351]

The Baptists showed little or no disposition to come to an agreement
with the Church. They were at this time a declining sect, who held
little intercourse with other Dissenters, and were much engaged in petty
but very acrimonious controversies among themselves. They had been
divided ever since 1633 into two sections, the Particular and General
Baptists. The former of the two were Calvinists of the most rigorous and
exclusive type, often conspicuous by a fervent but excessively narrow
form of piety, and illiterate almost on principle on account of their
disparagement of what was called 'human learning.'[352] The General
Baptists, many of whom merged, early in the eighteenth century, into
Unitarians, were less exclusive in their views. But the Baptists
generally viewed the English Church with suspicion and dislike. In many
cases their members were forbidden to enter, an any pretext whatever,
the national churches, or to form intermarriages or hold social
intercourse with Churchmen.[353] Yet some may not have forgotten the
example and teaching of the ablest defender, in the seventeenth century,
of Baptist opinions. 'Mr. Tombs,' says Wall, quoting from Baxter,
'continued an Antipaedobaptist to his dying day, yet wrote against
separation for it, and for communion with the parish churches.'[354]
When Marshall, in the course of controversy, reproached the Baptists
with separation, Tombs answered that he must blame the persons, not the
general body. For his own part he thought such separation a 'practice
justly to be abhorred. The making of sects upon difference of opinions,
reviling, separating from their teachers and brethren otherwise
faithful, because there is not the same opinion in disputable points, or
in clear truths not fundamental, is a thing too frequent in all sorts of
dogmatists, &c., and I look upon it as one of the greatest plagues of
Christianity. You shall have me join with you in detestation of
it.'[355] He himself continued in communion with the National Church
until his death.

Unitarians have always differed from one another so very widely, that
they can hardly be classed or spoken of under one name. Their opinions
have always varied in every possible degree, from such minute departure
from generally received modes of expression in speaking of the mystery
of the Godhead, as needs a very microscopic orthodoxy to detect, down to
the barest and most explicit Socinianism. There were some who charged
wit