UNITA'RIAN, a name used to desig nate a religious denomination who hold to the personal unity of God, in opposi tion to the doctrine of the Unitarian faith. They profess to derive their views from Scripture, and to make it the ultimate arbiter in all religious questions, thus distinguishing themselves from the Ra tionalists (otherwise called the Anti-su pernaturalists) of Germany. They un dertake to show that, interpreted accord ing to the settled laws of language, the uniform testimony of the sacred writings is, that the holy Spirit has no personal existence distinct from the Father, and that the Son is a derived and dependent being, whether as some believe, created in some remote period of time, or, as others, beginning to live when he appear ed on earth. Three of the passages of the New Testament, which have been relied on to prove the contrary, (I John v. 7; 1 Thy. iii. 16 ; and Acts xx. 28,) they hold, with other critics, to be spurious. Others (as John i. 1, &c.; Rmnans ix. 5,) they maintain to have received an erro neous interpretation. They insist that
ecclesiastical history enables them to trace to obsolete systems of heathen phi losophy the introduction of the received doctrine into the church, in which, once received, it has been sustained on grounds independent of its merits; and they go so far as to aver that it is satisfactorily re fete I by the biblical passages, when rightly understood, which are customari ly mbinced in its support The principal I:nit:Irian authorities are Dr. Priestley and Mr. Belsham, who were among the most active teachers of the doctrine in Great Britain, and Dr. William E. Chan ning in this country, whose writings on the subject have been widely circulated. In the United States, the Unitarian doc trine has prevailed to a considerable ex tent among the Congregationalists of New England, and is said to number about two hundred and lifty churches in connection with that holy.