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[23]

John Biddle

May without impropriety be called the father of English Unitarianism; for though, as we have already observed, there is good reason to believe that Arianism spread so rapidly in the reign of Edward VI. as to excite the alarm of the rulers of the church, and that several refugees from the horrors of the Marian persecution returned home with a considerable tincture of the Anti-trinitarian views which had already been professed by some of the most distinguished reformers on the continent, and though more than one Unitarian martyr may be cited from the annals of those gloomy times, yet, as far as is distinctly known, Biddle was the first Englishman who came forward openly to vindicate Unitarian principles either from the press or from the pulpit. He also appears to have been the first to gather even two or three to offer their requests to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the form which may be presumed to be most acceptable to him who laid the injunction on his disciples, ‘In that day ye shall ask me nothing; but whatever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.’ It was but a little flock, and was speedily dispersed when the shepherd was taken away; but the leaven still remained to work more extensively in happier and more liberal, if not more enlightened, times. On these accounts, we justly place his name at the head of that catalogue of worthies in whose characters and history, we, as

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