CHAPTER XXVII

THE PIONEERS OF UNITARIANISM IN

ENGLAND, TO 1644

Thus far the path of our history has never been long or far out of sight of the stake, the block, or the prison; and the impression that remains most vivid with us out of the story of Unitarianism on the Continent is that of the persecutions it had to suffer. It will be a relief, therefore, to enter upon a further stage of our journey from which persecution is largely absent. In England, it is true, as we shall soon see, a few in the first century of the Reformation were put to death, and more were imprisoned, for denying the doctrine of the Trinity; but long before Unitarianism began to be an organized movement there, capital punishment, or even imprisonment, for heresy had ceased in England, and by comparison with what their brethren on the continent had suffered, the civil oppressions that English Unitarians had to endure can be called hardly more than inconveniences.

The permanent history of Christianity in England began when Augustine, "the Apostle of the Anglo-Saxons," was sent from Rome at the end of the sixth century as missionary. The English were for centuries devotedly faithful to the Church of Rome, and perhaps nowhere had it had a more splendid history than there, as its glorious cathedrals, and the monasteries and abbeys still beautiful in their ruins, bear witness. Long before the Reformation, however, Eng

lish kings had become more or less restive under the exactions of the Pope, and his claims of authority over England; while at the same time the people at large were growing impatient of the great wealth and increasing corruption of the monks and priests, and hungry for pure religion. In the fourteenth century, in the time of John Wyclif, one of the "Reformers before the Reformation," an earnest effort was made to get the abuses of the Church reformed; and the Bible was translated into English and circulated in manuscript, so that those that were able to do so might read it for themselves, instead of having to depend for their religious teaching wholly upon the priests. For the time nothing permanent seemed to come of it; but a century and a half later, when Henry VIII, for reasons of his own, threw off his allegiance to the Pope, and had himself made the head of the Church of England, he found large support from his people.

The English Reformation thus begun was mostly a political affair, and for some time no important changes were made in the doctrines or ceremonies of the Church. On the contrary, those that held the doctrines of Luther were severely persecuted. The Bible and the three ancient creeds were taken as authority; and the king authorized the publication of the English Bible, which was ordered to be set up in all the parish churches, so that all might have a chance to read it. A hundred thousand copies of it were in circulation within about twenty years, and the reading of it not only helped on the Reformation among the people, but eventually, as we shall see, paved the way for further reform of doctrine. Reformation of the Catholic doctrines went slowly on under the leadership of the clergy, until at length, under Edward VI, who was a convinced Protestant, a new Prayer Book was adopted, and new Articles

of Religion, and so the Church of England became definitely established in its own ways. Queen Mary tried her best to restore the Catholic religion, and to this end put many Protestants to death, while many more fled to Geneva, where they came under the influence of Calvin; but her reign was short. Upon her death the Protestants returned in full force, and under Elizabeth the Reformation was fully organized, with a doctrine which was a compromise between Calvin and Luther, and a form of worship and ceremonies which were a compromise between Catholic and Protestant.

Many of the Protestants, however, thought that the Reformation ought to be carried much further, so as to purify the Church of all traces of Romanism in doctrines, government, ceremonies, and forms of worship. These came to be known as the Puritans, and for a century or more they formed the most vital element in English religious life. In Elizabeth's time they developed in two different directions. The one of these was taken by those who despaired of any satisfactory reform in the Church of England, and therefore withdrew from it entirely. These became known as Separatists. Some of them remained in England, and, despite persecution, multiplied and at length became powerful; others fled to Holland, and thence in 1620 to New England, as the Pilgrim Fathers. The other party, the Puritans proper, although they disapproved of many things in the Church of England, tried to stay within it, hoping to be able to bring about the reforms they desired. They objected to government of the Church by a superior order of bishops, preferring a Presbyterian form of government; and they so much disapproved of liturgy that they would not use it in worship. Hence when Elizabeth, in order to secure uniform worship in all the English churches, tried to enforce an Act of Uniformity (1559), the Puritans be

gan to worship in separate meetings of their own, and eventually to form their own separate organizations.

Many were the attempts to hold the Protestants of England together by force in one national Church, with one government and one form of worship. Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I severely persecuted those who refused to conform. Then came a reaction: the Puritans gained control of Parliament, and for a short time the established religion of England was Presbyterian. Then, under Cromwell, control passed into the hands of the Independents, until at length under Charles II the Episcopal Church was again established, and in 1662 was passed the Act of Uniformity, requiring that all congregations conform to the prescribed form of worship, and that all ministers be ordained by bishops. This was the beginning of that deep division of English Protestantism into Anglicans and Nonconformists which has continued to this day; for out of the 9,000 clergy in the Church of England, some 2,500 refused to conform, and were therefore compelled to leave their pulpits and give up their livings. They were for the most part the ablest and most earnest of the whole clergy. Additional acts of Parliament were soon passed to oppress the Nonconformists yet more severely, and their lot was a most unhappy one until 1689, when the passage of the Toleration Act permitted them again on certain conditions to meet together for public worship under their own forms. During all this period since the rise of the Puritans, questions of doctrine had been little attended to; but while the Puritans still remained strict Calvinists, the Church of England had softened down its Calvinism toward that Arminianism which we have already met among the Remonstrants in Holland. Not heresy in points of doc1 See page 200.

trine, but nonconformity in service of worship, was regarded as the great offense, and was most often punished under the laws.

It was out of such conditions in the religious life of England, disturbed not only by the hostility between Protestants and Catholics, but by controversies scarcely less bitter among the Protestants themselves over the forms of worship or of church organization and government, that English Unitarians arose. The movement began, as in other countries, with its little army of martyrs, for the act for the burning of heretics was enforced until 1612.1 Even after that Unitarianism was liable to legal prosecution during many generations; for deniers of the Trinity, as well as Catholics, were expressly excluded from the benefits of the Toleration Act; while the Blasphemy Act of 1698 was especially aimed at Antitrinitarians, punishing their offense with civil disability and, if repeated, with imprisonment. They were not relieved of this until 1813. In a country where the Established Church controls nearly all the social prestige, and where dissent is widely regarded as almost a badge of social inferiority, Unitarians have throughout had to bear not only their share of the burdens that fall to all Dissenters, but the additional one of being excluded by both Anglicans and Dissenters as heretics. Their oppressions and burdens are of course not for a moment to be compared with those suffered by their brethren of like faith in Poland and Transylvania; yet they have been no light thing, and the bearing of them has developed devotion and heroism of a fine and sturdy type.

The Unitarian movement in England did not spring from any single source. We may discover at least four fairly distinct streams of influence that flowed together in it before 1 The act dated from 1401, and was not repealed until 1677.