* "Ex nobili admodum familia, quoe etiam tres cardinalcs liabuit, natus, mercatura relicta se totura saciaruin litcrarum studio tradidit."
■^ " Quod ut comnodius faccrc posset in Angliam se contulit, ilique in Oxoniensi gj'mnasio aliquandiu se exerciiit," ttc.
30 THE PREFACE TO THE READER.
the same circle, setting out from superstition to profaneness, passing through some zeal and earnestness in religion, rising to a contempt of ministry and ordinances, with an expectation of revelations and commu- nion with angels ? And how many have again sunk down into Popery, atheism, and horrible abominations, is known to all in this nation who think it their duty to inquire into the things of God. I have given this instance only to manifest that the old enemy of our salvation is not play- ing any new game of deceit and temptation, but such as he hath suc- cessfully acted in former generations. Let not us be ignorant of his deceits.
By the way, a little farther to take in the consideration of men like- minded with him last mentioned : of those who denied all ordinances, and maintained such an utter loss and defection of all church state and order that it was impossible it should be restored without new apostles, evidencing their ministiy by miracles, this was commonly the issue, that being pressed with this, that there was nothing needful to constitute a church of Christ but that there were a company of men believing in Jesus Christ, receiving the word of God, and taking it for their rule, they de- nied that indeed now there was or could be any faith in Jesus Christ, the ministers that should beget it being utterly ceased, and therefore it was advisable for men to serve God, to live justly and honestly, according to the dictates of the law of nature, and to omit all thoughts of Christ be- yond an expectation of his sending persons hereafter to acquaint the world again with his worship.
That this was the judgment of Matt. Radecius, his honoured friend, Socinus informs us;'^ though he mollifies his expression, p. 123, ascribing it to others. Whether many in our days are not insensibly fallen into the same abominations, a little time will discover. The main of the plea of the men of this persuasion in those days was taken from the example of the Israelites under that idolatrous apostasy wherein they were engaged by Jeroboam. " In the days of Elijah there were," said they, "seven thousand Avho joined not with the residue in tlieir false worship and idolatry, but yet they never went about to gather, constitute, and set up a new church or churches, but remained in their scattered condition, keeping themselves as they could from the abominations of their brethren;" — not considering that there is not the same reason of the Judaical and Christian churches, in that the carrying on of the worship of God among them was annexed to one tribe, yea, to one family in that tribe, and chiefly tied to one certain place, no public instituted worship, such as was to be the bond of com- munion for the cluu'ch, being acceptable that was not performed by those persons in that place : so that it was vitterly impossible for the godly in Israel then, or the ten tribes, to sot up a new church-state, seeing they neither had the persons nor were possessed of the place, without which no such constitution was acceptable to God, as not being of his appointment. Under the gospel it is not so, either as to the one or other. All places being now alike, and all persons who are enabled thereunto having liberty to preach tlie word in the order by Christ appointed, the erecting of churches and the celebration of ordinances is recoverable, according to tlie mind of God, out of the greatest defection imaginable, whilst unto any persons there is a continuance of the word and Spirit.
But to proceed with Socinus. Blandrata having got a great interest with the king of Poland and prince of Transylvania, as hath been declared, and making it his business to promote the Antitrinitarians, of what sort ' Ep. m\ Radec, 3, p. 87, 119.
THE PREFACE TO THE READER. 31
soever, being in Transylvania, where the men of his own abomination were exceedingly divided about the invocation and adoration of Jesus Christ, Franciscus David carrying all before him in an opposition there- unto (of which whole business I shall give a farther account afterward), he sends for Socinus,^ who was known to them, and, from his dealing with Puccius, began to be famed for a dis]nitant, to come to him into Transyl- vania, to dispute with and confute Franciscus David, in the end of the year 1578 ; where what success his dispute had, in the imprisonment and death of David, shall be afterward related.
Being now fallen upon this controversy, Avhich fell out before Faustus' going into Poland, before I proceed to his work and business there, I shall give a brief account of this business which I have now mentioned, and on which occasion he was sent for by Blandrata into Poland, referring the most considerable disputes he had about that difference to that place in the ensuing treatise whei'e I shall treat of the invocation and worship of Christ.
After way was once made in the minds of men for the farther work of Satan, by denying the deity of our blessed Lord Jesus, very many quickly grew to have more contemptible thoughts of him than those seemed to be willing they should from whose principles they professed, and indeed righteously, that their mean esteem of him did arise. Hence Franciscus David, Georgius Enjedinus, Christianus Franken, and sundry others, denied that Christ was to he worshipped with religious worship, or that he might be invocated and called upon. Against these Socinus, indeed, contended with all his might, professing that he would not account such as Chris- tians who would not allow that Christ might be invocated and was to be Morshipped; which that he was to be, he proved by undeniable testimonies of Scripture. But yet when himself came to answer their arguments, whereby they endeavoured to prove that a mere man (such as on both sides they acknowledged Christ to be) might not be worshipped with religious worship or divine adoration, the man, with all his craft and subtilty, was entangled, utterly confounded, silenced, slain Avith his own weapons, and triumphed over, as I shall afterward manifest in the account which I shall give of the disputation between him and Christianus Franken about this business: God in his righteous judgment so ordering things, that he who would not embrace the truth which he ought to have re- ceived should not be able to maintain and defend that truth which he did receive ; for having, what in him lay, digged up the only foundation of the religious worship and adoration of Christ, he was altogether unable to keep the building upright. Nor did this fall out for want of ability in the man, no man under heaven being able on his false hj'pothesis to main- tain the worship of Christ, but, as was said, merely by the just hand of God, giving him up to be punished by his own errors and darkness.