Subsequently Dr. Clarke was taken to task by his diocesan, the Bishop of London, for altering the doxology into an accordance with Arianism.  He was neither convinced nor silenced by Waterland; and though his influence may (as Van Mildert tells us) have perceptibly declined after the great controversy was closed, he was not left without followers, and maintained a high reputation which survived him.  He was for many years known among a certain class of admirers as ‘the great Dr. Clarke.’  Among those who were at least interested in, if not influenced by the doctor was Queen Caroline, the clever wife of George II.

Nor was the excitement caused by the speculations of Dr. Clarke on the doctrine of the Trinity confined to the Church of England alone.  It was the occasion of one of the fiercest disputes that ever arose among Nonconformists.  Exeter was the first scene of the spread of Arianism among the Dissenters.  Two ministers gave great offence to their congregations by preaching Arianism.  The alarm of heresy spread rapidly, and there was so great an apprehension of its tainting the whole country that—­strange as it may sound to modern ears—­the judge at the county assize made the prevalence of Arianism the chief subject of his 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