Henry Hedworth
Encyclopedia
Henry Hedworth of Huntingdon
Huntingdon
Huntingdon is a market town in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was chartered by King John in 1205. It is the traditional county town of Huntingdonshire, and is currently the seat of the Huntingdonshire district council. It is known as the birthplace in 1599 of Oliver Cromwell.-History:Huntingdon...

 was a Unitarian writer.

Henry Hedworth is chiefly notable for being the first person in the English language to introduce Latin (and Dutch) term Unitarian into print in England 1673, fourteen years before Stephen Nye
Stephen Nye
Stephen Nye was an English clergyman, known as a theological writer and for his Unitarian views.-Life:Son of John Nye, he graduated B.A. at Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1665. He became rector of Little Hormead, Hertfordshire in 1679...

 of Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

 became the first to use the word on a title page when he anonymously published Brief History of the Unitarians also called Socinians in 1687 (expanded 1691). The term was already found in private letters, since the term "Unitarian" was already known in England from works such as the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant
Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum
The Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum, or Antitrinitarian Library, first published in 1684, is a posthumous work of Christopher Sandius , an exiled Prussian Antitrinitarian in Amsterdam, in which he chronologically lists all the Arian and Socinian or Antitrinitarian authors from the Reformation to...

(catalogued "post A.D. 1656", in fact 1668).

At this point, and for nearly 100 years after, the Anglican church generally referred to those holding these beliefs as Socinians after Fausto Sozzini.

Hedworth was a student of John Biddle (Unitarian)
John Biddle (Unitarian)
John Biddle or Bidle was an influential English nontrinitarian, and Unitarian. He is often called "the Father of English Unitarianism".- Life :...

 and friend of Thomas Firmin
Thomas Firmin
Thomas Firmin was an English businessman and philanthropist, and Unitarian publisher.-Early life:Firmin was born to Puritan parents, Henry and Prudence Firmin in Ipswich. Henry Firmin was a parishioner of Samuel Ward, the Puritan incumbent of St. Mary-le-Tower, by whom in 1635 he was accused of...

.

Works

  • 1694 Stephen Nye, Henry Hedworth Considerations on the explications of the doctrine of the Trinity
  • 1672 The spirit of the Quakers tried, according to that discovery it hath made. Society of Friends
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