of Alx. Gordon, art. The So~~inzand Their ~chool,Theological Review, 1879, P*542. Ibid., p. 544. C.;; . Unitarian dfovcuzmt I. ' - 't " B. .a -* ?-X... 7'' - "LICAL SCHOLARSHIP $: I9 Testamenti, published posthumously without date or place om a few men like John Bidle, once of publication c. 1600, which ran tEfour editions, the last in h Socinian Witings, and Paul Best, who had $4 1670, set forth six arguments against the apostolic author- mmhd in Hungary and Poland, both Independents, it -*; ship-of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The second edition is mppndoxically enough, within the pale of the Established ; kno&n to have circulated in England. The same critical that the first attempt was made to employ Soeinian view, now generally accepted, was argued at length by John methods of Scriptural study, and, anticipating the Modernists Crell (I jg0-16~~)~a German scholar who became Rector of the twentieth century, to find room within Anglicanism of the Socinian College at Rakow, Poland. His works form for rational and even frankly Unitarian theology. part of the nine folio volumes,yf the BibZiotheca Fratrum Before the dawn of the eighteenth century, a number of ** @ ,& Polonorum quo~Unitarios uocant, 1665. The commentary on Anglicans, clergymen f& the most part, writing anony- v-- kebrews in this collection was written by Jonas Schlicht- mwsly and calling themselves Unitarians, a term only ' ing, but in his Preface he acknowledges that Crell was recently introduced into England,' in defiance of the law associated with him in such a way that he is bound to ascribe subjected to severe criticism the current doctrines of the the chief merit to him. We may therefore attribute to Crell Trinity, pointed to Unitarianism as-the way out of the the views set forth in the Prolegomena. Therein are con- Trinihcontroversy then raging, and incidentally adopted trasted the style, form, and doctrine of the letter with those mcrhuds Pad principles of Biblical criticism, derived in the of the Pauline Epistles, the absence of ascription to Paul in & km Socinian writings, without subscribing to the manuscripts is noted, and the arguments for apostolic Sociaion ddesh their ebety. The works of Socinus authorship controverted, and, finally, the theory that and hi8 school had made their way in the seventeenth Hebrews was written in Hebrew by Paul and translated by century into England from Holland, where heterodox Luke is examined and rejected. opinions enjoyed a considerable measure of toleration.