Unitarian controversy

The Socinian controversy in the Church of England (sometimes called the First Socinian controversy to distinguish it from a debate around 1800 mainly affecting Protestant nonconformists; and also called the Trinitarian controversy) was a theological argument on christology carried out by English theologians for around a decade from 1687. Positions that had remained largely dormant since the death in 1662 of John Biddle, an early Unitarian, were revived and discussed, in pamphlet literature (much of it anonymous).

This controversy was part of a larger debate after the Act of Toleration 1689, which excluded anti-trinitarian beliefs. By the end of the 1690s it had become clear that, for the time being, religious tolerance would not be extended: formally, the Blasphemy Act 1697 settled the matter until the early nineteenth century, religious disabilities for non-trinitarian believers continued in law, and the Act was directed against Unitarians. On the other hand, the arguments had become well aired, and the Church of England was shown to be hardly united on the theology. An unintended consequence of strong attacks by theologically orthodox Anglicans, in the longer term, was a resulting greater de facto tolerance extending among English Protestants, after a halt was called to the aggressive stance in particular of William Sherlock. This tolerance, becoming a hallmark of Latitudinarian views as they changed into low church attitudes, worked its way out in controversies of the eighteenth century.

The Socinian argument, of which little had been heard for 25 years, was revived in 1687 by the publication of a ‘Brief History’ of the unitarians, as they from now on often designated themselves (see Stephen Nye). There followed (1689) a sheet of ‘Brief Notes’ on the Athanasian creed (see Thomas Firmin).

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