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its . true , scriptural and rational meaning ( These , however , pre - sently became subject to obloquy and persecution from the very people who were glorying in their emancipation from the thraldom
of the Roman church , and justifying it on . the ground of natural and irnprescriptable ' -righjt . Yea , not more than ten years subsequent to the memorable British
Revolution , when it might have been supposed that the grounds both of civil and religious liberty had been thoroughly explored and well understood , it was enacted
by statute , " That if any person professing the Christian religion , or educated in the same , shall , by writing , printing , teaching , or advised speaking , deny any one of the persons in the Holy Trinity to be God , -or maintain that there
are more Gods than one , " ( that is , who shall deny that three and one are the same thing , ) he shall , upon the first offence , be rendered incapable to hold any office or place of trust ; and for the second ,
be rendered incapable of bringing any action , being guardian , exc cutor , legatee , or purchaser of lands , and shall suffer three years ' imprisonment without bail . " If
Protestants in general - were chargeable with invading those rights in others which they Had so justly and successfully asserted for themselves , in opposition to
the usurpations of Rome , Protest * ant Dissenters , who had gone yet greater lengths in- vindicating the claims of private judgment , did not escape the imputation of a
like inconsistency . Excluded from the emoluments of the establishment , on account © f their nonconformity with the articles f ¦ * h e national church , they
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pursued with the inveterate malevolence of bigotry many of their brethren who , in like man ** ner , departed from the Westminster confession of faith , and en « deavoured by every possible means to ruin their reputation and ob « struct their usefulness . An association of divines was formed ia the West of England , which , for several years , assumed inquisitorial powersj and , as far as in
them lay , prevented the ordiniation and settlement of ministers , who would not subscribe to the first of the articles of the establishment , or to the answers of the 5 th . and 6 th questions of the Assembly ' s Shorter Catechism * which
assert the divim ? unity in a trinity of persons . But this state of things did not continue long . Both churchmen and dissenters were aware of what alt ecclesiastical history testifies , that persecution only assists to spread the tenets it is intended to suppress ; and the *
most rigid zealots became ashamed of opposing , by these unworthy methods , opinions entertained and advocated by such eminent characters as Sir Isaac Newton , Joha Locke aud Nathaniel Lardner .
From the period that tfiis mode of attack has been laid aside , and penal statutes have become a dead letter , the progress of Unitari
anism has indeed been slow , but certain and permanent . Even the pious and excellent Watts , in the latter part of his time , had 4 t
abated much erf his younger assurance" upon orthodox points ;
apd whoever will peruse the writings of the most eminent dissenting
ministers who succeeded him will find a gradual departure from these tenets , and n strong leaning towards , if not an open avowal
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Zeal in the Cause e > f Religious Truth * 207
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? QJU , v . 8 q
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1810, page 297, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2405/page/25/
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