UNITARIANISM IN AMERICA.

A HISTORY OF ITS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT.




I.


INTRODUCTION.--ENGLISH SOURCES OF AMERICAN UNITARIANISM.

The sources of American Unitarianism are to be found in the spirit of
individualism developed by the Renaissance, the tendency to free inquiry
that manifested itself in the Protestant Reformation, and the general
movement of the English churches of the seventeenth century toward
toleration and rationalism. The individualism of modern thought and life
first found distinct expression in the Renaissance; and it was essentially
a new creation, and not a revival. Hitherto the tribe, the city, the
nation, the guild, or the church, had been the source of authority, the
centre of power, and the giver of life. Although Greece showed a desire for
freedom of thought, and a tendency to recognize the worth of the individual
and his capacity as a discoverer and transmitter of truth, it did not set
the individual mind free from bondage to the social and political power of
the city. Socrates and Plato saw somewhat of the real worth of the
individual, but the great mass of the people were never emancipated from