general
ignoring of these doctrines. Now it is probable that the term Socinian
was often applied to those who kept these doctrines in the background,
and not, indeed, applied altogether improperly; only, if we assume that
all those who were termed Socinians disbelieved in the true divinity or
personality of the Son and the Holy Ghost, we shall be assuming more
than was really the case.

On the other hand, many were called Socinians who really believed far
less than Socinus and the foreign Socinians did. It is true that Socinus
'regarded it as a mere human invention, not agreeable to Scripture and
repugnant to reason, that Christ is the only begotten Son of God,
because He and no one besides Him was begotten of the divine
substance;'[443] but he also held that 'Scripture so plainly attributes
a divine and sovereign power to Christ as to leave no room for a
figurative sense.'[444] And the early Socinians thought that Christ must
not only be obeyed but His assistance implored, and that He ought to be
worshipped, that 'invocation of Christ or addressing prayers to Him was
a duty necessarily arising from the character He sustained as head of
the Church;' and that 'those who denied the invocation of Christ did not
deserve to be called Christians.'[445]

Let us now return to the history of our own Socinians, or, as they
preferred to be called, Unitarians; we shall soon see how far short they
fell in point of belief of their foreign predecessors. The heresy
naturally spread more widely among Nonconformists than it could in the
Church of England. As the biographer of Socinus remarks, 'The
Trinitarian forms of worship which are preserved in the Church of
England, and which are so closely incorporated with its services, must
furnish an insuperable objection against conformity with all sincere and
conscientious Unitarians.'[446] If the common sense and common honesty
of Englishmen revolted against the specious attempts of Dr. Clarke and
his friends to justify _Arian_ subscription, a much more hopeless task
would it have been to reconcile the further development of
anti-Trinitarian doctrines with the formularies of the Church.

At the same time it must be admitted that the cessation or abatement of
anti-Trinitarian efforts in the Church after the death of Dr. Clarke is
not to be attributed solely to the firmness and earnestness of
Churchmen's convictions on this subject. It arose, in part at least,
from the general indisposition