to the Puritans as possible. Thereupon arose the rivalry of Conformist
and Nonconformist which has ever since existed in England. Severely
repressive measures were tried, but failed to extinguish Nonconformity;
it stood irreconcilable outside the establishment. There were distinct
varieties in its ranks. The Presbyterians, once largely dominant, were
gradually overtaken numerically by the Independents. Perhaps it is
better to say that, in the circumstances of exclusion in which both were
situated, and the impossibility of maintaining a Presbyterian order and
organization, the dividing line between these two bodies of
Nonconformists naturally faded out. There was little, if anything, to
keep them apart on the score of doctrine; and in time the Presbyterians
certainly exhibited something of the tendency to variety of opinion
which had always marked the Independents. Besides these bodies, the
Baptists and Quakers stand out amid the sects comprised in
Nonconformity. In both of these there were distinct signs of
Anti-trinitarianism from time to time; as to the former, indeed, along
with the earlier Baptist movements in England and on the Continent
(especially in the Netherlands) there had always gone a streak of heresy
alarming to the authorities. Among the Quakers, William Penn is
specially notable in connection with our subject. In 1668 he was
imprisoned for publishing _The Sandy Foundation Shaken_, in which
Sabellian views were advocated. It need hardly be pointed out that among
the still more eccentric movements, if the term be allowed, heterodoxy
as to the Trinity was easy to trace.

When the Toleration Act was passed the old Nonconformity became
'Dissent,' that being the term used in the statute itself. Dissenters
were now granted freedom of worship and preaching, but only on condition
that their ministers subscribed to the doctrinal articles of the Church
of England, including, of course, belief in the Trinity. Unitarians,