CHAPTER XV.

RISE AND PROGRESS OF

UNITARIANISM IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1785-1800.

It was about 1785 that the first open avowal of Unitarianism was made by a religious society in Massachusetts. This was made by the Rev. Mr. Freeman and his people, of King's Chapel, Boston, an Episcopal chapel, which was used by the royal governors and officials, and other loyalists, until the evacuation of the city, in 1776; when the rector and many of his congregation fled the country. For about five years the chapel, a fine stone building, was used by the Old South congregation, while their house was undergoing repairs, it having been nearly ruined by the English soldiers, who used it as a riding-school. On the retirement of the Old South people to their own meeting-house, a small remnant of the chapel congregation rallied, and made arrangements to have Episcopal services in their house; and, being unable to obtain a rector to their liking, they engaged Mr. James Freeman as a reader. He was an Unitarian; and after using the Church of England liturgy for some three years, he succeeded in substituting a revised liturgy, from which every recognition of the Trinity was carefully excluded. This service-book resembled Dr.

Samuel Clarke's, of England, and was "perfectly Unitarian." Thus Mr. Freeman and his people became the first avowed Unitarian parish in America. After this, Mr. Freeman found it impossible to obtain Episcopal ordination, and so had to content himself with the laying on of the hands of the wardens of his parish instead of a bishop's.'

The English Unitarians were greatly interested and encouraged by this movement in Boston; and as a further means of diffusing their views in this country, Mr. Lindsey, one of their most distinguished preachers and writers (1723-1808), made a present of his own and of Dr. Priestley's theological works to the library of Harvard College; for which, “as a very valuable and acceptable present," he received the thanks of the President and Fellows. "These books," we are told, "were read with great avidity by the students." But "though there is great reason to believe that the seed thus sown took deep root, and that in many instances it produced an abundant harvest; and though many persons eminent for rank and talent in the New England States openly avowed the Unitarian creed, it does not appear that any numerous societies of Christians

See American Unitarianism, or A Brief History of the Progress and Present State of the Unitarian Churches in America. By Rev. Thomas Belsham, Essex Street, London. Boston: printed by Nathaniel Willis, No. 76 State Street, 1815. 8vo, 48 pp.

CHAP. XV.]

WILLIAM PYNCHON.

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have hitherto [in 1788] followed the example of the congregation at the King's Chapel, in making a public profession of the Unitarian doctrine."*

But though there was no avowed and organized Unitarianism in Massachusetts before 1788, yet anti-Calvinistic and anti-Trinitarian sentiments can be traced back to a much earlier date, even to some of the very first settlers in this colony. William Pynchon, who came over in 1630, and was one of the founders of the. town and church of Roxbury, who, also, was the treasurer of the colony, and one of the principal men in settling Springfield, published an elaborate work in 1650, entitled, The Meritorious Price of our Redemption, Justification, etc., Clearing it from some Common Errors. In this he denied the doctrine of Imputation, and if we understand his position - the vicarious nature and design of Christ's sufferings. He called those sufferings "but trials of his obedience." Contrasting the views of his brethren with his own, Mr. Pynchon said: "They place the price of our redemption in his suffering God's wrath for us in the full weight and measure, as it is due to our sins by the curse of the Law. I place the price of our Redemption in the merit of his mediatorial obedience, whereof his mediatorial sacrifice of Atonement was the Masterpiece."

The General Court regarded this treatise so

* American Unitarianism, pp. 15–16.

erroneous and dangerous that they appointed one of the foremost ministers of the colony, Rev. John Norton, to answer and refute it; while the book itself was ordered to be publicly burned. Norton, in his reply, says to Pynchon: "It is very true that the mediatorial obedience of Christ is the meritorious and full price of redemption; but most untrue in the sense of your mediatorial obedience; for you leave out and reject from thence Christ's obedience to the law of works as God-man, his judicial bearing of sin, his suffering the punishment due for sin, in way of satisfaction to Divine Justice, and all this as the surety of the elect."

Mr. Pynchon was summoned before the General Court, and "labored with" by that august body; and turned over to the elders, to be convinced of his heresy. But, though the offender made some slight concessions, yet he seems to have retained substantially his peculiar views to the end. He left New England in the autumn of 1652, and spent the remainder of his life at Wraisbury, England, where he died, in October, 1662, aged seventy-two years. Pynchon was a man of high reputation as a citizen and a magistrate in Massachusetts; and was, evidently, a man of learning and ability.* He replied to Nor

*I have relied chiefly on Felt for my account of Pynchon.Ecc. Hist. N. E., 11, 20, 43-45, 54, 60, 65, 68, 205; Farmer's Reg.; Allen's Dict. Pynchon's standing in the Colony may be seen by

CHAP. XV.]

IMPORTED HERESIES.

561

ton twice after going to England, and published other works which proved him an accomplished scholar and an able writer. Mr. Pynchon's sonin-law, Captain Smith, and his pastor, the Rev. George Moxon, went with him to England, and there remained. Whether they sympathized in his peculiar views, we do not know, though it is quite probable that they did. It is certain that a brother-in-law of Pynchon, Edward Holyoke, of Springfield, previously of Lynn, did sympathize in these views; for in 1658 he published in London "a learned and able work" on "Man's Redemption" and various collateral subjects, in which work some of his views are found to be accordant with Mr. Pynchon's.*

It was not, however, until after Arminian and Arian views began to spread among the English Dissenters, between whom and the New England divines and leading men there was much sympathy and correspondence and reciprocal influence, that these opinions made much progress in this country.

Arminianism, Arianism, Socinianism and Unitarianism were embraced and preached and published in England freely and extensively, and by men of learning, ability and influence, during

the frequent reference to him in Winthrop's Journal, 1, 12, et passim; 11, 325, 384-. Baylies calls Pynchon "a gentleman of extensive learning and acquirements."- Mem. Plym. Col., 1, 202; a man of extraordinary learning." — Ib., 318 *Felt, 11, 205; Prince Library, Holyoke.