the latter part of the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth century; and their writings found many readers and admirers in New England. The learned Daniel Whitby (16381726), first an Arminian in some of his views, and afterwards an Arian, published his Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament in 1700. It was a very popular work, and new editions were called for from year to year, as long as the author lived, and long after his death. The ninth edition was published in 1761. This commentary — which was pronounced by Doddridge "preferable to any other, on account of [the author's] learning and judicious notes;" and by Bishop Watson, "the best commentary we have in our language"-found its way, with other writings of the learned author, to New England, and exerted no inconsiderable influence on the minds of our clergy. The writings of the celebrated and learned English Arian, the Rev. Thomas Emlyn (1663–1743), were also circulated and admired in New England; particularly An Humble Inquiry into the Scriptural Account of Jesus Christ, first published about 1702; for which there was sufficient call to justify the re

*Allibone, sub. nom. Even when Dr. Edwards (early in 1754) wrote his wonderful essay on the Freedom of the Will, with special reference to the refutation of Whitby's views, he carefully avoided calling Whitby an "Arminian;" but simply says that, in his views of the freedom of the will, he agrees with the Arminians. See preface to Freedom of the Will.

CHAP. XV.]

DR. SAMUEL CLARKE.

563

Dr.

publication of essential portions of the work in Boston, in 1756, with a recommendatory introduction by a Boston layman, "G. T." Emlyn was at first a High Arian, and believed that Jesus Christ was an exalted and glorious being, essentially distinct from the Father, the first and noblest of God's creatures, but not divine. Samuel Clarke's Paraphrase on the Four Gospels, first published in 1701-02, and often reprinted, and his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, first published in 1712, and which led to long-continued controversy, were also among the early publications which sowed Arian notions in New England, and greatly encouraged anti-Trinitarian sentiments. Clarke, in addition to his very profound learning, which secured universal respect, taught a scheme of doctrine, specious, and peculiarly dangerous, because so nearly Trinitarian that to adopt it was an unsuspected first step toward Unitarianism. "He regarded the Son and Holy Spirit as emanations from the Father, endowed by him with every attribute of Deity, selfexistence alone excepted."* Taylor's writings, and the controversy which they provoked, tended still further to spread Arianism over the country; and Arianism led men gradually down to mere Humanitarianism.

The writings of Dr. John Taylor, of Norwich,

*Allibone has an extended and very excellent notice of Dr. Clarke's works.

England (1694-1761), particularly his treatise on The Scriptural Doctrine of Original Sin, attracted so much attention in this country, that the profound Dr. Jonathan Edwards, seeing "the great corruption of doctrine in New England, in consequence of Dr. Taylor's writings," felt called on to examine it and refute its doctrine; which he did in his great work entitled, The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended; and so thoroughly did Edwards do his work, that even Dr. Taylor himself is said to have acknowledged himself defeated.* And it was in refutation of Whitby's Arminian views, which were gaining much favor in New England, that Dr. Edwards wrote, in 1754, his immortal work, entitled, A careful and strict Enquiry into the modern prevailing Notions of that Freedom of Will which is supposed to be essential to Moral Agency, Vertue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame; which Dr. Jamieson says "is universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest efforts of human intellect."

That the leaven of Arminianism and even Arianism had begun to work in the New England churches as early as 1722, is certainly suggested by Dr. Cotton Mather's convention sermon of that date. In that discourse, the good man holds the

*Allibone, arts. Taylor and Edwards.

† Allibone devotes three and a half of his capacious columns to Edwards, and does him ample justice.

CHAP. XV.]

"DEAD ORTHODOXY."

565

following language: "For ministers to have this recommended unto them that they should not preach much about the person of Christ! I am surprised! I am ashamed! . . . It is to be suspected that the loss of these glorious truths - if they must be lost-will be very much owing to an over-great value for such books as have been very much in vogue among us; books whereof it may be complained: Nomen Christi non est ibi [the name of Christ is not in them], and the religion of a regenerate mind is not there to be met withal; books which, if our young men will read, they ought also to read the just castigations which Dr. Edwards, in his Preacher, has bestowed upon them."

There may have been little or no avowed Arianism or even Arminianism among the New England churches and clergy at that time. Dr. Joseph S. Clark, a very competent authority, says: "Not a church nor a minister throughout the State had yet [1720-30] avowed an Arminian tenet, nor renounced an article of the Calvinistic creed. Dead Orthodoxy was the prevailing religion of the period now under review." This may have been strictly true so far as any avowal was concerned, and yet, a careful reading of the

*See Dr. Gillett's valuable résumé of the Unitarian Controversy, in The Historical Magazine, vol. 1x, second series, pp. 221-324.

↑ Hist. Cong'l Churches of Mass., pp. 139–44.

history of this period, and of that which immediately followed it, forces the conviction on one that this "dead Orthodoxy" was the first fruits of the Arminian and Arian seed which had been previously sown here, largely by foreign hands; that the writings of Whitby and Taylor and Clarke and Emlyn, and kindred spirits, had indeed materially encouraged doubters, strengthened latent disbelief of Calvinism, and helped to reconcile the faith and practice of men who had ceased to feel and live as though the essential doctrines of the fathers were vital truths.

As early as 1757 there were Massachusetts ministers who, though not forward to confess their departure from the Orthodox faith, were yet settled in their disbelief of the Trinity and of Calvinism generally. One of these was the Rev. John Rogers, son of the Rev. John Rogers, of Boxford, a graduate of Harvard in 1732, and settled as the first pastor at Leominster, September 14th, 1743. He was a man of considerable ability as a preacher and writer, and of great firmness of character and general frankness. For a number of years he sustained the reputation of Orthodoxy; but after awhile, some of his people began to suspect that he was not perfectly sound in his doctrinal views; and about 1757, these suspicions were so far confirmed that the church was constrained to make several distinct charges against him, of doctrinal unsoundness;