Unitarians, a name applied generally to all who maintain that God exists in one Person only, and 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—Monarchians—who maintained, against the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Logos, the undivided 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 became man (see PATRIPASSIANS, SABELLIANISM), 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 (q.v.) of Samosata. The grand theological struggle which followed in the 4th century between the Arians and the Athanasians may be regarded as but another phase of the Unitarian controversy (see ARIUS, ATHANASIUS).
It is not strange that in the great stir of thought which accompanied the Reformation some should have been found bold enough to question the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity; such there were even before the Socini (see SOCINUS), such as Hetzer, Bassen, Denck, Campanus, and Servetus (q.v.). So widely, indeed, was the Unitarian doctrine diffused that it was thought necessary, in the first article of the Augsburg Confession, to condemn the modern Samosatans, who deny the personality of the Word and Spirit; and in 1527 Althamer published a work against 'the modern Jews and Arians under a Christian name, who deny the deity of Christ.' Under the influence of the elder Socinus Unitarianism gained many adherents in Venetia; but Poland and Transylvania became its principal strongholds. In Poland the nobility, protected by their class privileges, proved favourable; the Unitarian refugees from other countries found here a ready welcome; and in the reign of Sigismund II. (1548–72) this party of reformers was strong enough to form itself into a separate church. Later Poland was the principal field of labour of the younger Socinus, and Unitarianism continued to flourish there till the middle of the 17th century, when, under John Casimir, it was extirpated by force. In Transylvania the Unitarians have succeeded in maintaining their existence, notwithstanding much opposition and persecution, from the Reformation to the present day. Led by George Blandrata (q.v.) and Francis Davidis (1565), large numbers, including the king himself, embraced the new opinions. But in 1572 the Unitarians were forbidden to make any attempts at propagandism, or even to print their religious books; after the incorporation of Transylvania with the Austrian empire (1690) they were robbed by the Roman Catholics of all their churches and church property, forbidden to build new churches without the permission of the emperor, and excluded from all government offices. On the accession of Joseph II. happier times returned. It was forbidden to seize their churches, and an indemnity was even paid them for the loss of their cathedral church of Klausenburg. The Unitarians of Transylvania number about 60,000. They have an organised system of church government, with a bishop at its head. They have three colleges—that of Klausenburg, with twenty-four professors and about an equal number of assistant-professors and teachers; that of Thorda; and that of Szekely-Keresztur.
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 exercise 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 England, wherein some of this poison is not poured forth.' But it was in the last decade of the 17th century that the controversy on this subject was most active, and at this time were published the anonymous 'Unitarian tracts.' Hitherto the Unitarians, with the exception of the society formed in London by John Biddle (q.v.), which did not survive its founder, had no organised existence. The first to use the term Unitarians (c. 1687) was the heretical mercer and philanthropist, Thomas Firmin (1632-97), a friend of Biddle's. The first preacher who described himself as Unitarian (c. 1704) was apparently Thomas Emlyn (1663-1741), a Presbyterian who was imprisoned and fined on the charge of blasphemy. After the passing of the Toleration Act in 1689 the way was prepared for that gradual change by which the orthodoxy of the English Presbyterians passed into Unitarianism. It was at this time that most of the old Presbyterian 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 2000 Presbyterian divines who in 1662 left the Church of England in consequence of their inability to comply conscientiously with the terms of the Act of Uniformity. The English Presbyterians were originally as orthodox as their Episcopal brethren; but having refused to commit themselves to any authoritative creed, they underwent a gradual change to Arian, and at length to Unitarian, views. Many preached such views without exciting attention or controversy, although, until 1813, the law which made it Blasphemy (q.v.) to speak against the Trinity was still in existence. During the later half of the 18th century Dr Priestley (q.v.) appeared as the champion of the humanitarian view of Christ's nature, and by the influence of his writings secured the more open advocacy of that doctrine. In 1773 Dr Lindsey resigned his charge in the Church of England, and became pastor of the Unitarian congregation of Essex Street, London. In 1813 the Unitarians were placed by law fully on a par with other dissenters. The Unitarians of England and Wales are purely congregational in their church government, their only organ for combined action being the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, which holds its meetings annually in London. Their principal place of education is Manchester New College, Oxford, which is, however, an unsectarian institution. They have also a missionary college in Manchester, and the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen, educates Independent and Unitarian ministers. They have at present about 290 chapels and a number of mission stations.
Towards 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 missionary efforts. There are now nine congregations in Scotland. That at Edinburgh was originally a branch from the Cameronians (q.v.), but, having adopted the principle of free inquiry, its members gradually embraced Arian, and eventually (1812) humanitarian, views.
In Ireland the history of Unitarianism is intimately connected with that of Presbyterianism. It flourishes principally in the north of the island, and the 10,000 Irish Unitarians are Presbyterians in fact as well as in name.
After 1740 Arian views of the person of Christ were pretty widely diffused among the New England clergy; and in 1787 took place the first secession from the Episcopal Church. By imperceptible degrees many of the New England churches glided into Unitarianism; but it was not until about 1815 that the name began to be much used. At that time the influence of Dr Channing (q.v.) was thrown into the scale; and since then Massachusetts, and particularly Boston, has been the stronghold of Unitarianism in America. The Unitarians have about 400 societies in the United States, and upwards of twenty-five in Boston alone. Harvard University, Cambridge, is not a denominational institution; but it is at present in the hands of the Unitarians, and most of their ministers are educated either there or at the Meadville Theological School, Pa. Besides the Unitarians, properly so called, the Universalists and the Hicksite Quakers are understood to hold anti-Trinitarian sentiments, though they give no special prominence to the doctrine of Divine Unity. There are a few Unitarian churches in the principal colonies of Great Britain; and Unitarian sentiments, under the names of Liberal Christianity and Rationalism, are more or less widely diffused in France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland.
The early Socinians assumed, as the fundamental principle of their theology, the sufficiency of Scripture, or rather of the New Testament, which, they held, had superseded the Old. Christ was a true man, but conceived of the Holy Spirit; and on account of the divine power which he has received from the Father, and his exaltation as head over all things, he is to have worship offered to him. The Holy Spirit is not a Person, but a Divine influence. Man was created with a mortal nature, but, by the special gift of God, was endowed with a conditional immortality. The gift of immortality he forfeited by disobedience. The fall of Adam, being a single act, could not deprave his own nature, much less that of his posterity; and in the latter death was not a consequence of the fall. Thus the actual consequence of Adam's fall was not any radical corruption of human nature, but rather a moral deterioration. Man, after the fall, retained his free will, and the power of abstaining from sin if he so pleased. Christ's merits did not consist principally in his death, but in his life, his teachings, and his example. Nor was his death regarded as an atoning sacrifice, or as having any vicarious efficacy whatever, but simply as a confirmation of God's will, and the seal of the new covenant. Not Christ's death, but his resurrection, is the central point of the Christian scheme. By this he confirmed his doctrine of immortality, and prepared for his ascension into heaven, where he now fills the office of our great High Priest. Predestination in this system means the decree of God, made before the foundation of the world, that they who believed and were obedient should be saved, and that they who believed not and were disobedient should be damned. Justification takes place when God pardons our sins and gives us eternal life. The Socinians regarded the sacraments as simply external signs testifying to Christian faith. Hence they held infant baptism to be irrational as well as unscriptural, but thought that a custom so old and established should be tolerated.
With the early Socinians the English Unitarians have no very direct historical connection. They seem rather to have arrived at independent conclusions through their 'rational' interpretation of Scripture, and their consistent rejection of human authority in matters of faith. The Unitarians of the present day, like almost all Christian sects, must be divided into two classes—a conservative and a progressive class—an old and a new school. The former adopt the old rule of the sufficiency of Scripture, though with many such qualifications as the scientific criticism of the Bible has rendered indispensable. The most conservative Unitarians would not contend for the literal truth of the first chapter of Genesis, nor for the doctrine of verbal inspiration in any shape; the Bible is not, but it contains, the Word of God. They generally hold the simple humanity of Christ, and even reject the supernatural birth, thinking the portions of the gospels which record that event to be less authentic than those referring to the ministry, the death, and resurrection of Jesus. To the death of Christ they ascribe much the same kind of efficacy as the Socinians, regarding his teaching and example as the most essential part of his work, and his death as an attestation to the truth of his mission, and a preliminary to his resurrection. What, however, chiefly distinguishes the Unitarians of this school from those of the new or progressive school is the place which they give to the miracles as supernatural sanctions of the truth of Christianity. Christ is an ambassador from heaven to earth; the miracles he wrought are his credentials; and the moral and religious truths which he taught are his message. It is not indeed denied that many or all of those truths might be learned from the light of nature, but they have received from Christianity a sanction which gives them a greater degree of certainty than they could otherwise possess. The Unitarians of the progressive school, on the other hand, have abandoned the philosophy of Locke for more spiritual modes of thought. So far from regarding man as entirely dependent upon his reasoning powers for his knowledge of religion, they rather look upon him as standing in a living relationship with the one infinite source of all truth, and as having within his own nature the germs of the highest religious faith. Christianity, accordingly, they regard not as a message or a system of truth communicated and authenticated from without, but as the highest expression of the Divine in humanity—an expression not necessarily preternatural, but connected with the previous history of mankind by the natural laws of moral and spiritual development. To this view of Christianity the miracles are not felt to be essential as proofs; and the truths of the gospel are thought to be quite unaffected by any judgment regarding them. The Unitarians, however, of this school, while, from their point of view, they regard the question of the miraculous as one of critical rather than religious interest, do not necessarily reject the miracles as historical facts, though, undoubtedly, a considerable and perhaps increasing number would agree with Theodore Parker and many of the German critics in rejecting them on the twofold ground that they are intrinsically incredible, and that the evidence for them is conflicting and uncertain. Generally speaking, the Unitarians of this school are disposed to regard with favour the freest criticism of the Bible. Holding that inspiration is a quality which is not peculiar to the Bible, but common to all the most elevated religious literature, and that it in no case implies immunity from error, they maintain that the
Scriptures must be subjected to the same rules of criticism and interpretation as any other book, and that each book of Scripture is to be studied not as a collection of infallible oracles, but as a record of the mind of the age in which it was produced. In this light, however, and also as a record of the grandest religious movements of the world's history, they hold the Bible in the highest estimation. Such is a statement of the peculiarities of the two Unitarian schools in their extreme divergence from one another; in fact they merge into each other by imperceptible gradations.
It will of course be understood that the Unitarians of all shades of opinion are agreed in rejecting the entire orthodox scheme—including the doctrines of the Trinity, the vicarious atonement, the deity of Christ, original sin, and everlasting punishment—as both unscriptural and irrational. They celebrate the Lord's Supper in their churches, not as a sacrament, but as a service commemorative of Christ's death, and expressive of spiritual communion with him. They also adhere generally to the rite of infant baptism, though there are a few Unitarian Baptist churches. Many object to the name Unitarian as one which might be held to imply a doctrinal bond of union, and to be, to that extent, inconsistent with unrestricted freedom of religious thought. When, at the meeting of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association in 1866, it was proposed to add to the rules a clause defining 'Unitarian Christianity,' the motion was almost unanimously rejected.
See the articles ATONEMENT, RATIONALISM, &c.; the works of Channing, Theodore Parker, and Dr James Martineau; J. R. Beard, Unitarianism (1846); J. J. Tayler, Retrospect of Religious Life in England (1845; new ed. 1876); Bonet-Maury, Early Sources of English Unitarian Christianity (trans. 1884); Dr J. F. Clarke, Manual of Unitarian Belief (1884) and Modern Unitarianism (1886).