presented Jesus as a 'mere man,' i.e. a being not essentially different
in his nature from the rest of humankind. Modern Unitarianism, however,
usually avoids this kind of phrase; 'all minds,' said Channing, 'are of
one family.'





THE EARLIER MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND


I. THE UNITARIAN MARTYRS

The rise of any considerable body of opinion opposed to the cardinal
dogma of orthodoxy was preceded in England by a very strongly marked
effort to secure liberty of thought, and a corresponding plea for a
broadly comprehensive religious fellowship. The culmination of this
effort, is reached, for the period first, to be reviewed, in the
writings of _John Locke_ (1632-1704). This celebrated man, by his
powerful arguments for religious toleration and his defence of the
'reasonableness' of the Christian religion, exerted an influence of the
most important kind. But we must reach him by the path of his
predecessors in the same line. The principles of liberty of thought and
the broadest religious fellowship are warmly espoused by Unitarians, and
they look upon all who have advanced these principles as in spirit
related to them, however different their respective theological
conclusions may have been.

At the time of the Reformation a great deal of speculation broke forth