In the first third of the century there can be no doubt that Unitarians adhered tenaciously, but with discrimination, to the idea of the final authority of the Bible.  In this respect they were like Protestants generally, and though they nevertheless brought ‘reason’ to bear on their reading of the Scriptures, other Protestants did the same, if to a less degree.  Both in the United States and in England this attitude was still common up till nearly the middle of the century, and instances could easily be found later still.  The miraculous element was thus retained, though as we have seen as early as in Priestley’s case there was a tendency to eliminate some part of the supernatural.  That a thoroughgoing belief could be stated in good round terms is evident from the following sentence taken from a book issued by Dr. Orville Dewey (1794-1882), one of the most eloquent pulpit orators of his day.  The book is entitled Unitarian Belief, its date is 1839.  Referring to the Bible the author says, ’Enough is it for us, that the matter is divine, the doctrines true, the history authentic, the miracles real, the promises glorious, the threatenings fearful.’  There is good ground for taking this as a fair example of the ideas prevalent among American Unitarians at that time.  Perhaps the statement was made the more emphatic in view of some remarks recently uttered by two young men whose influence, along with more general tendencies, proved fatal to the old doctrine.

One of these young men was James Martineau (1805-1900), who at the age of thirty-one was already known as a writer and preacher far above the average.  He was then resident in Liverpool, where he wrote a remarkable little book with the title The Rationale of Religious Inquiry (1886).  More than fifty years later he published an even more remarkable book, The Seat of Authority in Religion.  There is, indeed, half a century of development between the two books, yet the germinal thought of the second may be detected in the first.  The point at issue is where the ultimate appeal should lie in matters of religion.  With the keen eye for the weaknesses of his fellow-worshippers which always characterized him, Martineau said, ’The Unitarian takes with him [to the study of the Bible] the persuasion that nothing can be scriptural which is not rational and universal.’  This fixed opinion, which he ranks along with the foregone conclusions of other types of theologian, was just that which we have observed in the general course of liberals from Locke onwards.  Though in a note Martineau concedes that his words may somewhat strongly accentuate the common opinion, he represents Unitarians as virtually saying, ’If we could find the doctrines of the Trinity and the Atonement, and everlasting torments in the Scriptures, we should believe them; we reject them, not because we deem them unreasonable, but because we perceive them to be unscriptural.  For my own part, I confess