718 



UNION CANAL UNITARIAN. 



with explanations which greatly mitigated its rigour. 

 During this contest, Louis XIV. died, without hav- 

 ing obtained a complete victory. The streets of 

 Paris resounded with songs in ridicule of the " con- 

 stitution;" the Parisians gave its name, Unigenitus, 

 to the natural daughter of its bearer, the papal 

 nuncio Bentivoglio; numerous pamphlets were 

 written on the question; and all France became 

 divided into "constitutionists"or"acceptants,"and 

 " anti-constitiitionists, " recusants," or " oppo- 

 nents." During the regency, which was not favour- 

 able to the Jesuits, several bishops, in connexion 

 with the members of the Sorbonne and the arch- 

 bishop of Noailles, dared to appeal, against the bull, 

 to a general council; and thus the opposition party, 

 which was supported by the most distinguished 

 universities and ecclesiastical corporations, received 

 the name of appellants. This party became divided, 

 when Noailles agreed, in 1720, to sign the bull 

 conditionally, and thus excited against himself the 

 zealous appellants. Louis XV. and his minister 

 Fleury, who was desirous of the cardinal's hat, and 

 therefore flattered the Jesuits, treated the appel- 

 lants with great severity; the priests belonging to 

 the party were discharged; the laymen were re- 

 fused the sacraments ; at length, the court, in 1728, 

 induced the archbishop of Paris, then eighty years 

 old, to sign the bull unconditionally; and, in 1730, 

 the parliament was forced to register it without 

 erservation, by which it became a law of the land. 

 The persecuted appellants remained, nevertheless, 

 active, and, in 1752, the parliament ventured on 

 new and bold steps to remedy the cruel refusal of 

 the sacrament. The contest broke out with re- 

 newed bitterness, and at length was assuaged by a 

 moderate brief of Benedict XIV., which ordered 

 severity against open appellants only. In addition 

 to this, the order of the Jesuits was abolished; a 

 consequence of which was naturally the gradual 

 decrease of the importance of the unhappy bull 

 Unigenitus in France. In other Catholic countries 

 it had been adopted, indeed, but little observed, as 

 the whole scope of it was directed against a party 

 in France. In the Austrian monarchy, where some 

 bishops had published it, it was formally suppressed 

 in 1781, together with the bull In Caena Domini. 

 It now belongs only to history, as the popes them- 

 selves do not insist on it as a rule of faith. 



UNION CANAL. See Canals. 



UNISON ; that consonance, or coincidence of 

 sounds, proceeding from an equality in the number 

 of vibrations made in a given time by two sonorous 

 bodies; or the union of two sounds, so directly 

 similar to each other in respect of gravity or acute- 

 ness, that the ear, perceiving no difference, receives 

 them as one and the same. The ancients were 

 much divided in opinion respecting the question 

 whether the unison be a consonance. Aris- 

 totle speaks in the negative. Muris Mersennus, 

 and others, declare in the affirmative. The deci- 

 sion of the question, however, depends on the de- 

 finition we give to the word consonance. If by a 

 consonance we only understand two or more sounds 

 ngreeable to the ear, the unison is a consonance ; 

 but if we include in the consonance sounds of a 

 different pitch, that is, sounds less or more acute 

 with respect to each other, the unison, by its own 

 definition, is not a consonance. 



UNITARIAN ; a name used to designate a class 

 of religionists, who hold to the personal unity of 

 God, in opposition to the doctrine of the Christian 

 Trinity. The Unitarian faith appears first to have 



been avowed (after the reformation) by Martin 

 Cellarius, a native of Stutt^ard, who was just 

 finishing his studies at AVittenberg, where Luther 

 was professor, when the latter began to set himself 

 in opposition to the authority of the Roman Ca- 

 tholic church. Cellarius adopted Luther's views, 

 and was at first distinguished by his friendship and 

 that of Melanchthon. His subsequent avowal of 

 Unitarian opinions subjected him to an imprU.in- 

 ment, whence being released, he retired, in l.V'itl, 

 to Basle, and died there in 1564. Among other 

 theologians, who. about the same time, were led to 

 a like result, were Lewis Hetzer, put to death by 

 the magistrates of Constance, in 1529; John I>m- 

 kius, rector of the school of Nuremberg, who WHS 

 associated with Hetzer in translating the Prophets 

 into German; John Campanus, of Wittenberg; 

 Adam Pastor, a Westphalian; and Claudius, a 

 Frenchman, who, about 1530, preached his doc- 

 trines in Switzerland and Alsace. A person of 

 more note than any of these was Michael Servetus, 

 born, in 1509, at Villanueva, in Arragon, whence 

 he is sometimes called Michael Villanovanus. Dur- 

 ing his study of the common law, at Toulouse, the 

 news of the spreading reformation engaged him in 

 an examination of the sacred writings ; and, in the 

 sequel, he renounced the doctrine of the Trinity. 

 Not venturing then to publish his belief in France, 

 he removed, in 1530, to Basle. In the followiii},' 

 year, he published, at Strasburg, his De Trinitatiit 

 Erroribus, Libri septem, and soon after, at Hagu- 

 enau, his Dialogorum de Trinitate, Libri duo. From 

 the storm which these works excited, he retired 

 first to Basle, then to Lyons, and lastly to Paris, 

 where, under his name of Villanovanus, he studied 

 medicine, and became, for a short time, a public 

 lecturer in that department of the university. His 

 great work, Christianismi Restitutio, was published 

 anonymously, in 1553, at Vienna. The same year, 

 he was arrested, at Geneva, on his way into Italy, 

 and condemned to be burned for heresy a sentence 

 which was carried into effect the following day. 



In Italy, a similar movement of opinion had, 

 meanwhile, been taking place. In 1546, the in- 

 quisition obtained knowledge of a society of persons 

 of rank and learning at Vicenza, who were accus- 

 tomed to meet for the consideration of religious 

 questions, and, among other doctrines of the 

 church, had discarded that of the Trinity. Three 

 of the number were apprehended, one of whom 

 died in prison, and the other two were put to 

 death at Venice. The rest, comprising several of 

 the names afterwards the most distinguished in this 

 cause, effected their escape. Among them appears 

 to have been Laelius Sozzini, or the elder Sociiius, 

 a native of Sienna, in Tuscany. After the disper- 

 sion of his friends at Vicenza, he withdrew to Zu- 

 rich, from which place he travelled through various 

 countries of Europe, and, among others, at two 

 different times, into Poland, where he is said to 

 have converted to his opinions the confessor of the 

 queen. He wrote largely upon the Trinity, as 

 afterwards appeared from manuscripts left in the 

 possession of his nephew, but published nothing, 

 and died a natural death at Zurich, at the age of 

 thirty-seven. The inconveniencies which Unitar- 

 ians had hitherto encountered in avowing their 

 faith, naturally leading them to look for some com- 

 mon retreat, their attention was directed to Poland 

 in consequence of the free institutions of that 

 kingdom, and the lax sentiments of toleration 

 which were attributed to its reigning monarch, 



