and although he managed, like Clarke, to avoid further legal difficulties by publishing a statement of his adherence to a ‘Scriptural Trinity,’ his defection from the orthodox dogma was clear enough and his arguments against that dogma remained.  Another case which was notorious in those days was that of William Whiston (1667-1752), the well-known translator of the works of Josephus, who was dismissed from his professorship at Cambridge in 1710 for Arianism.  A prolific writer and a shrewd debater, Whiston played no small part in the general leavening of opinion.

But probably the most direct of the literary influences in this direction came from the pen of Dr. John Taylor (1694-1761), one of the most able and learned of the Presbyterian divines.  His treatises on Original Sin (1740) and the Atonement (1751) dealt with subjects of the profoundest importance in relation to the usual Trinitarian scheme of doctrine.  Preferring, for his own part, to be known by no sectarian name but to be reckoned among ‘Christians only,’ Taylor was recognized far and wide as a writer extremely ‘dangerous’ to the ordinary type of belief.  When the American revivalists were at their height, there were many quiet and staid New England ministers who found in Taylor a welcome ally against the extravagances which they witnessed and deplored.  The more logical the Calvinist was, the more vivid in depicting the horrors of predestined damnation, the more vigorous these men became in denouncing such a doctrine.  Perhaps the growing sense of individual liberty and personal rights had much to do with the reaction.  A theory based upon the postulate of an absolute and unconditioned sovereignty divine did not accord with the growing democratic temper.  Preachers began to insist, and hearers to agree, that, whatever ‘salvation’ is, it must be reasonable if reasonable creatures are to enjoy its benefits.  Here also, as among the English latitude-men, the conviction grew that the essentials of a Christian belief must be few and simple and these such as plain men could understand and discuss; and here, as among the sober Dissenters at home, men looked askance on unintelligent outbursts of emotion.

The process of change was not very fast, and a good many who were sensible of change in their opinions were reluctant to accept new doctrinal designations.  Arians they might be, but they preferred to be known as standing by a ‘Scriptural Christianity.’  For, whatever new books might be written, the Bible remained their chief study and their support in discussion.  Keen, rational rather than mystical, yet deeply interested in moral progress and human elevation, these American divines were much of a mind with their English brethren whose path lay in the same direction.  One of the most influential preachers was Charles Chauncey (1706-87); who for sixty years was minister at the ’First Church,’ Boston.  His theology was Arian and ‘Universalist’ (i.e. holding the doctrine of a final universal salvation); his Anti-Calvinism came out forcibly in his protests against the revivalist excesses.  It is recorded of him that in his youth, disgusted by noisy fanatics, he prayed God never to make him an orator.  His prayer was granted—­and still he was a power!