2 " Monendum lectorem bamm rcrum ignarum censui, Blandratam baud paulum ante mortem suam vivente adhuc Stephano rege Polonige, in illius gratiam, et quo ilium erga se libcraliorem (ut fecit) redderet, plurimum remisisse de studio suo in ecclesiis nostris Transilvanicis nostrisque bominibus juvandis: imo eo tandem deveuisse ut vix existima- retur priorem quam tantopere fovcrat de Deo et Cliristo sententiam retinere, sed potius Jesuitis. qui in ea provincia tunc temporis Stepliani regis, et ejus fratris Cbristopheri baud inulto ante vitam functi,ope ac liberalitate non mediocriter, florebant, jam adbrerere aut certe cum eis quodammodo coUudere Illud certissimum est, cum ab eo tempore quo liberalitatem quam ambiebat regis Stephani erga se est expertus, coepisse quosdam ex nostris bominibus quos cbarissimos pi'ius liabebat, et suis opibus juvabat spernere ac deserere, etiam contra promissa et obligationcm suam, et tandem illos pcnitus deseruisse, atque omni veroe et sincerte pietatis studio valedixisse, et solis pecuniis congerendis in- tentum fuisse, quae^iprtasse justissimo Dei judicio, quod gravissimum cxercere solct con- tra tales desertores, ei necem abeo qucm suum heredem fecerat conciliarunt." — Socin. ad Weik. cap. ii. p. 43, 44. ' Act. Syn. Morden. anno 1553.
20 PREFACE TO THE READER.
was convicted of double dealing, and after that wholly fell off to the Anti- trinitarians, and in the issue drowned himself in a well.^
And these were the chief settled troublers at the first of the Polonian reformed churches. The stories of Paulus Alciatus, Valentinus Gentilis, Eernardus Ochinus, and some others, are so well known, out of the epistles of Calvin, Bcza, BuUingor, Zanchius, with what hath of late from them been collected by Cloppenburgius, Hornbeck, Maresius, Becmannus, etc., thnt it cannot but be needless labour for me to go over them again. That which I aim at is, from their own writings, and what remains on record concerning them, to give a brief account of the first breaking in of Anti- trinitarianisra into the reformed churches of Poland, and their confused condition before headed by Socinus, into whose name they have since been all baptized.
This, then, was the state of the churches in those days : The reformed religion spreading in great abundance, and churches being multiplied every day in Poland, Lithuania, and the parts adjoining ; some timiults having been raised, and stirs made by Osiander and Stancarus about the essential righteousness and mediation of Christ (concerning which the reader may consult Calvin at large) ; many wild and foolish opinions being scattered up and down, about the nature of God, the Trinity, and Anabaptism, by many foreigners, sundry being thereby defiled, the opinions of Servetus having wholly infected sundry Italians : the persons before spoken of, then living at Geneva and about the towns of the Switzers, that embraced the gospel, being forced to flee for fear of being dealt withal as Servetus was (the judgment of most Christian rulers in whose days leading them to such a procedure, how rightly I do not now determine), scarce any one of them escaping without imprisonment and abjuration (an ill foundation of their after profession), they went most of them into Poland, looked on by them as a place of liberty, and joined themselves to the reformed churches in those places, and continuing many years in their communion, took the opportunity to entice and seduce many ministers with others, and to strengthen them who were fallen into the abominations mentioned before their coming to them.
After many tergiversations, many examinations of them, many false sub- scriptions, in the year 1562, they fell into open division and separation from the reformed churches.^ The ministers that fell ofi" with them, besides Lismaninus and his companions (of whom before), were Gregorius Pauli, Stanislaus, Lutonius Martinus Crovicius, Stanislaus Paclesius, Georgius Schomanus, and others, most of whom before had taken good pains in preaching, the gospel. The chief patrons and promoters were Johannes Miemoljovius, Hieronymus Philoponius, Johannes Cazaccovius, the one a judge, the other a captain, the third a gentleman, — all men of great esteem.
The year that this breach was made, Ljjlius Socinus, then of the age of thirty-seven years, who laid the foundations that his nephew after built upon, died in Switzerland, as the author of the life of Faustus Socinus in- forms us.* The man's life is known: he was full of Servetianism, and had
> Boz. Ep. 81.
2 ''Cum diutius non possint in ecclesia delitesccre, manifesto schismate Petricovige, anno 15fi2, habito pvius coUoquio earn scindunt et in sententiam suam pertrahunt plurimo3 tuin ex miiiistiis, tnni ex pationis. Ministri qui partem eorum sequebantur erant in principio Gregorius Pauli," etc. — Hist. Eccles. Slavon. Regen. lib. i. p. 86.
* "Laelius interim pricmatura morte extinctus est; incidit niors^ diem parendinum id. Mail. 1562, astatis vero ejus septimi supra trigesimum." — Eques. Polou Vita Faust. Socin. b'enens.
PREFACE TO THE READER. 21
attempted to draw sundry men of note to his abominations; a man of great subtilty and cunning, as Beza says of him/ incredibly furnished for contradiction and sophism; which the author of the life of Socinus phrases, he was " suggerendre veritatis mirus artifex." He made, as I said, many private attempts on sundry persons to entice them to Photinianism ; on some with success, on others without. Of his dealing with him, and the advantage he had so to do, Zanchius gives an account in his preface to his book " De Tribus Elohim."^