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live in more peaceful tranquil days, have no right to visit those who yielded to trials which we ourselves might not have been able to bear.
The only one of
Mr. Biddle's disciples who has attained any distinction is
Mr. Thomas Firmin, then a young man, who lived, however, to become a very eminent
London merchant, and the associate and intimate friend of
Archbishop Tillotson,
Fowler,
Bishop of
Gloucester, and others of the most distinguished men of his time.
In his private intercourse with these friends, he made no secret of his
Unitarian opinions; and it is even understood that many tracts in the curious and valuable collection already mentioned, and known by the name of the old Socinian Tracts, were written under his direction, and published at his expense.
But he was all his life an outward conformist to the Church of England; and, in fact, is much more worthy of remembrance as an active, benevolent, though not always very judicious philanthropist, than as a consistent and conscientious
Unitarian.
These remarks are believed to apply also in a considerable measure to the writers of the ‘Socinian Tracts.’
These appeared, for the most part anonymously, at intervals during the last ten years of the seventeenth century; and there can be no doubt that they had a powerful effect in drawing the attention of the religious world, at that period to the Trinitarian controversy.
Many of them display extensive learning, and are written with no ordinary talent, spirit, and controversial skill.
In fact, in various instances these writers have left little of consequence to be added by their successors in more recent times, But they did
