im
Fathers' on their way with the assurance that the Lord had 'more light
and truth to break forth from His Holy Word.' Occasionally, it is
expressly declared by the covenanting members that theirs is an attitude
of devout expectation of religious growth.

As would naturally be expected, the conditions of the earlier
generations in the colonies were not in favour of a deeply studious
ministry; the leaders were more frequently men of shrewd and practical
piety than profound scholars. As things became more settled, and
especially after the Toleration Act had secured a more assured state of
feeling at home, the minds of men were set at liberty in a greater
degree. Locke's works were carried across the sea, and Dr. Clarke's
Arianizing writings soon followed. Apparently, the first stir of any
importance was produced by the scandal of the punishment of Thomas
Emlyn, the Irish clergyman who has been previously referred to. Emlyn's
writings received a great advertisement, and although he managed, like
Clarke, to avoid further legal difficulties by publishing a statement of
his adherence to a 'Scriptural Trinity,' his defection from the orthodox
dogma was clear enough and his arguments against that dogma remained.
Another case which was notorious in those days was that of _William
Whiston_ (1667-1752), the well-known translator of the works of
Josephus, who was dismissed from his professorship at Cambridge in 1710
for Arianism. A prolific writer and a shrewd debater, Whiston played no
small part in the general leavening of opinion.

But probably the most direct of the literary influences in this
direction came from the pen of _Dr. John Taylor_ (1694-1761), one of the
most able and learned of the Presbyterian divines. His treatises on
_Original Sin_ (1740) and the _Atonement_ (1751) dealt with subjects of
the profoundest importance in relation to the usual Trinitarian scheme
of doctrine. Preferring, for his own part, to be known by no sectarian
name but to be reckoned among 'Christians only,' Taylor was recognized
far and wide as a writer extremely 'dangerous' to the ordinary type of
belief. When the American revivalists were at their height, there were
many quiet and staid New England ministers who found in Taylor a welcome
ally against the extravagances which they witnessed and deplored. The
more logical the Calvinist was, the more vivid in depicting the horrors
of predestined damnation, the more vigorous these men became in