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ill this sense the term is still sometimes used * But as , inkier the generic term Christian there are specific differences , so this term Unitarian has comprehended under it several distinct species , to some of which the names Arian and Socinian
have been appropriated , while to others no distinctive appellation has ever been affixed . But it has happened to this , what has not happened to Christianity at large , that one species of Unitarianism has almost excluded the rest ; and to
that species which never had any peculiar and distinctive appellation , the term Unitarianism has lately become ,, in its common acceptation , appropriated . Whether it might not have been more proper
to have left the generic term to serve the purpose for which it was originally introduced , and to have adopted a name indicative of the specific difference , is a question which I am not competent to decide , " —Pp . 22 , 23 .
On a point which is still misapprehended some light may be cast by a passage in the writings of certain early Anabaptists : the Catechism or Confession , whence it is taken , was printed , in Poland , in 1674 : " that is , four
years before Faustus Soeinus came mto that country / ' Now what Mosheim styles " tneir erroneous notion concerning Jesus Christ is expressed in the following terms : Our Mediator
before the throne of God is a man , who was formerl y promised to our fa thers by the prophets , and in these latter days was born of the seed of David , and whom God , the Father , has made Lord and Christ" &c . And the
historian , speaking of " the original Catechism , * ' which is now under consideration , says , ' From this little performance , and indeed from it alone , we may learn with certainty the true A A i * *^ Y T « 1 * * rm Btate of the Unitarian
religion before Faubtus Socintjs : " he , moreover , informs us that it was published at Cracow , in the above year , under the title of Catechism , or Confession of the Unitarians . *
Mosheim conjectures that the pa ~ pers of Laelius Soeinus were foft beftind him in Ppland , and that , " t > y the perusal of them , the Arians , who had formerly the unper hand in the community of the Unitarians , were engaged to change their sentiments concerning the nature and mediation of * Mosheim ' s E . H . ( Maclaine ) IV . pp . hQQ , Sec . ( 1782 ) ,
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Christ . " Be this as it may , the denomination of Socimans was afterwards given to those professors of religion who hitherto had been known by names very different from this : and
it was expressive of their attachment to the peculiar tenets of Lselius and Faustus Soeinus ; though at the present day there is probably no individual in the British dominions to whom it can with justice be applied .
Even on the continent , and in the seventeenth century , the term Unitarian has been employed to denote opinions distinct from those of Arians . * But our purpose will be still better answered by adverting to the use of
the name in our own country , from nearly the same period . In the first vol . of some very memorable Tracts we meet with A Brief History of the Unitaridns , vulgarly called Socinians : the second edition
of this performance is dated 1691 ; and the writer begins with a statement of the arguments by which these persons maintain " that the Lord Christ was a man . " f Still , throughout these volumes the term Unitarians seems
usually opposed to Trinitarians ; although most of the reasonings and explanations are directed to the establishment of the -simple humanity of our Saviour . In one passage we find the strange phrase , the Arian Unitarians : t it came from Mr . Emlyvto
pen . So far as we can at present ascertain , Clarke , WTiiston , Peirce and Hallett , although they were the distinguished advocates ofArianism , never claimed nor bore the title of Unitarians .
The case of one most excellent and able individual , who has been already mentioned , was not quite the same : Emlyn ' s writings supply abundant proofs that he considered the denominations Unitarian and Anti- Trinitarian as identical ; yet we have perceived how he sometimes qualified the former
* Vindici ® pro Unitariorum ia PoloiiiA Religionis Liberate ab Eqtiite Polono ( Stanisl , Lubieniecius , Junr . ) < jons < 5 ript « , 268 , nota . The author died in 1675 . His Defence , &c . is printed , together with some other tracts , at thfe end of C v , Sandii Bibliotheca Anti-TrinitarforuM f + P . 3 . J V . ( 1708 ) p , 3 ,
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108 Review . — -The Deist * the Christian , the Unitarian .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1820, page 108, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2485/page/44/
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