UNION, HYPOSTATIC. See Christology, VI., 1;

TRINITY, II.

UNITARIANS.

Modern Doctrinal Position (§ 1).

Early and Medieval Unitarianism (§ 2).

In Poland and Hungary (§ 3).

British Unitarianism (§ 4).

Unitarianism in America (§ 5).

Genius of Unitarianism (§ 6).

Constituting an undogmatic religious fellowship, Unitarians have n~o frma~l,~;r,~,d. Freedom in church as in university is their funda I. Modern mental principle. Their ideal is the Doctrinal cultivation of spiritual life in a free Position. fellowship under the authority of rea son and conscience. Their h are constituted by a,_~nyPnant. ~f OW

the form of covenant recommended by t e national conference in the United States beille: " in the love of trn .~.t·. ~,.nd tl~n~;~;~,.1~.,.f~1zs~Chrua~ite

Without the constraint of creed Unitarians agree in affirmations of faith. Having abandoned the doctrine of man's total depravity and moral inabil ity, they assert the dignity, worth, and spiritual capacity of human nature. 4~TTn;no +.hc. n_rP t,__ nit of Jesu eration for him as La supreme inst~.n~P of mnn'a re ligious expenencg o~.~Sl,and as an inspiring prophet o agree and spiritual religion of love to God and man. Having early declared sound reason and his torical interpretation to be the standards for the use of Scripture, Unitarians h~,av~,fully adopt .d t a m~ethod d ,~,egnclusions of BibBud lical cr~' ' av ue Lri0 1 ~hns~~.,`i -~il"_ ~g,r`"~.~..~yc_J®"&1 I,~°`~Y~ 'o,~s enfe. Having discarded the Calvinist limitation of divine grace, Unitarians re affirmed the Gospel faith in the yv~rsal In~;na fath~,rhnnd of C*r,d.. and have related that faith to their view of human nature. Man is seen as bound to God by kinship of being, impelled by his own nature to seek communion with God and destined to enjoy God's constant indwelling presence with a consciousness like that of Christ. Salvation means the attainment of this divinely intended character of sonship to God in a perfect likeness to the divine

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character of love, and it is sought by growth through the exercise of the soul's highest powers, in which God communicates himself to man. Denying all dogmatic limitations of the Church, Unitarian's seek to realize as the chief end of human activity and the pllrpOSe Of_God'S UnIY.P-..TRFIl fa+.horhnnrl av ner-. fect brotherhood of food will. They devote themselves, therefore, to philanthropic activities and cherish faith in the nroeressivg__d_gy_ .lgy,~mgf all roan s hi~he ossibilities. This faith in the possibility of a perfect humanity engages their energy in the promotion of culture and of higher social living as requisite for the fullest nurture of the religious spirit. Unitarians see in the life after death the further unfolding of the eternal life now experienced in obedience to the divine will revealed in the holiest human ideals.

In the early church Unitarian conceptions of God ok the two forms of Sabellianism (see Monarchianism -_-: - (q ) ~V P I mNisac Onthan Adnntymsm. .v.. ~.tter, ha,S analOQ'leS to mnd rn TTnitarianiam_, a. Early and I,iy .~ived TPSUB as a znan invested Medieval w ith the spirit of God and exalted Unitarian- t ro~eat~ an .__ "~S~CtT~I' '` 1Q~t=ism. vine authority over,the conscience 9f ~'i_ifie Toeliexer was to b-a baptized as Christ was baptized, and to be ,a;d,Gtnt.Pri &s he JWtgd uW_s&zsh'~n ~. T.~.a~cendenev of the ', ou_~after 270 A.D. meant the defeat m A optiomsm in the Greek churches, but it had a continued life among the Paulicians (q.v.) of Armenia, and through their colonization of ,the Danube country (eighth and tenth centuries) found connection with the anti-ecclesiastical Evangelical movements of the West from the eleventh century onward. In the `Vest also the early Adoptionism had some continuity of life in spite of-the establishment of Nicene orthodoxy. Augustine was reared in this view and never lost the influence of it. There are traces of it in early British Christianity, and it was wide-spread in Spain even after ecclesiastics had attempted to reconcile it with the Nicene theology. The condemnation of Felix of Urgel by the Frankish Church (799 A.D.) and the later complete assimilation of the Spanish Church to Roman stand ards prevented the further development.

In the Reformation era reaction against the trinitarian dogma had sporadic manifestations, but in Poland, partly under Italian influence

3. In (e.g., Georgius Blandrata, q.v.), it was

Poland and one element in a concerted movement Hungary. to revise dogma by reason. After 1565 this rational Biblicism was the theology of a strong group of Polish churches, and in 1575 obtained the leadership of Fausi;us Socinus and the impress of his theological scholarship (see Socinus, Faustus, Socinians). Under Sigismund I. and II. Poland enjoyed religious toleration, and the Polish Unitarian church (college at Racow after 1600) developed great activity. Jesuit aggression culminated in the suppression of the college and churches (1638), and finally (1658) in a decree for the expulsion of Socinians from the realm. The exiles were eventually absorbed in the churches of Germany, Holland, and Transylvania. Unitarianism found advocates in Hungary through the influence of the

Italian Stancarus (1553) and the Hungarian Aran (1558), and its progress was promoted by the accession to the throne of John.Sigismund (i558) after years of exile spent at the Polish court and by the arrival of Blandrata from Poland as court physician. The chief leader of the movement was Franciscus Davidis (q.v.), who in 1556 had become head of the Lutheran church and college of the Magyar capital of Koloszvfir, and ten years later, when royal chaplain, adopted Unitarian doctrines. In 1568 Davidis was made bishop of the avowed Unitarian churches which by act of the diet at Torda in that year obtained freedom of worship in common with Lutheraas, Calvinists, and Catholics. Court favor ended with the advent to the throne of Stephen Bdthory, a Roman Catholic, and the diets of 1576 and 1577-restricted Unitarian synods to Koloszvdr and Torda. Unitarian strength was indicated by the Synod of Torda in Mar., 1578, which comprised 322 clergymen.

Since 1571 Davidis had.opposed prayer to Christ as an object of worship, but now, in 1578, met resistance from Rlandrata, who had begun to retreat from Unitarian views. 'In 1579 the Roman Catholic viceroy Christopher Bdthory placed Davidis under the surveillance of the magistrates and then, at the instance of Blandrata, condemned him to imprisonment for life as an innovator and blaspheme. Davidis' death (Nov. 15, 1579) in the dungeon of Ddva established him as a heroic martyr in the sympathies of the Hungarian churches. Though they still had legal existence, the Unitarians suffered hardship. Under Austrian rule, in 1716, their publications were forbidden, their churches confiscated, and all public office denied to them. Since the statute of 1791, which recognized the liberty of the four religions of Transylvania, they have grown moderately in numbers, and are in close fellowship with their coreligionists in England and America. The college at Kaloszvar has 4 professors and 25 students of theology. The number of congregations is 116.

Some of the English martyrs of the sixteenth century suffered for Arian views, but the first noteworthy expression of the spirit

. British and method of Unitarianism was The

Unitarian- Religion of Protestants a Safe Wayism. to Salvation (London, 1638), by William Chillingworth (q.v.), and the first conspicuous application of this method with express Unitarian results was made by John Biddle (q.v.), who under the Commonwealth gathered a society in London and published his views. In 1662 he was imprisoned for the third time, and soon died of prison disease. His writings were collected and published by his disciple Thomas Firmin in 1691 (The Faith of One GA. Although Unitarianism was excluded from the operation of the Toleration Act of 1689 (q.v.), while its advocates were threatened by the act of 1698 with loss of civil rights and imprisonment, Socinian and Arian views of the person of Christ found increasing favor in the course of the eighteenth century both in the Church of England and among dissenters. Noted instances of this tendency are Samuel Clarke (see Clarke, Samuel, 4), Nathaniel Lard-

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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 par-, liament (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 Lent 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 are in 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 Jour nal (since Oct., 1902). Welsh Unitarianism began with the Arminian revolt from Calvinism of Jenkin Jones in Llwynrhydowen in 1726. His successors adopted Arran views. There are thirty-four churches in South 'Vales 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. Uniterianism

and to the deity of Christ. The chief 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 liber alism directed itself mainly against the Calvinist view of human nature. The division of Congrega tionalism came to pass through the efforts of Jedi diah 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 con trolled Harvard University, had eloquent preach ers in Joseph Stevens Buckminster and William Ellery Charming (qq.v.) and literary organs in the Monthly Anthology (1803 sqq.) and the Christian Disciple (1813 sqq.). While Morse's plan to Pres byterianize the church polity was rejected by his associates (1815), he provoked a crisis by a sensa tional exposure of the progress of Unitarian views and by summoning the orthodox to separate from the liberals (1815). As spokesman of the latter group Charming made a sharp protest against the "system of exclusion and denunciation," but ortho dox 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, Charming 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 as sociation 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 congre-. gations were averse to the building of a denomination. During the Civil War the experience of Uni tarians 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 con vention 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 dis satisfied with what they regarded as an implied creed in the name of the conference and the preamble of its constitution. This discontent became a dis tinction of eastern and western views. A Western Unitarian Conference had been founded in 1852 with

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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).

6. Genius of Unitarianism.

Unitarian religious thought has had successive phases. It began as a method of inquiry, the method of Socinians and Arminians. No truth was allowed prior validity to the Bible, the Bible was interpreted by reason 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 sovereign 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 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 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, 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.

Bibliography: 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. Ferene, 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, 1800-50, 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 sqq., 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 Doopagezinden, 1559-1626, Leyden, 1898; G. E. Evens, 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, Unatarismus und Föderalismus im deutschen Reiche, Tübingen, 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; Lichtenberger, ESR, xii. 263-271.

For the doctrines consult: The writings of Joseph Priestley, W. E. Channing, J. Martineau, and M. J. Savage 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 Affirmations, 2d ed., ib. 1909; J. P. Hoff, The Unitarians' Justification, ib. 1910; E. Emerton, Unitarian Thought, New York, 1911.