[12] Whitefield's Journal, seventh part, 28.

[13] Historical Magazine, new series, IX. 227, April, 1871.

[14] W.B. Sprague, Annals of the Unitarian Pulpit, II.

[15] Levi L. Paine, A Critical History of the Evolution of Trinitarianism, 99. "Samuel Clarke and others took the ground that G.o.d is unipersonal, and hence that the Son is a distinct personal being, distinguishing G.o.d the Father as the absolute Deity from the Son whom they regarded as G.o.d in a relative or secondary sense, being derived from the Father, and having his beginning from Him."

[16] Seasonable Thoughts, 337.

[17] Alden Bradford, in his Memoir of the Life and Writings of Rev.

Jonathan Mayhew, D.D., gives a list of "the clergymen who openly opposed or did not teach and advocate the Calvinistic doctrines" at the time of Mayhew's ordination, in 1747. These were: Dr. Appleton, Cambridge; Dr. Gay, Hingham; Dr. Chauncy, Boston; William Rand, Kingston; Nathaniel Eelles, Scituate; Edward Barnard, Haverhill; Samuel Cooke, West Cambridge (now Arlington); Jeremiah Fogg, Kensington, N.H.; Dr. A. Eliot, Boston; Dr. Samuel Webster, Salisbury; Lemuel Briant, Braintree; Dr. Stevens, Kittery, Me.; Dr. Tucker, Newbury; Timothy Harrington, Lancaster; Dr. Gad Hitchc.o.c.k, Pembroke; Josiah Smith, Pembroke; William Smith, Weymouth; Dr. Daniel Shute, Hingham; Dr. Samuel Cooper, Boston; Dr. Mayhew, Boston; Abraham Williams, Sandwich; Anthony Wibird, Braintree (now Quincy); Dr.

Cushing, Waltham; Professor Wigglesworth, Harvard College; Dr. Symmes, Andover; Dr. John Willard, Connecticut; Amos Adams, Roxbury; Dr.

Barnes, Scituate; Charles Turner, Duxbury; Dr. Dana Wallingford, Conn.; Ebenezer Thayer, Hampton, N.H.; Dr. Fiske, Brookfield; Dr.

Samuel West, Dartmouth (now New Bedford); Dr. Hemenway, Wells. Among those who took part in the ordination of Jonathan Mayhew, and therefore presumably of the same theological opinions, were Hanc.o.c.k, Lexington; Cotton, Newton; Cooke, Sudbury; Prescott, Danvers (now Salem). To these may be added, says Bradford, though of a somewhat later date: Dr. Coffin, Buxton; Drs. Howard, West, Lathrop, and Belknap, Boston; Dr. Henry c.u.mmings, Billerica; Dr. Deane, Portland; Thomas Cary, Newburyport; Dr. Fobes, Raynham; Timothy Hilliard, Cambridge; Thomas Haven, Reading; Dr. Willard, Beverly. Dr. Ezra Ripley added the names of Hedge, of Warwick, and Foster, of Stafford.

This makes fifty-two in all, but probably as many more could be added by careful search.

[18] Grace Defended, 43.

[19] Ibid., 60.

[20] Alice Morse Earle, Customs and Fashions in Old New England, 364, 367.

See H.M. Dexter, Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, 458.

[21] A.B. Ellis, History of the First Church in Boston, 199.

[22] New England Magazine, February, 1899. A.H. Coolidge on Scripture Reading in the Worship of the New England Churches.

IV.

THE SILENT ADVANCE OF LIBERALISM.

The progressive tendencies went silently on; and step by step the old beliefs were discarded, but always by individuals and churches, and not by a.s.sociations or general official action. Even before the middle of the eighteenth century there was not only a questioning of the doctrine of divine decrees, the conception that G.o.d elects some to bliss and some to perdition in accordance with his own arbitrary will, but there was also developing a tendency to reject the tritheism[1] which in New England took the place of a philosophical conception of the Trinity, such as had been held by the great thinkers of the Christian ages. In part this doubt about the Trinity was the result of a more thoughtful study of the Bible, where the doctrine taught by the leading theologians of the old school in New England does not appear; and in part it was the result of the reading of the works of the English divines of the more liberal school. Something of this tendency was also due to the spirit of free inquiry, and the rational interpretation of religion, that were beginning to make themselves felt amongst those not wholly committed to the old ways of thinking.

It was characteristic of those who questioned the doctrine of the Trinity, as then taught, that they insisted on stating their beliefs in the language of the New Testament, especially in that of Jesus himself. They found him teaching his own dependence on his Father, claiming for himself only an inferior and subordinate position. Believing in his pre-existence, his supernatural character and mission, they held that he was the creator of the world or that creation took place by means of the spirit that was in him, and that every honor should be paid him except that of worshipping him as the Supreme Being. As in the ancient family the son was always subordinate to his father, so the Son of G.o.d presented in the New Testament is less exalted than his Father. This conception of Christ is technically called Arianism, from the Alexandrian presbyter of the fourth century who first brought it into prominence.

[Sidenote: Subordinate Nature of Christ.]

The Arian heresy did not necessarily follow the Arminian, but much the same causes led to its appearance. Many of the leading men in England had become Arians, including Milton, Locke, Taylor, Clarke, Watts, and others; and the reading of their books in New England led to an inquiry into the truthfulness of the doctrine of the Trinity. As early as 1720 the preachers of convention and election sermons were insisting upon a recognition of Christ in the old way, showing that they were suspicious of heresy.[2]

Most of the Arians retained the other doctrines in which they had been educated, even putting a stronger emphasis upon them than before. Rarely was the subordinate nature of Christ made in any way prominent in preaching. It was held so strictly subsidiary to the cardinal doctrines of incarnation and atonement that only the most intelligent and watchful could detect any difference between those who were Arians and those who were strict Trinitarians. Now and then a man of more p.r.o.nounced convictions and utterance was shunned by his ministerial neighbors, but this rarely occurred and had little practical effect. So long as a preacher gave satisfaction to his own congregation, and had behind him the voters and the tax-list of his town, his heresies were pa.s.sed by with only comment and gossip.

We find here and there definite indications of the doctrinal changes that were taking place, as in the republication of Emlyn's Humble Inquiry into the Scripture Account of Jesus Christ, which appeared in Boston in 1756.

Thomas Emlyn, the first English preacher who called himself a Unitarian, published his Humble Inquiry in 1702; and in 1705 he established a Unitarian congregation in London. This distinctively Unitarian book made an able defence of the doctrine of the subordinate nature of Christ. More significant than the republication of the book itself was the preface written for it by a Boston layman, addressed to the ministers of the town, in which he said that he found its teaching "to be the true, plain, unadulterated doctrine of the Gospel." He also intimated that "many of his brethren of the laity in the town and country were in sympathy with him and sincerely desirous of knowing the truth." "In New Hampshire Province,"

wrote Dr. Joseph Bellamy, in 1760, "this party have actually, three years ago, got things so ripe that they have ventured to new model our Shorter Catechism, to alter or entirely leave out the doctrine of the Trinity, of the decrees, of our first parents being created holy, of original sin, Christ satisfying divine justice, effectual calling, justification, etc."[3]

[Sidenote: Some of the Liberal Leaders.]

The farther advance in the liberal movement may be most easily traced in the lives and teachings of three or four men. Rev Ebenezer Gay, who was settled in Hingham in 1717, was the first man in New England to arrive at a clear statement of opinions quite outside of and distinct from Calvinism.

Writing of the years from 1750 to 1755, John Adams said that at that time Lemuel Briant, of Braintree, Jonathan Mayhew, of the West Church in Boston, Daniel Shute, of Hingham, John Brown, of Coha.s.set, and perhaps equal to all, if not above all, Ebenezer Gay, of Hingham, were Unitarians.[4] The rapid sale of Emlyn's book would prove the truthfulness of this statement.

It was not by any sudden process that these men had come to what may be called Unitarianism, though, more properly, Arianism; and not as a mere result of a reaction from Calvinism. A new time had come, and with it new hopes and thoughts. The burdening sense of the spiritual world that belonged to the men of the seventeenth century did not belong to those of the eighteenth. Men had come to see that G.o.d must manifest himself in reason, common sense, nature, and the facts of life.

In the life and teachings of such a man as Ebenezer Gay we catch a new insight into the spirit that was active in New England throughout the eighteenth century for the realization of a larger faith. He was a man of a strong, original, vigorous nature, a born leader of men, and one who impressed his own character upon those with whom he came into contact. He opposed the revival, and he made the men of his own a.s.sociation think with him in their opposition to it. Years before the revival, however, he was a liberal in theology, and had found his way into Arminianism. With the spirit of free inquiry he was in fullest sympathy. He was strongly opposed to creeds and to all written articles of faith. He condemned in the most forcible terms the young man who, on the occasion of his ordination, "engages to preach according to a rule of faith, creed, or confession which is merely of human prescription or imposition." In his convention sermon of 1746 he denounced those who "insist upon the offensive peculiarities of the party they espoused rather than upon the more mighty things in which we are all agreed." It has been said of him that, after the middle of the century, "his discourses will be searched in vain for any discussions of controversial theology, any advocacy of the peculiar doctrines regarded as orthodox, or the expression of any opinions at variance with those of his successor, Dr. Ware."[5]

The sermon on Natural Religion as distinguished from Revealed, which Dr.

Gay delivered as the Dudleian lecture at Harvard, in 1759, showed the reasonable and progressive spirit of his preaching. He claimed that there is no antagonism between natural and revealed religion, and that, while revealed religion is an addition to the natural, it is not built on the ruins, but on the everlasting foundations of it. Revelation can teach nothing contrary to natural religion or to the dictates of reason. "No doctrine or scheme of religion," he said, "should be advanced or received as Scriptural and divine which is plainly and absolutely inconsistent with the perfections of G.o.d, and the possibility of things. Absurdities and contradictions, are not to be obtruded upon our faith. No pretence of revelation can be sufficient for the admission of them. The manifest absurdity of any doctrine is a stronger argument that it is not of G.o.d than any other evidence can be that it is."

Jonathan Mayhew, the son of Experience Mayhew, of Martha's Vineyard, was settled over the West Church of Boston in 1747. He was even then known as a heretic, who had read the most liberal books of the English philosophers and theologians, and who had boldly accepted their opinions as his own. On the occasion of his ordination not one of the Boston ministers was present, although a number of them were well known for their liberal opinions. The ordination was postponed, and later several men of remoter parishes joined in inducting this young independent into his pulpit. No Boston minister would exchange pulpits with him, and he was not invited to join the ministerial a.s.sociation. He was shunned by the ministers, and he was dreaded by the orthodox; but he was gladly heard by a large congregation, which grew in numbers and intelligence as the years went on. He had among his hearers many of the leading men of the town, and to him gathered those who were most thoughtful and progressive. Boston has never had in any of its pulpits a man of n.o.bler, broader, more humane qualities, or one with a mind more completely committed to seeking and knowing the truth, or with a more unflinching purpose to speak his own mind without fear or favor. His influence was soon powerfully felt in the town, and his name came to stand for liberty in politics as well as in religion. His sermons were rapidly printed and distributed widely. They were read in every part of New England with great eagerness; they were reprinted in England, and brought him a large correspondence from those who admired and approved of his teaching.

Though he died in 1766, at the age of forty-six, his work and his influence did not die with him.

The cardinal thought of Jonathan Mayhew with reference to religion was that of free inquiry. Diligent and free examination of all questions, he felt, was necessary to any acquisition of the truth. He believed in liberty and toleration everywhere, and this made him accept in the fullest sense the doctrine of the freedom of the will. In man he found a self-determining power, the source of his moral and intellectual freedom. He said that we are more certain of the fact that we are free than we are of the truth of Christianity. This belief led him to the rejection of the Calvinistic doctrine of inability, and to a strong faith in the moral and spiritual possibilities of human nature. He described Christianity as "a practical science, the art of living piously and virtuously."[6] He had quite freed his mind from bondage to creeds when he said that, "how much soever any man may be mistaken in opinion concerning the terms of salvation, yet if he is practically in the right there is no doubt but he will be accepted of G.o.d."[7] He held that no speculative error, however great, is sufficient to exclude a good and upright man from the kingdom of heaven, who lives according to the genuine spirit of the gospel. To him the principle of grace was always a principle of goodness and holiness; and he held that grace can never be operative as a saving power without obedience to that righteousness and love which Christ taught as essential.[8] He declared that "the doctrine that men may obtain salvation without ceasing to do evil and learning to do well, without yielding a sincere obedience to the laws of Christianity, is not so properly called a doctrine of grace as it is a doctrine of devils."[9] He said, again, that we cannot be justified by a faith that is without obedience; for it is obedience and good works that give to faith all its life, efficacy, and perfection.[10]

[Sidenote: The First Unitarian.]

Dr. Mayhew accepted without equivocation the right of private judgment in religion, and he practised it judicially and with wise insight. He unhesitatingly applied the rational method to all theological problems, and to him reason was the final court of appeal for everything connected with religion. His love of freedom was enthusiastic and persistent, and he was zealously committed to the principle of individuality. He believed in the essential goodness of human nature, and in the doctrine of the Divine Unity. He was the first outspoken Unitarian in New England, not merely because he rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, but because he accepted all the cardinal principles developed by that movement since his day. He was a rationalist, an individualist, a defender of personal freedom, and tested religious practices by the standard of common sense. His sermons were plain, direct, vigorous, and modern. A truly religious man, Mayhew taught a practical and humanitarian religion, genuinely ethical, and faithful in inculcating the motive of civic duty.

Dr. Mayhew's words may be quoted in regard to some of the religious beliefs commonly accepted in his day. "The doctrine of a total ignorance and incapacity to judge of moral and religious truths brought upon mankind by the disobedience of our first parents," he wrote, "is without foundation."[11] "I hope it appears," he says, "that the love of G.o.d and of our neighbor, that sincere piety of heart, and a righteous, holy and charitable life, are the weightier matters of the gospel, as well as of the law."[12] "Although Christianity cannot," he a.s.serts, "with any propriety or justice be said to be the same with natural religion, or merely a republication of the laws of nature, yet the princ.i.p.al, the most important and fundamental duties required by Christianity are, nevertheless, the same which were enjoined under the legal dispensation of Moses, and the same which are dictated by the light of nature."[13] His great love of intellectual and spiritual freedom finds utterance in such a statement as this: "Nor has any order or body of men authority to enjoin any particular article of faith, nor the use of any modes of worship not expressly pointed out in the Scriptures; nor has the enjoining of such articles a tendency to preserve the peace and harmony of the church, but directly the contrary."[14] Such sentences as the following are frequent on Mayhew's pages, and they show clearly the trend of his mind: "Free examination, weighing arguments for and against with care and impartiality, is the way to find truth." "True religion flourishes the more, the more people exercise their right of private judgment."[15] "There is nothing more foolish and superst.i.tious than a veneration for ancient creeds and doctrines as such, and nothing is more unworthy a reasonable creature than to value principles by their age, as some men do their wines."[16]

Mayhew insisted upon the strict unity of G.o.d, "who is without rival or compet.i.tor." "The dominion and sovereignty of the universe is necessarily one and in one, the only living and true G.o.d, who delegates such measures of power and authority to other beings as seemeth good in his sight." He declared that the not preserving of such unity and supremacy of G.o.d on the part of Christians "has long been just matter of reproach to them"; and he said the authority of Christ is always "exercised in subordination to G.o.d's will."[17] His position was that "the faith of Christians does not terminate in Christ as the ultimate object of it, but it is extended through him to the one G.o.d."[18] The very idea of a mediator implies subordination as essential to it.[19] His biographer says he did not accept the notion of vicarious suffering, and, that he was an Arian in his views of the nature of Christ. "He was the first clergyman in New England who expressly and openly opposed the scholastic doctrine of the Trinity.

Several others declined pressing the Athanasian Creed, and believed strictly in the unity of G.o.d. They also probably found it difficult to explain their views on the subject, and the great danger of losing their good name served to prevent their speaking out. But Dr. Mayhew did not conceal or disguise his sentiments on this point any more than on others, such as the peculiar tenets of Calvinism. He explicitly and boldly declared the doctrine irrational, unscriptural, and directly contradictory."[20] He taught the strict unity of G.o.d as early as 1753, "in the most unequivocal and plain manner, in his sermons of that year."[21] What most excited comment and objection was that, in a foot-note to the volume of his sermons published in 1755, Mayhew said that a Catholic Council had elevated the Virgin Mary to the position of a fourth person in the G.o.dhead, and added, by way of comment: "Neither Papists nor Protestants should imagine that they will be understood by others if they do not understand themselves. Nor should they think that nonsense and contradictions can ever be too sacred to be ridiculous." The ridicule here was not directed against the doctrine of the Trinity, as has been maintained, but the foolish defences of it made by men who accepted its "mysteries" as too wonderful for reason to deal with in a serious manner. This boldness of comment on the part of Mayhew was in harmony with his strong disapproval of creed-making in all its forms. He condemned creeds because they set up "human tests of orthodoxy instead of the infallible word of G.o.d, and make other terms of Christian communion than those explicitly pointed out by the Gospel."[22]

Dr. Mayhew was succeeded in the West Church by Rev. Simeon Howard in 1767, who, though he was received in a more friendly spirit by the ministers of the town, was not less radical in his theology than his predecessor. Dr.

Howard was both an Arminian and an Arian, and he was "a believer neither in the Trinity, nor in the divine predestination of total depravity, and necessary ruin to any human soul."[23] He was of a gentle and conciliatory temper, but his preaching was quite as thorough-going in its intellectual earnestness as was Dr. Mayhew's.

[Sidenote: A p.r.o.nounced Universalist.]

Another preacher on the liberal side was Dr. Charles Chauncy of the First Church in Boston, whose ministry lasted from 1727 to 1787. He was the most vigorous of the opponents of the great awakening, both in his pulpit and through the press. He wrote a book on certain French fanatics, with the purpose of showing what would be the natural results of the excesses of the revival; he preached a powerful sermon on enthusiasm, to indicate the dangers of religious excitement, when not controlled by common sense and reason; and he travelled throughout New England to gain all the information possible about the revival, its methods and results, and published his Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England in 1743. He had been influenced by the reading of Taylor, Tillotson, Clarke, and the other lat.i.tudinarian and rationalistic writers of England; and he found the revival in its excesses repugnant to his every thought of what was true and devout in religion.

Dr. Chauncy was not an eloquent preacher; but he was clear, earnest, and honest. Many of his sermons were published, and his books numbered nearly a dozen. As early as 1739 he preached a sermon in favor of religious toleration. At a later period he said, "It is with me past all doubt that the religion of Jesus will never be restored to its primitive purity, simplicity, and glory, until religious establishments are so brought down as to be no more."[24] It was this conviction which made him oppose in his pulpit and in two or three books the effort that was made just before the Revolution to establish the English Church as the state form of religion in the colonies. He said, in 1767, that the American people would hazard everything dear to them--their estates, their lives--rather than suffer their necks to be put under the yoke of bondage to any foreign power in state or church.[25]

In his early life Dr. Chauncy was an Arminian, but slowly he grew to the acceptance of distinctly Unitarian and Universalist doctrines. Near the end of his life he Published four or five books in which he advanced very liberal opinions. One of these, published in Boston in 1784, was on The Benevolence of the Deity fairly and impartially Considered. This book followed the same method and purpose as Butler's a.n.a.logy, and aimed to show that G.o.d has manifested his goodness in creation and in the life of man. He said that our moral self-determination, or free will, is our one great gift from G.o.d. He discussed the moral problems of life in order to prove the benevolence of G.o.d, maintaining that the goodness we see in him is of the same nature with goodness in ourselves. The year following he published a book on the Scriptural account of the Fall and its Consequences, in which he rejected the doctrine of total depravity, and interpreted the new birth as a result of education rather than of supernatural change. Thus he brought to full statement the logical result of the half-way covenant and the teachings of Solomon Stoddard, as well as of the connection of church and state in New England. He saw that the method of education is the only one that can justly be followed in the preparation of the young for admission to a church that is sustained in any direct way by the state.

Dr. Chauncy's great work as a preacher and author[26] was brought to its close by his books in favor of universal salvation. In 1783-84 he published in Boston two anonymous pamphlets advocating the salvation of all men, and these pamphlets made no little stir. In 1784 he published in London a work which he called The Mystery hid from Ages and Generations, made manifest by the Gospel Revelation; or, The Salvation of All Men the Grand Thing aimed at in the Scheme of G.o.d: By One who wishes well to the whole Human Race. In this book Dr. Chauncy made an elaborate study of the New Testament, in order to prove that salvation is to be universal. Christ died for all, therefore all will be saved; because all have sinned in Adam, therefore all will be made alive in Christ. He looked to a future probation, to a long period after death, when the opportunity of salvation will be open to all.

He maintained that the misery threatened against the wicked in Scripture is that of this intermediate state between the earthly life and the time when G.o.d shall be all in all. He held that sin will be punished hereafter in proportion to depravity, and that none will be saved until they come into willing harmony with Christ, who will finally be able to win all men to himself, otherwise the power of G.o.d will be set at naught and his good will towards men frustrated of its purpose. In the future state of discipline, punishment will be inflicted with salutary effect, and thus the moral recovery of mankind will be accomplished.

[Sidenote: Other Men of Mark.]

Another leader was Dr. Samuel West, of Dartmouth, now New Bedford, where he was settled in 1760, and where he preached for more than forty years.[27]

He rejected the doctrines of fore-ordination, election, total depravity, and the Trinity. In preaching the election sermon of 1776, he took the ground of an undisguised rationalism. "A revelation," he said, "pretending to be from G.o.d, that contradicts any part of natural laws ought immediately to be rejected as imposture; for the deity cannot make a law contrary to the law of nature without acting contrary to himself,--a thing in the strictest sense impossible, for that which implies contradiction is not an object of Divine Power." The cardinal idea of West's; position, as of that of most of the liberal men of his time, was stated by him in one sentence, when he said, "To preach Christ is to preach the whole system of divinity, as it consists of both natural and revealed religion."[28]

In 1751 Rev. Thomas Barnard, of Newbury, was dismissed from his parish because he was regarded as unconverted by the revivalistic portion of his congregation; and in 1755 he was settled over the First Church in Salem. He was an Arminian, and at the same time an Arian of the school of Samuel Clarke. His son Thomas was settled over the North Church of Salem in 1773, which church was organized especially for him by his admirers in the First Church. He followed in the theological opinions of his father, but probably became somewhat more p.r.o.nounced in his Arian views, so that, after his death, Dr. Channing called him a Unitarian. It is not surprising that the younger Barnard should have been liberal in his opinions and spirit, when we find his theological instructor, Rev. Samuel Williams, at his ordination, saying to him in the sermon preached on that occasion, "Be of no sect or party but that of good men, and to all such (whatever their differences among themselves) let your heart be opened." On another similar occasion Mr. Williams said that it had always been his advice to examine with caution and modesty, "but with the greatest freedom all religious matters."[29] It was said of the younger Barnard that he believed "the final salvation of no man depended upon the belief or disbelief of those speculative opinions about which men, equally learned and pious, differ."

When it was said to him by one of his parishioners, "Dr. Barnard, I never heard you preach a sermon upon the Trinity," the reply was, "And you never will."[30]

In 1779 Rev. John Prince was settled over the First Church in Salem, as the colleague of the elder Barnard. He was an Arian, but in no combative or dogmatic manner. He was a student, a lover of science, and an advanced thinker and investigator for his time. In 1787 he invited the Universalist, Rev. John Murray, into his pulpit, then an act of the greatest liberality.[31] Another lover of science, Rev. William Bentley, was settled over the East Church of Salem, as colleague to Rev. James Diman, in 1782.

The senior pastor was a strict Calvinist, but the parish called as his colleague this young man of p.r.o.nounced liberal views in theology. As early as 1784 Mr. Bentley was interested in the teachings of the English Unitarian, William Hazlitt,[32] who at that time visited New England. And in 1786 he was reading Joseph Priestley's book against the Trinity with approval. He soon after commended Dr. Priestley's short tracts as giving a good statement of the simple doctrines of Christianity.[33] He insisted upon free inquiry in religion from the beginning of his ministry, and not long after he began preaching he became substantially a Unitarian.[34] In 1789 he maintained that "the full conviction of a future moral retribution"

is "the great point of Christian faith."[35] It has been claimed that Mr.

Bentley was the first minister in New England to take distinctly the Unitarian position, and there are good reasons for this understanding of his doctrinal att.i.tude.[36] Dr. Bentley corresponded with scholars in Europe, as he also did with Arab chiefs in their own tongue. He knew of the religions of India, and he seems to have given them appreciative recognition. The shipmasters and foreign merchants of Salem, as they came in contact with the Oriental races and religions, discarded their dogmatic Christianity; and these men, almost without exception, were connected with the churches that became Unitarian. It may be accepted as a very interesting fact that "the two potent influences shaping the ancient Puritanism of Salem into Unitarianism were foreign commerce and contact with the Oriental religions."[37]