Introductory Sketch of the early history of Unitarianism in England.
although it was not till a much later period that separate religious societies were formed in England, avowedly on Unitarian principles, yet the profession of these principles under one or other of their various forms and denominations is coeval with the Reformation; and this faith can boast of its full share of confessors and martyrs in those spirit-stirring but troubled and persecuting times. There is good reason to believe, that even the long night of darkness which had settled on the Christian world for so many centuries, accompanied and preceded as it was by gross corruptions of the pure simplicity of the Gospel, in no instance more generally prevalent than in the errors which almost totally obscured the doctrine of the absolute personal unity of the divine nature, was at no period altogether devoid of a few feeble glimmerings of that light which in more favourable times was destined afterwards to shine out with renewed lustre. At all events, the spirit of inquiry which gave rise to the reformation, and