, it was distinctly affirmed, both in Parliament and in manifestoes
put forth by the dissenting body, that the majority of nonconformist
ministers then living had never subscribed. All arguments, therefore,
grounded on the insincerity which has been rashly imputed to the
Unitarians of former generations, fall at once to the ground.

But, it is said, the persons who, in the reigns of James the Second, of
William the Third, and of Anne, first established these chapels, held
the doctrine of the Trinity; and therefore, when, at a later period, the
preachers and congregations departed from the doctrine of the Trinity,
they ought to have departed from the chapels too. The honourable and
learned gentleman, the Attorney General, has refuted this argument so
ably that he has scarcely left anything for me to say about it. It is
well-known that the change which, soon after the Revolution, began to
take place in the opinions of a section of the old Puritan body, was a
gradual, an almost imperceptible change. The principle of the English
Presbyterians was to have no confession of faith and no form of prayer.
Their trust deeds contained no accurate theological definitions.
Nonsubscription was in truth the very bond which held them together.
What, then, could be more natural than that, Sunday by Sunday,
the sermons should have become less and less like those of the old
Calvinistic divines, that the doctrine of the Trinity should have been
less and less frequently mentioned, that at last it should have ceased
to be mentioned, and that thus, in the course of years, preachers and
hearers should, by insensible degrees, have become first Arians, then,
perhaps, Socinians. I know that this explanation has been treated
with disdain by people profoundly ignorant of the history of English
nonconformity. I see that my right honourable friend near me (Mr Fox
Maule.) does not assent to it. Will he permit me to refer him to an
analogous case with which he cannot but be well acquainted? No person
in the House is more versed than he in the ecclesiastical history of
Scotland; and he will, I am sure, admit that some of the doctrines now
professed by the Scotch sects which sprang from the secessions of 1733
and 1760 are such as the seceders of 1733 and the seceders of 1760 would
have regarded with horror. I have talked with some of the ablest, most
learned, and most pious of the Scotch dissenters of our time; and they
all fully admitted that they held mo