UNITARIAN CHURCH, a communion comprising all who maintain that God exists in one Person only. The name Unitarian is applied specially to a small Christian sect whose distinguishing tenet is the Unity as opposed to the Trinity of the Godhead. In the more general sense the name of course includes the Jews and the Mohammedans. From the middle of the 2d century to the end of the 3d century there was a succession of eminent Christian teachers—Monarch ians—who maintained, against the eccle siastical doctrine of the Logos, the un divided unity of God. There are said to have been two classes of them—those who taught that Christ was God in such a sense that it was the Father who be came man and those who held that Christ was in nature a mere man, but exalted above all other prophets by the superior measure of Divine wisdom with which he was endowed. The latter class was represented by Theodotus, Artemon and especially Paul of Samosata. The grand theological struggle which fol lowed in the 4th century between the Arians and the Athanasians may be re garded as but another phase of the Uni tarian controversy.
In England, as early as 1548, a priest named John Ashton was accused of Arianism, and escaped with his life only by recantation; and during the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth and James I. a few suffered martyrdom on similar charges. In the reign of James I. continental Socinianism began to exer cise considerable influence in England, and in 1665 Dr. Owen wrote that "the evil is at the door, that there is not a city, a town, scarce a village in Eng land, wherein some of this poison is not poured forth." But it was in the last decade of the 17th century that the con troversy on this subject was most ac tive, and at this time were published the anonymous "Unitarian tracts." Hither to the Unitarians, with the exception of the society formed in London by John Biddle, which did not survive its found er, had no organized existence. The first to use the term Unitarians (1687) was the heretical mercer and philanthropist, Thomas Firmin (1632-1697), a friend of Biddle's. The first preacher who de
scribed himself as a Unitarian (1704) was apparently Thomas Emlyn (1663 1741), a Presbyterian who was impris oned and fined on the charge of blas phemy. After the passing of the Tolera tion Act in 1689 the way was prepared for that gradual change by which the orthodoxy of the English Presbyterian passed into Unitarianism. It was at this time that most of the old Presby terian chapels were founded; and the trusts being "open," ministers and people were left free to adopt whatever new opinions should approve themselves to their conscience. Thus the Unitarians may be said to be the successors of the 2,000 Presbyterian divines who in 1662 left the Church of England in conse quence of their inability to comply con scientiously with the terms of the Act of Uniformity. The English Presbyterians were originally as orthodox as their Enisconal brethren! hilt having. rpfuspri to commit themselves to any authorita tive creed, they underwent a gradual change to Arian, and at length to Uni tarian, views. Many preached such views without exciting attention or con troversy, though, till 1813, the law which made it blasphemy to speak against the Trinity was still in existence. During the latter half of the 18th century Dr. Priestly appeared as the champion of the humanitarian view of Christ's nature, and by the influence of his writings se cured the more open advocacy of that doctrine.
Toward the close of the 18th century there was a certain amount of Arianism among the Moderates in the Church of Scotland. Unitarianism, as a distinct system, was preached at Montrose as early as 1783, and at the beginning of the 19th century some attempts were made to diffuse it by means of mission ary efforts. There are now nine con gregations in Scotland. That at Edin burgh was originally a branch from the Cameronians, but, having adopted the principle of free inquiry, its members gradually embraced Arian, and eventual ly (1812) humanitarian, views.