A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



legal title, but without interference.- Several chapels remained in the 

 hands of the Nonconformists for thirty or forty years. f t ..o 



The li ts of licences of 1672- give us merely the personality of Lanca- 

 shire Dissen for the indication of the denomination is usually vague. The 

 once pot nt;nd clear-cut terms Presbyterian and Independent are becommg 

 nd^tfn u'hable, and when the settled -ngregations subsequent^ emej-g^^ 

 and definitely establish themselves it is often very difficult to say whethe 

 we are dealing with a professedly Presbyterian or Independent or Baptist 

 Chuh As f matter of'fact, wh/tever their professed pohty, these churches 

 are all henceforth Independent in the sense that each is independent of the 

 t th re is no superstructure of organization binding them either together 

 or to a uniformity Whatever attempts at such an organization were 

 subsequently made were until the nineteenth century voluntary, fortuitous, 

 and invariably impotent. This is one main axiomatic guide to an under- 

 standing of the subject. The other and accompanying guide is deducible 

 from the first as a corollary. Bereft of the compelling force of an organization 

 possessing authority over all, the various churches went each its own doctrinal 

 way, and it cannot be matter for surprise that the rising tide of eighteenth- 

 century scepticism carried so many of them through Arianism and Socinianism 

 into Unitarianism ; for the movement affected the Church of England as 

 well. 



The Unitarians 



Putting aside the isolated Unitarian movement of the Commonwealth 

 period, which is epitomized by the names of John Biddle and Thomas Firmin, 

 the recrudescence of Unitarianism is to be attributed to the controversy on 

 the nature of the Trinity which started in 1690 within the Church of 

 England. This formed the prelude to the Deistical controversy, which 

 engaged the attention of radical thinkers in England for the next fifty years, 

 1 696-1748. This, again, opened up a new issue, that of Rationalism pure 

 and simple, and it is noticeable that in this debate the Unitarians stood firm 

 for a miraculous revelation. There was subsequently a lull in the mere 

 doctrinal controversy. The movement had in fact practically accomplished 

 itself by the time when in 1778 Theophilus Lindsey formed a Unitarian 

 church in Essex Street, London, a church which can only be held to be the 

 first Unitarian church by the wilful ignoring of half a century of previous 

 history. Between the limits of time thus indicated events in Lancashire 

 had practically followed the same course as in every county of England. 

 The majority of the old Presbyterian and Independent congregations had 

 passed over into Unitarianism. But whereas in other parts of the county 

 we can trace the course of the development,"* in Lancashire we have no 

 specific details. In the county Palatine the change accomplished itself 



"' Henry Welsh of Chorley appears to have ministered in the chapel till his death, though he was not 

 technically curate. The procedure there was probably that known to have been used elsewhere ; the rector 

 of the parish sending a deputy to read the Prayer-book service, after which the ejected minister would hold 

 his own service and preach. 



'"' Chowbent, Failsworth, Gorton, Hindley, Piatt chapel, Rivington, Darwen, Horwich, St. Helens, 

 and Rainford. 



'■'Nearly 200 licences were granted between 11 April, 1672, and 3 Feb. 1672-3. Some of the 

 ministers, like Henry Newcome of Manchester, had been silenced since 1662. 



'"In Devonshire and London the virtual starting point is afforded by the Exeter controversy in 17 18. 



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