Biddle

Biddle, John, theologian, and called the father of English Unitarianism, was born in 1615 at Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire. After graduating at Oxford he was in 1641 appointed master of the free school in Gloucester city. From this position he was dismissed in 1645 and arrested on account of the views put forward in his Twelve Arguments drawn out of Scripture, wherein the commonly received opinion touching the Deity of the Holy Spirit is clearly and fully refuted, which was ordered to be burned by the common hangman. After five years of imprisonment, during which the Westminster Assembly of Divines sought to compass his death, he was released by Cromwell, and allowed to reside in Staffordshire under surveillance. In 1652 the general Act of Oblivion restored him to complete liberty, and his followers, who were called Bidellians first, then Socinians, and finally Unitarians, began to meet regularly. In a year or two a storm of fury again broke over Biddle's head by reason of further publications, and after a period of imprisonment Cromwell, to save his life, banished him to St. Mary's castle in the Scilly Islands, and gave him a grant of 100 crowns annually. In three years he was allowed to return by Cromwell, until whose death he preached in London. After the Restoration he was again thrown into prison in July, 1662, where he died in September of the same year.