M-/)Ss Ifioi 7M TOtuTot kiyeuTt carXus siffTlCtryi;, la-v TY,y arriSli^iv tSiv aocrxyyiXXouivav a-ro Biia fJiM XoeSsjs ■ypa/fSv. — Cyril. IliEROS., Catech. 4.
OXFORD: 1655.
VOL. XT I.
PREFATORY NOTE.
In 1654 the commands of the Council of State were laid upon Owen to undertake the x'efutation of Socinianism, which about that time was introduced into England, and in the following year the " Vindicise Evangelicoe" appeared ; — a work of unequal merit, and in many parts obsolete under the new light shed on the subject by more recent discus- sions, but in the main so solid as never to have been answered ; containing much that modern polemics have by no means superseded ; full of information as to the early his- tory of Socinianism, nowhere else to be gleaned in the theological literature of J^ritain ; and altogether of such substantial excellence as to render its author's name worthy of its place as historically the first among that splendid catena of divines, — Bull, Water- land, Horslcy, Magee, Fuller, Pyo Smith, and Wardlaw, — by whom the cardinal doc- trines of Christ's person. Godhead, and work, have been placed on a basis of unshaken demonstration from the Word of God.
In the execution of his task, our author resolved to meet three parties whose writ- ings tended to unsettle the general belief of the Church of Christ respecting these doc- ti'ines; — Ciddle, whose publications, devoted to the propagation of Unitarian sentiments, had drawn the attention and excited the feai'S of the Council ; the Polish Socinians, as repi'esented by the Kacovian Catechism; and Hugo Grotius, whose Socinianizing com- ments on Scripture have left his orthodoxy on the vital truths of our Lord's divinity and satisfaction under a cloud of suspicion.
John Biddle, the father of English Socinianism, was born in 161G, at Wotton-under- Edge. Having made considerable proficiency at the grammar school of his native town, he received from Lord Berkeley an exhibition of £10, was admitted a student of Mag- dalen Hall, Oxford, and took his degree of A.iVI. in 1641. While occupied afterwards as a teacher in the city of Gloucester, he began to divulge his errors by the private circulation of a small tract, under the title, " Twelve Arguments drawn out of the Scriptures, wherein the commonly received opinion touching the Deity of the Holy Spirit is fully Refuted." He was summoned from the county jail, to which the magistrates had committed him, to answer for his errors befoi'o Parliament ; and, on the report of a committee respecting his case, he was left under the custody of an officer of the House for five j'ears. During this period he published successively his " Twelve Arguments," " A Confession of Faith concerning the Holy Trinity," and " The Testimonies of Ire- naaus, etc., concerning one God and the Persons of the Holy Trinity." By an atrocious act passed in 1648, in which it was made a capital offence to publish against the being and perfections of God, the deity of the Son and of the Spirit, and similar doctrines, Biddle had well-nigli fallen a martyr to his opinions. The act, however, never came into operation. He was even in more serious peril after the Long Parliament was dis- solved and its opponents were in power ; for he actually stood a trial for his life in 1 655. Cromwell dexterously overruled these proceedings by the siimmary banisliment of Biddle to Star Castle, in one of the Scilly Islands. He recovered his freedom only to be cast into prison anew on the Restoration; and having caught some distemper common in the jails of that time, he died a prisoner in 1662. He was a man of considerable attainments as a scholar. "Except his opinions," saj's Anthony Wood, " there was little or nothing blameworthy in him;" and his admirer, Toulmin, pronounces him " a pious, holy, and humble man." His piety must have been of a singular type, if we consider his views of the divine nature, — views replete with the most profane and revolting materialism, at that time without a parallel in our literature, and calculated to shock the best feelings and holiest convictions of his countrymen, while the knowledge of them inspired continental divines with alarm, as if England were fast lapsing into the most impious heresies. It can only be from a desire that their cause may have the honour of having stood, in one instance at least, the test of civil penalties under British
4 PREFATORY NOTE.
rule, that Socinians, ■who pride themselves on their views of the spirituality of God, claim affinity with poor Biddle.
Nicolas Estwick replied to him, in an " Examination of his Confession of Faith;" Poole, in his "Plea for the Godhead of the Holy Ghost;" and Francis Cheynel, in his " Divine Trinunity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Biddle held to his errors, and produced in 1G54 his "Twofold Catechism," etc.; which the following -work of Owen is designed to review and confute.
The Racovian Catechism derives its name from the Polish city of Eakau, the chief seat of the Polish Unitarians. According to Sandius (Bib. Antitrin. p. 44), the first Catechism of this name was the work of Gregory Paul; and when Faustus Socinus and Peter Statorius, junior, were prevented by death from completing their revision of it, ac- cording to an appointment laid uioon them by their brethren of the same creed, the task was devolved on Valentine Smalcius, Jerome Moscorovius, and John Volkclius. The first part of this statement seems to want authentication, and the original of the Catechism has been traced to a confession of faith prepai'ed by George Schomann. Remodelled by the committee mentioned above, it appealed in 1C05, and was the first edition of the Racovian Catechism. It was translated into German in 1608. A reprint of the origi- nal woik in London attracted the notice of Parliament, and on the 2d of April 16.32, the Shei'itFs of London and of Middlesex were ordered to seize and burn all the copies of it at the London Exchange and at Palace Yard, Westminster. An English translation of it, prepared most probably by Biddle, issued from the Amsterdam press in 1652. The most correct and valuable edition of the Catechism, supplying the latest views of the old Socinian theology in Poland, is the quarto edition of 1680, pi-inted at Amsterdam by Christopher Pezold. Modern Socinianism has added nothing to the plausibility with ■which the system is invested in this Catechism ; and the refutation of its insidious principles by Owen was a service to the cause of scriptural truth, from which Chris- tianity is yet reaping, and for generations will continue to reap, the highest benefit.