therefore, were excluded from the benefit of the Act, and the general
views of Dissenters upon the subject are clear from the fact that they
took special care to have Unitarians ruled out from the liberty now
being achieved by themselves. Locke and other liberal men evidently
regretted this limitation, but the time was not ripe, and in fact the
penal law against Unitarians was not repealed till 1813. Unluckily, too,
for the Unitarians, a sharp controversy, due to their own zeal, had
broken out at the very time that the Toleration Act was shaping, and as
this had other important results we must give some attention to it.


IV. THE 'UNITARIAN TRACTS'

There are six volumes, containing under this title a large number of
pamphlets and treatises, for and against the new views, published about
this period. It is the first considerable body of Unitarian literature.
Its promoter was _Thomas Firmin_, a disciple of John Bidle, on whose
behalf he interceded with Oliver Cromwell, though himself but a youth at
the time. Firmin, a prosperous citizen of London, counted among his
friends men of the highest offices in the Church, some of whom are said
to have been affected with his type of thought. Apart from his
Unitarianism he is remarkable as an enlightened philanthropist of great
breadth of sympathy. Men of very different theological bent who were
fain to seek refuge in London from persecutions abroad were aided by
funds raised by him. We should notice also that, ardent as he was in
diffusing Unitarian teachings, he had no wish at first to set up
separate Unitarian chapels; his desire was that the national Church
should include thinkers like himself. We are thus pointed into a path
which for a time at least promised more for Unitarian developments than
anything very evident in the Dissenting community.