" I jirofess myself to believe in one God the Father, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, his Son, and in one Holy Ghost, whereof each is essentially God. I detest the plurality of Gods, seeing to us there is one only God, indivisible in essence. I confess three distinct persons, the eternal deity and generation of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, true and eternal God, proceeding from them both."^
This did the wretched man think meet to do, thathe might preserve the good esteem of his i>atron and reserve himself for a fitter opportunity of doing mischief; which also he did, obtaining a testimonial from the whole meeting of his soundness in the faith, with letters to Prince Radzivil and to Calvin signifying the same.
Not long after this, by the great repute of his skill in physic, he became known and physician to Stephen, king of Poland ; by whose favour, having no small liberty indulged him, he became the patron of all the Antitrini- tarians of all sorts throughout Poland and Transylvania. What books he wrote, and what pains he took in propagating their cause, hath been de- clared by others. The last epistle of Socinus, in order as they are printed (it being without date, yet evidently written many years before most of them tliat went before it), is to this Blandrata, whose inscription is, " Am- plissimo clarissimoque viro Georgio Blandrata? Stephani invictissimi regis
' " De Georgio Blandrata, pro singulari siio in ecclesiam Dei atnore pifemonuit Polonos CI. vir Johan. Cal. quinetiam illustrissimuin principem palatinum, Vilocensem, Nico- laum Radzivilium, cujus patrocinio Blandrata turn utebatur. Subolfeccrat enim vir doctus Blandrata3 ingenium ad Serveti scntcntiam esse compositura : itaque serins prin- cipi suasor fuit, ut sibi ab eo caveret : sed liomo ille facile, technis suis fallacibus, optimo principi fncum fecit, adeo ut ille iratus Johanni Calvino, Blandratara nomine suo ad Syiiodum Pinckzovienseni anno 1561, 25 Jun. habitam, dclegaret cum Uteris, quibus serio postulabat in causa Blandratre, cum ecclesifl,, dicebatque male et pra^cipitanter egisse Calvinuni, quod Blandratam traduceret, et Servetisminotaret." — Regen. Hist. lib. i. p. 85.
^_" Fateor me credere in unum Deum Patrem, et in unum Dominiim .Tesum Christum Filium eju.s, et in unum Spii-itum Sanctum, quorum quilibet est essentialiter Deus. Deo- rum pluralitatcm dctcstor, cum unus tnntum sit nobis Deus, essentia indivisibilis. Fateor tros esse distinctas hj-postases ; et feternam Christi divinitatem et gcneratiouem ; ot Spiritum .Siinctum, unum et seternum Deum, ab utroque p.ocedentera."' — Act. Syn. Pinckzov. anno 1501.
PREFACE TO THE READER. 19'
Polonise, etc., archiatro et conciliaiio intimo, domino, ac patrono sue perpetua observantia colendo ; et subscribitur, Tibi in Domino Jesu de- ditissimiis cliens tuns F. S." To that esteem was he grown amongst them, because of his advantages to insinuate them into the knowledge of great men, which they mostly aimed at ; so that afterward, when Socinus wrote his answer about magistrates to Paljeologus, in defence of the Eaco- vians,^ Marcellus Squarcialupus, his countryman, a man of the same persua- sion with him, falls foully on him, that he would ventui'e to do it without the knowledge and consent of this great patron of theirs.
But though this man by his dissimulation and falsehood thus escaped censure, and by his art and cunning insinuation obtained high promotions and heaped up great riches in the world, yet even in this life he escaped not the revenging hand of God. He was found at length with his neck broke in his bed ; by what hand none knoweth. ^Vlierefore Socinus, ob- serving that this judgment of Grod upon him, as that on Franciscus David (of which mention shall be made afterward), would be fixed on in the thoughts of men to the prejudice of the cause which he favoured, con- sidering more what was for his interest than what was decent or conve- nient, decries him for an apostate to the Jesuits before he was so de- stroyed, and intimates that he was strangled in his bed by a kinsman whom he had made his heir, for haste to take possession of his great wealth.^
The story I have adjoined at large, that the man's ingenuity and thank- fulness to his friend and patron may be seen. He tells us, that before the death of Stephen, king of Poland, he was turned from tlieir ]->rofession by the Jesuits. Stephen, king of Poland, died in the year 1588, according to Helvicus. That very year did Socinus write his answer to Volanus, the second part whereof he inscribed with all the magnifical titles before men- tioned to Blandrata, professing himself his devoted client, and him the great patron of their religion ! So that though I can easily believe w-hat he re- ports of his covetousness and treachery, and the manner of his death, A^et as to his apostasy (though possibly he might fall more and more under the power of his atheism), I suppose the great reason of imputing that to him was to avoid the scandal of the fearful judgment of God on him in his death.
For Lismaninus, the third person mentioned, he was accused of Arianism at a convention at Morden, anno 1553, and there acquitted with a testi- monial.^ But in the year 1561, at another meeting at Whodrislave, he
' " Dixit heri vir amplissimus Blandrata, libnim se tuum contra Paloeologiim acce- pisse. Habes tu unum saltern cui sis charissimus, cui omnia debes, qui judicio maxime polleat : cur tantum studium, consiliique pondus neglexisti ? poteras non tantuni ejus censuram absoluti jam libri petere, sed consilium postulare de subeundo non levi labore. Et possum affirmare senis consilium tibi sine dubio, si petiyisti, profuturum fuisse." — Ep. Marcel, fcjquarc. ad Faust. Socin.