Unitarians

(yoo-ne-ta're-ănz.) [Same der iv. ] (Eccl. Hist.) A religious sect who reject Trinitarian doctrines, and ascribe divinity to one great and Supreme Being God the Father only. They profe to derive their views from the Scriptures, and to make the latter the ultimate arbiter in all religious questions; and they a ert that, interpreted according to the settled laws of language, the uniform testimony of the sacred writings is, that the Holy Spirit has no personal existence distinct from the Father, and that the Son is also a derived and dependent being. The early U. were respectively known as Sabellians, Arians, and Socinians, after the names of their teachers, and suffered many persecutions at different times. Unitarianism in the U. States dates from 1787, when a schism occurred in the Episcopal Church of New England. The denomination has now in the American Republic about 400 societies and 450 ministers in the States, two Divinity schools (one at Cambridge, and the other at Meadville, Pa.), a college at Yellow Springs, Ohio, besides a preponderating social, intellectual, and moral influence over Harvard; two weekly religious papers, two monthly magazines, a publishing house in Boston, which i ues abt. 20,000 vols. of books a year; a leading interest in many charities and philanthropic a ociations; and it supports a number of home mi ionaries, and has two in India. [s. 919]