Unitarianism · Chapter 2The Earlier Movement in England
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The rise of any considerable body of opinion opposed to the cardinal dogma of orthodoxy was preceded in England by a very strongly marked effort to secure liberty of thought, and a corresponding plea for a broadly comprehensive religious fellowship. The culmination of this effort, is reached, for the period first, to be reviewed, in the writings of John Locke (1632-1704). This celebrated man, by his powerful arguments for religious toleration and his defence of the 'reasonableness' of the Christian religion, exerted an influence of the most important kind. But we must reach him by the path of his predecessors in the same line. The principles of liberty of thought and the broadest religious fellowship are warmly espoused by Unitarians, and they look upon all who have advanced these principles as in spirit related to them, however different their respective theological conclusions may have been.
At the time of the Reformation a great deal of speculation broke forth on points hitherto closed by the Church's authority, including the fundamental doctrine of the Trinity. But, while this new ferment led to departures from the received opinions in many countries, especially in Poland and the Netherlands, the Protestant leaders maintained that upon the great articles of the creeds they were still one with Rome, and in fact they soon displayed an eagerness to stifle heresy. Men often fail to see the logic of their own position, and many who claimed the right to differ from Rome on points which Rome considered vital were unable to grant that others had an equal right to differ from Luther, Calvin, or an English State Church. The outrageous cruelty of Calvin towards the Anti-trinitarian Servetus, whom he caused to be burned at Geneva in 1553, affords a glaring instance of this inconsistency. But a sad proof is given that, about that time, even Anti-trinitarians themselves were not always tolerant.
Among the countries where the orthodox dogma was most freely questioned was Transylvania, adjacent to Hungary proper.
Here the sovereign, John Sigismund, took sides with the Anti-trinitarians, and issued in 1568 an edict permitting four recognized types of doctrine and worship—Romanist, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Unitarian. The Transylvanians were at this time largely under the influence of their Polish brethren in the faith, who still practised the invocation of Christ. Francis David, a powerful religious leader in Hungary, having arrived at a 'Humanitarian' view of Christ two centuries before it was held by English Unitarians, opposed Christ-worship. In 1579, when a Catholic had succeeded to the throne, David was denounced for an intolerable heretic by the Polish party, and, being imprisoned, died the same year. This blot on the record has long been deplored, and David is held in honour as a martyr by the Transylvanian Unitarian Church, which still flourishes, and forms a third member in alliance with the Unitarians of Great Britain and America. As, however, these Transylvanian (popularly called 'Hungarian') Unitarians had until the nineteenth century little or no connection with the English and Americans, and have not materially affected the development of the movement, we omit the details of their special history.
In England a number of Anti-trinitarians suffered burning in the sixteenth century, being usually, but loosely, described as 'Arians.' The last two in England who died by fire as heretics were men of this class. In March, 1612, Bartholomew Legate was burned at Smithfield, and a month later Edward Wightman had the same fate at Lichfield. So late as 1697 a youth named Pakenham was hanged at Edinburgh on the charge of heretical blasphemy. Although these were the only executions of the kind here in the seventeenth century, the evidence is but too clear that the authorities conceived it to be their duty to put down this form of opinion with the severest rigour. In a letter sent by Archbishop Neile, of York, to Bishop Laud, in 1639, reference is made to Wightman's case, and it is stated that another man, one Trendall, deserves the same sentence. A few years later, Paul Best, a scholarly gentleman who had travelled in Poland and Transylvania and there adopted Anti-trinitarian views, was sentenced by vote of the House of Commons to be hanged for denying the Trinity. The Ordinance drawn up in 1648 by the Puritan authorities was incredibly vindictive against what they judged to be heretical. Happily, Oliver Cromwell and his Independents were conscious of considerable variety of opinion in their own ranks, and apparently the Protector secured Best's liberation. It was certainly he who saved another and more memorable Unitarian from the extreme penalty.
This man was John Bidle, a clergyman and schoolmaster of Gloucester. His Biblical studies led him to a denial of the Trinity, which he lost no occasion of making public. During twenty years, broken by five or six imprisonments, he persisted in the effort to diffuse Unitarian teachings, and even to organize services for Unitarian worship. His writings and personal influence were so widely recognized that it became a fashion later to speak of Unitarians as 'Bidellians.' Cromwell was evidently troubled about him, feeling repugnance to his doctrine yet averse to ill-treat a man of unblemished character. In 1655, ten years after Bidle's first imprisonment, the Protector sent him to the Scilly Islands, obviously to spare him a worse fate, and allowed him a yearly sum for maintenance. A few months before Cromwell's death, he was brought back to London, and on being set at liberty at once renewed his efforts. Finally, he was caught 'conventicling' in 1662 and sent to gaol, and in September of that year he died.
The foregoing sufficiently illustrates the position confronting those who at that time openly avowed their departure from the Trinitarian dogma. Those who dared and suffered were no doubt but a few of those who really shared in the heretical view; the testimony of orthodox writers is all in support of this surmise. Equally clear is the fact that while the religious authorities were thus rigorous a steadily deepening undercurrent of opinion made for 'Latitude.' How far this Latitude might properly go was a troublesome question, but at any rate some were willing to advocate what many must have silently desired.
Apart from the extremists in the great struggle between High Church and Puritans there existed a group of moderate men, often of shrewd intellect, ripe scholarship, and attractive temper, who sought in a wider liberty of opinion an escape from the tyrannical alternatives presented by the two opposing parties. Even in connection with these very parties there were tendencies peculiar to themselves, which could not fail in the end to mitigate the force of their own contentions. The High Church was mostly 'Arminian,' i.e. on the side of the more 'reasonable' theology of that age. The Puritans were wholly committed to the principle of democratic liberty, as then understood, and in religious matters set the Bible in the highest place of authority. It could not be but that these several factors should ultimately tell upon the solution of the problem of religious liberty. But the immediate steps toward that solution had to be taken by the advocates of Latitude. Among them were Lord Falkland, John Hales, and William Chillingworth, the last of whom is famous for his unflinching protest that 'the Bible, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants,' a saying which was as good as a charter to those who based their so-called heresies on the explicit words of Scripture. In the second half of that seventeenth century the work of broadening the religious mind was carried forward by others of equal or even greater ability; it is sufficient here to name Jeremy Taylor among Churchmen, and Richard Baxter among Nonconformists.
There was, of course, a good deal of levity, the temper of the Gallio who cares for none of these things. But this was not the temper of the men to whom we refer. Their greatest difficulty, indeed, arose from their intense interest in religious truth. They could not conceive a State which should not control men's theology in some real way. Even Locke did not advocate toleration for the atheist, for such a man (in his opinion) could not make the solemn asseverations on which alone civil life could go forward. Nor would he tolerate the Roman Catholic, but in this case political considerations swayed the balance; the Catholic introduced the fatal principle of allegiance to a 'foreign prince.' Taking for granted, then, the necessity for some degree of State supervision of religion, how could this be rendered least inimical to the general desire for liberty?
The reply to this question brought them very close to the position taken up by Faustus Socinus long before, viz. that the 'essentials' of a Christian faith should be recognized as few and, as far as possible, simple. Of course, it is from his name that the term 'Socinian' is derived, a term that has often been applied, but mistakenly, to Unitarians generally. The repeated and often bitter accusation brought against the advocates of Latitude that they were 'Socinians,' or at least tainted with 'Socinianism,' renders appropriate some short account of Socinus himself.
This man was one of the sixteenth-century Italian Reformers who were speedily crushed or dispersed by the vigilance of the Inquisition. Those who escaped wandered far, and some were at different times members of the Church for 'Strangers,' or foreigners, to which Edward VI assigned the nave of the great Augustine Church, still standing at Austin Friars in the heart of the City of London. It is Interesting to observe here that a Dutch liberal congregation lineally inherits the place to-day. Careful investigation has shown that among the refugees here in the sixteenth century were some whose opinions were unsound on the Trinity; possibly they affected English opinion in some small degree. Loelius Socinus (1525-62), uncle of Faustus (1539-1604), was for a short time in London, but interesting thinker as he was, his nephew who never set foot in England really exerted much more influence upon English thought.
It was, however, in Poland especially that the influence of Faustus Socinus first became prominent. That country, then flourishing under its own princes, early became (as we have seen) the home of an Anti-trinitarian form of Protestantism. Socinus joined this group, and during the latter half of the sixteenth century effected much improvement among them, organizing their congregations, establishing schools, promoting a Unitarian literature. The educational work thus begun achieved great success; but in his own lifetime Socinus met with fierce opposition and even personal violence. He died in 1604; the Polish Unitarian Church fell under the persecution of both Catholics and orthodox Protestants, and was finally crushed out in 1660.
Important for our present study is the fact that the literary output of these Polish Socinians was both large and of high quality. Their 'Racovian Catechism' was translated into different languages, and early found its way into England. James I promptly had it burned, despite the fact that the Latin version was dedicated to himself! Other books and pamphlets followed, and even if we abate something as due to the exaggerating fears and suspicions of the authorities, there would seem to have been no time as the seventeenth century went on when Socinian literature was not widely circulated here, albeit at first in secret.
Into the details of this literature there is no need to go; it is sufficient to observe its outstanding features. They correspond in the main to the temper of the master mind, Socinus, a man who in the absence of imaginative genius displayed remarkable talent as a reasoner, and a liberal disposition considerably in advance of his times. The later Socinian writings, preserved in eight large volumes issued by the 'Polish Brethren' (Amsterdam, 1666), exhibit in addition the results of much diligent research and scholarship, in which the wide variety of opinion actually held by the Fathers and later Church authorities is proved, and the moral is drawn. In the presence of so much fluctuating teaching upon the abstruser points of the creeds was it not desirable to abandon the pretence of a rounded system complete in every detail? Would it not he better to simplify the faith—in other and familiar words, to reduce the number of 'essentials'? In order to discover these essentials, surely the inquirer must turn to the Bible, the record of that miraculous revelation which was given to deliver man's unassisted reason from the perils of ignorance and doubt. At the same time, man's reason itself was a divine gift, and the Bible should be carefully and rationally studied in order to gather its real message. As the fruit of such study the Socinians not only propounded an Anti-trinitarian doctrine derived from Scripture, but in particular emphasized the arguments against the substitutionary atonement as presented in the popular Augustinian scheme and philosophically expounded in Anselm's Cur Deus Homo. Socinus himself must be credited with whatever force belongs to these criticisms on the usual doctrine of the death of Christ, and it may be fairly said that most of the objections advanced in modern works on that subject are practically identical with those of three centuries ago.
Now there is good reason for believing that towards the end of the seventeenth century this Socinian literature really attracted much attention in England, and probably with considerable effect. But as a matter of fact no English translation of any part of it was made before John Bidle's propagandist activity in the middle of the century, and we have the explicit testimony of Bidle himself and most of the earlier Unitarians that they were not led into their heresy by foreign books. It was the Bible alone that made them unorthodox.
A famous illustration of this is the case of John Milton (1608-74). In 1823 a long-forgotten MS. of his was found in a State office at Westminster, and two years later it was published under the editorship of Dr. Sumner, afterwards Bishop of Winchester. The work is entitled A Treatise of Christian Doctrine. It was a late study by the poet, laboriously comparing texts and pondering them with a mind prepared to receive the verdict of Scripture as final, whether in agreement with orthodoxy or not.
The most ardent of Milton's admirers, and even the most eager Unitarian, must find the book a trial; but the latter can at least claim the author of Paradise Lost as an Anti-trinitarian, and the former may solace himself by noticing that here, as in all the rest, Milton's soul 'dwelt apart.' He emphatically denies that it was the works of 'heretics, so called,' that directed and influenced his mind on the subject. We may notice here the interesting fact that another great mind of that age, Sir Isaac Newton, has left evidence of his own defection from the orthodox view; and his correspondent John Locke, whose views appear to have been even more decided, is only less conspicuous on this point because his general services to breadth and liberality of religious fellowship are more brilliantly striking.
Locke's Plea for Toleration is widely recognized as the deciding influence, on the literary side, which secured the passage of the Toleration Act in 1689. Deferring for the moment further allusion to the position created by this Act, we must at once observe the scope of one of Locke's works which is not so popularly known. This is his Reasonableness of Christianity, which with his rejoinders to critics makes a considerable bulk in his writings. In pursuance of the aim to 'reduce the number of essentials' and to discover that in the Christian religion which is available for simple people—the majority of mankind—Locke examines the historical portion of the New Testament, and presents the result. Practically, this amounts to the verdict that it is sufficient for the Christian to accept the Messiahship of Christ and to submit to his rule of conduct. The orthodox critics complained that he had omitted the epistles in his summary of doctrine; his retort is obvious: if the gospels lead to the conclusion just stated, the epistles cannot be allowed, however weighty, to establish a contrary one. Of course, Locke was called a 'Socinian'; but the effect of his work remained, and we should remark that if it looked on the one hand toward the orthodox, on the other it looked toward the sceptics and freethinkers who began at that time a long and not ineffectual criticism of the miraculous claims of Christianity. Locke endeavoured to convince such minds that Christianity was in reality not an irrational code of doctrines, but a truly practical scheme of life. In this endeavour he was preceded by Richard Baxter, who had written on the 'Unreasonableness of Infidelity,' and was followed during the eighteenth century by many who in the old Dissenting chapels were leading the way towards an overt Unitarianism.
The reader must be reminded here of a few salient facts in the religious history of the seventeenth century. All these undercurrents of heterodox thought, with but few and soon repressed public manifestations of its presence, were obscured by the massive movement in Church and State. During the Commonwealth the episcopal system was abolished, and a presbyterian system substituted, though with difficulty and at best imperfectly. After the Restoration of Charles II the Act of Uniformity re-established episcopacy in a form made of set purpose as unacceptable to the Puritans as possible. Thereupon arose the rivalry of Conformist and Nonconformist which has ever since existed in England. Severely repressive measures were tried, but failed to extinguish Nonconformity; it stood irreconcilable outside the establishment. There were distinct varieties in its ranks. The Presbyterians, once largely dominant, were gradually overtaken numerically by the Independents. Perhaps it is better to say that, in the circumstances of exclusion in which both were situated, and the impossibility of maintaining a Presbyterian order and organization, the dividing line between these two bodies of Nonconformists naturally faded out. There was little, if anything, to keep them apart on the score of doctrine; and in time the Presbyterians certainly exhibited something of the tendency to variety of opinion which had always marked the Independents. Besides these bodies, the Baptists and Quakers stand out amid the sects comprised in Nonconformity. In both of these there were distinct signs of Anti-trinitarianism from time to time; as to the former, indeed, along with the earlier Baptist movements in England and on the Continent (especially in the Netherlands) there had always gone a streak of heresy alarming to the authorities. Among the Quakers, William Penn is specially notable in connection with our subject. In 1668 he was imprisoned for publishing The Sandy Foundation Shaken, in which Sabellian views were advocated. It need hardly be pointed out that among the still more eccentric movements, if the term be allowed, heterodoxy as to the Trinity was easy to trace.
When the Toleration Act was passed the old Nonconformity became 'Dissent,' that being the term used in the statute itself. Dissenters were now granted freedom of worship and preaching, but only on condition that their ministers subscribed to the doctrinal articles of the Church of England, including, of course, belief in the Trinity. Unitarians, therefore, were excluded from the benefit of the Act, and the general views of Dissenters upon the subject are clear from the fact that they took special care to have Unitarians ruled out from the liberty now being achieved by themselves. Locke and other liberal men evidently regretted this limitation, but the time was not ripe, and in fact the penal law against Unitarians was not repealed till 1813. Unluckily, too, for the Unitarians, a sharp controversy, due to their own zeal, had broken out at the very time that the Toleration Act was shaping, and as this had other important results we must give some attention to it.
There are six volumes, containing under this title a large number of pamphlets and treatises, for and against the new views, published about this period. It is the first considerable body of Unitarian literature. Its promoter was Thomas Firmin, a disciple of John Bidle, on whose behalf he interceded with Oliver Cromwell, though himself but a youth at the time. Firmin, a prosperous citizen of London, counted among his friends men of the highest offices in the Church, some of whom are said to have been affected with his type of thought. Apart from his Unitarianism he is remarkable as an enlightened philanthropist of great breadth of sympathy. Men of very different theological bent who were fain to seek refuge in London from persecutions abroad were aided by funds raised by him. We should notice also that, ardent as he was in diffusing Unitarian teachings, he had no wish at first to set up separate Unitarian chapels; his desire was that the national Church should include thinkers like himself. We are thus pointed into a path which for a time at least promised more for Unitarian developments than anything very evident in the Dissenting community.
The situation is aptly illustrated by a little book of 184 pages which is included in the first volume of the Tracts. This work is specially noteworthy as one of the first English books to use the name 'Unitarian,' though the use is here so free and without apology or explanation that we must suppose it had already attained a certain vogue before 1687, the date of the book. The title is A Brief History of the Unitarians, called also Socinians. Neither author nor publisher is named, but the former is known to have been the Rev. Stephen Nye, a clergyman, whose grandfather, Philip Nye, was noted in his day as one of the few Independents in the Westminster Assembly. Stephen Nye's book takes the form of four Letters, ostensibly written to an unnamed correspondent who has asked for an account of the Unitarians, 'vulgarly called Socinians.' The opening letter states their doctrine, after the model of Socinus—God is One Person, not Three; the Lord Christ is the 'Messenger, Servant, and Creature of God,' also the 'Son of God, because he was begotten on the blessed Mary by the Spirit or Power of God'; 'the Holy Ghost or Spirit, according to them, is the Power and Inspiration of God.' (We may notice here that Bidle, otherwise agreeing with Socinus, regarded the Holy Spirit as a living being, chief among angels.) Nye, writing as if an impartial observer, presents the Scripture argument in support of the doctrine of the Unitarians, 'which,' says he, 'I have so related as not to judge or rail of their persons, because however learned and reasonable men (which is their character among their worst adversaries) may be argued out of their errors, yet few will be swaggered or chode out of them.' He traces the doctrine to the earliest Christian times, and shows the stages of Trinitarian growth. Incidentally he says that Arian doctrines are openly professed in Transylvania and in some churches of the Netherlands, and adds that 'Nazarene and Arian Churches are very numerous' in Turkish, Mahometan, and pagan dominions where liberty of conscience is allowed. He mentions celebrated scholars who have 'certainly been either Arians or Socinians, or great favourers of them,' such as Erasmus, Grotius, Petavius, Episcopius, and Sandius—the last-named a learned historian who had made a special point of collecting admissions by orthodox writers of the invalidity of all the texts in turn usually quoted in support of the Trinity. In the subsequent chapters Nye deals seriatim with such texts, and the book ends with a commendation from 'A Gentleman, a Person of Excellent Learning and Worth,' to whom the publisher had sent it for remark.
Upon such levels the discussion proceeded, the skill and adroitness of the heretics contrasting with the obvious perplexity of the orthodox, who soon fell to accusing one another of stumbling into erroneous statements. Dons, deans, and even bishops joined in the fray, and some of them, notably Dr. Sherlock, Master of the Temple, got into sad trouble with their brethren. Finally, the clergy were forbidden to prolong the discussion, which indeed promised little satisfaction to any but the heretics who enjoyed the difficulties of the orthodox champions. The traditional formularies were there, and these must suffice. In the presence of the restrictions imposed by the Toleration Act speculation outside the Church turned towards 'Deism'—perhaps the best modern equivalent would be 'Natural Religion.' Speculation inside the Church had to accommodate itself to the creeds and articles, and thus there grew up an Arianism among the clergy which was really largely diffused and produced some important books. One of these was Dr. Samuel Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity (1712), a work which appears to have helped many a clergyman to ease his conscience while reciting the authorized Trinitarian expressions, though in substance his opinions were no less heretical than those for which men had suffered under the law.
A contemporary case of such suffering was that of Thomas Emlyn (1663-1711), an Irish clergyman who was sentenced at Dublin in 1703 to imprisonment which lasted for two years. This gross treatment, excited keen criticism at home and in the American colonies, whither our attention must soon turn. Emlyn was the first minister to call himself a 'Unitarian,' but under the pressure of the times, and in accordance with the spirit of Clarke and the other Arianizing clergy, he found it expedient to declare himself a 'true Scriptural Trinitarian.'
It is estimated that about a thousand Meeting Houses were erected by Dissenters in the twenty years following the passing of the Toleration Act. After the death of Queen Anne others were built, but in no great numbers. The prevailing impression of the state of religion in England during the first half of the eighteenth century is a gloomy one. Formalism and apparently an insincere repetition of the doctrinal phrases imposed by the law was but too evident in the State Church. Dissent had its bright features, but these grew dim as years went on. It must be admitted that the odds were heavy against that party. Without conforming no one could be appointed to public office, and the 'occasional conformity' of sharing the communion service at an established church now and again in order to qualify was at length forbidden by the Act of 1711. The sons of the Dissenting gentry and manufacturers were excluded from the universities, and though a shift was made by 'Academies' here and there, the excellence of the education they might impart could not compensate for the deprivation of the social advantages of Oxford and Cambridge. By an Act of 1714 schools for more than a rudimentary education were forbidden to be taught by Dissenters. Thus, we are not surprised to hear, considerable defection went on, and early in the century congregations began to dwindle. As it proceeded some became very small indeed, and many died out altogether.
The trusts upon which the Meeting Houses were founded were frequently free from any close definitions of the doctrines supposed to be held by the congregation. Much discussion arose in later years as to the purport of this freedom; perhaps there was some expectation of changing opinion in the future, but more probably the doctrinal status was taken for granted. It must be remembered that no Dissenting preacher could legally officiate without previously 'subscribing' to the doctrinal articles of the Church of England or their equivalents in the Westminster Assembly's catechisms. Thus, while the Dissenter might alter the terms of his liturgy to a degree not allowed to the Churchman (though the latter would in those lax days go pretty far sometimes), he was still supposed to be 'sound' on the fundamental creeds. It would appear to be a fortunate accident for Unitarian development in some of these old Dissenting congregations that, either the prevalent understanding or a hope for speedy inclusion in the national Church, or a prevision on the part of liberal-minded men here and there, left so largely undefined the basis of religious union among them, as congregations.
However that may be, it is certain that a degree of reluctance to 'subscribe' began to show itself, and this, we surmise, was often due to other reasons than liberality pure and simple. That there were broad-minded men who, while conscientiously orthodox themselves, refused to exclude unorthodox ministers from their fellowship is shown by a notable instance among the Baptists. Before 1700, Matthew Caffyn, one of their body, being charged with Anti-trinitarian opinions, was still retained in membership by vote of the General Baptist Assembly, this being the first instance of any organization's formal acceptance of latitude respecting the Trinity. In Ireland, deterred no doubt by the harsh punishment of Emlyn, there was natural hesitation in avowing such latitude; but in 1721 a division began in Ulster between those who insisted on 'subscribing' the creed anew and those who opposed; and a few years later the 'non-subscribers,' being excluded from the Synod, formed a new Presbytery which in course of time became distinctly Unitarian. The historic event for English 'non-subscription' was a declaration made at a meeting of Dissenting ministers, Independents, Baptists, and Presbyterians, held in 1719 at Salter's Hall, London. Certain Exeter ministers had become unsound in doctrine, and refused to renew their subscription to the creeds and articles, claiming to believe 'the Scripture'—a well-understood expression in those days. The question of their exclusion was referred to London, and there again the point of renewed 'subscription' was raised before the vote on the Exeter case was taken. By seventy-three to sixty-nine it was decided that the declaration of faith should be confined to 'the words of Scripture'—as Sir Joseph Jekyll put it, 'the Bible carried it by four.' This was widely recognized as setting open the door for liberty in matters of religion, and the interesting fact should be recorded that Independents and Presbyterians were found on both sides.
Here, then, we may for the present leave the English development; it was slow, tentative, for the most part obscure. In one direction and another the movement of thought might be perceived, in the Church, among the 'Congregationals,' or Baptists, or Presbyterians, as the case might be. It was only long after that much preponderance of heretical opinion was distinctive of Presbyterian congregations. In the Academies men like Philip Doddridge (1702-51), the hymn writer, were affording room at least for ample discussion among the students, and moderate as his own opinions were he is credited with having made so-called 'orthodoxy' a byword. The Independents, Caleb Fleming and Nathaniel Lardner (1684-1768), led the way to 'Humanitarian' views, the latter being a learned writer of much influence. It is said that another great hymn writer, Isaac Watts, finally shared the Humanitarian view. On the whole, with some notable exceptions, the Dissenting preachers seem to have been decorously dull, and uninspiringly ethical. Without the zeal of the 'enthusiast,' whom they severely scanned from afar, and seeking in all things to prove that Christianity was so 'reasonable' as to be identical with 'rational philosophy,' it is little wonder that when the popular mind began to be stirred by a religious 'Revival' they were not its apostles, but mostly its critics. This is precisely the point where we may fitly turn to consider the growth of Unitarianism in New England.