mankind--Locke examines the historical portion of the New Testament, and
presents the result. Practically, this amounts to the verdict that it is
sufficient for the Christian to accept the Messiahship of Christ and to
submit to his rule of conduct. The orthodox critics complained that he
had omitted the epistles in his summary of doctrine; his retort is
obvious: if the gospels lead to the conclusion just stated, the epistles
cannot be allowed, however weighty, to establish a contrary one. Of
course, Locke was called a 'Socinian'; but the effect of his work
remained, and we should remark that if it looked on the one hand toward
the orthodox, on the other it looked toward the sceptics and
freethinkers who began at that time a long and not ineffectual criticism
of the miraculous claims of Christianity. Locke endeavoured to convince
such minds that Christianity was in reality not an irrational code of
doctrines, but a truly practical scheme of life. In this endeavour he
was preceded by Richard Baxter, who had written on the 'Unreasonableness
of Infidelity,' and was followed during the eighteenth century by many
who in the old Dissenting chapels were leading the way towards an overt
Unitarianism.


III. THE OLD NONCONFORMISTS

The reader must be reminded here of a few salient facts in the religious
history of the seventeenth century. All these undercurrents of heterodox
thought, with but few and soon repressed public manifestations of its
presence, were obscured by the massive movement in Church and State.
During the Commonwealth the episcopal system was abolished, and a
presbyterian system substituted, though with difficulty and at best
imperfectly. After the Restoration of Charles II the Act of Uniformity
re-established episcopacy in a form made of set purpose as unacceptable