New England Congregationalists and Unitarianism in Late Eighteenth Century/Early Nineteenth Century

Massachusetts’ Congregational Churches were the apple of her eye. From the Bay Colony’s founding Congregationalism remained virtually synonymous with the colonial history of New England. Congregationalist ministers were recognized in the 1780 Constitution of the State of Massachusetts in the form of state support for “publick Protestant teachers.” Within a generation, the Unitarian controversy destroyed whatever unity had been engendered by the common fight against Britain. By 1815, Trinitarian ministers had declared their Unitarian brethren to be heretical and, as such, an existential threat to authentic Protestant religion. They accused their opponents of apostasy, while the Unitarians refused to engage at the level of theology; for them the issue was never one of creeds, canons, or doctrine. They called themselves liberals, as it encapsulated their sense that creed was never the issue, that Boston was liberal before it became Unitarian. Its Unitarianism was primarily ethical and social. Within a generation, these Antitrinitarians welcomed the title of Transcendentalists whose God of scripture became “the same being as the God of nature.” In contradistinction to Europe, Antitrinitarianism in New England evolved toward unbelief.