This piece was good to read again because I believe I had forgotten, if not never really understood how Universalist and Unitarian polity emerged separately.
The Universalists were looking for more doctrinal authority or uniformity among them. I think this stems from the abuse they took at the hands of the Calvinists, their theological antithesis. Whereas the Unitarians were more heady and theoretical, the Universalists were more practical, what with salvation being at least to some degree, expos facto.
They organized more top-down, more presbyterian than episcopal, but my sense from the reading that the leaders at least to some degree would have preferred more authority. They actually had a heresy trial! I think that spooked them because shortly thereafter, their assembly allowed individual churches to have their own statement of faith, as long as it didn't contradict the primary, which left them in a mess of presbyterian administration, but congregational authority.
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