charge
to the grand jury. Among Churchmen, some were alarmed lest the heresy
should spread among their own body, while others rather gloried in it
as a natural result of schism. A statement of the case was sent to the
dissenting ministers in the metropolis. The Presbyterian ministers at
Exeter, in order to allay the panic, agreed to make a confession of
faith, every one in his own words _viva voce_. This caused a revival of
the old discussion as to whether confessions of faith should be made in
any but Scripture language. The matter was referred to the ministers in
London, and a meeting was held at Salters' Hall, at which the majority
agreed to the general truth that 'there is but one living and true God,
and that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are that one God.' Numbers,
however, of the Presbyterians, and some of the Baptists, adhered to
Arianism, and thence drifted into Socinianism or rather simple
Unitarianism.

This, indeed, was the general course inside as well as outside the
Church. The very name of Arian almost died out, and the name of Socinian
took its place. The term Socinian is, however, misleading. It by no
means implies that those to whom it was given agreed with the doctrine
of Faustus Socinus. It was often loosely and improperly applied on the
one hand to many who really believed more than he did, and on the other
to many who believed less. In fact, the stigma of Socinianism was tossed
about as a vague, general term of reproach in the eighteenth century,
much in the same way as 'Puseyite,' 'Ritualist,' and 'Rationalist' have
been in our own day. This very inaccurate use of the word Socinian may
in part be accounted for by remembering that one important feature in
the system of Socinus was his utter denial of the doctrine of the
atonement or satisfaction made by Christ in any sense. 'Christ,' he
said, 'is called a mediator not because He made peace between God and
man, but because He was sent from God to man to explain the will of God
and to make a covenant with them in the name of God. A mediator (_a
medio_) is a middle person between God and man.'[442] Now there is
abundance of evidence that before and at the time of the Evangelical
revival in the Church of England, this doctrine of the atonement had
been, if not denied, at least practically ignored. Bishop Horsley, in
his Charge in 1790, complains of this; and in the writings of the early
Evangelical party we find, of course, constant complaints of the