The reminding of these abominations gives occasion, by the way, to complain of the carnal apprehensions of a kingdom of Christ, which too many amongst ourselves have filled their thoughts and expectations withal. For my part, I am persuaded that, before the end of the world, the Lord Jesus, by his word and Spirit, will multiply the seed of Abraham as tlie stars of heaven, bringing into one fold the remnant of Israel and the multitude of the Gentiles; and that his church shall have peace, after he hath judged and broken the stubborn adversaries thereof, and laid the kingdoms of the nations in a useful subserviency to his interest in this world; and that himself will reign most gloriously, by a spirit of light, truth, love, and holi- ness, in the midst of them : but that he hath a kingdom of another nature and kind to set up in the world than that heavenly kingdom which he hath peculiarly exercised ever since he was exalted and made a ruler and a saviour, that he should set up a dominion over men as men, and rule, either himself present or by his substitutes, as in a kingdom of this world, which is a kingdom neither of grace nor glory, I know it cannot be as- serted without either the denial of his kingdom for the present, or that he is or hitherto hath been a king (which was the blasphemy of Franeiscus David before mentioned), or the affirming that he hath, or is to have, upon the promise of God, two kingdoms of several sorts; of which in the whole Avord of God there is not the least tittle.
To return : about the end of the year 1579, Faustus Socinus left Tran- sylvania and went into Poland, which he chose for the stage whereon to
* " Nam quod dicimus, si Deus raundanum regem mundanumque regnum promisit, coelcstcm autein regem, coeleste regnum reipsa prsestitit plus eum proestitisse quam pro- miserit, rccte omniiio dicimus, nam qui plus pi-testat quam promisit, suis promissis non modo non stetisse sed ea etiam ciunulate prsestitisse est agnoscendus." — Socin. Ep. ad Scidelium, p. 20.
THE PEEFACE TO THE READER. 35
act his design.^ In what estate and condition the persons in Poland and Lithuania were who had fallen off from the faith of the holy Trinity was before declared. True it is, that before the coming of Socinus, Blandrata, by the help of Franciscus David, had brought over many of them from Sabellianism, and Ti'itheism, and Arianism, unto Samosatenianism, and a full, plain denial of the deity of Christ.^
But yet with that Pelagian doctrine that Socinus came furnished withal unto them, they were utterly unacquainted, and were at no small difference, many of them, about the Deity. The condition of the first man to he mortal and obnoxious to death, that there Avas no original sin, that Christ was not a high-priest on the earth, that he made no satisfaction for sin, that we are not justified by his righteousness but our own, that the wicked shall be utterly consumed and annihilated at the last day, with the rest of his opinions, which afterward he divulged, they were utterly strangers unto ; as is evident from the contests he had about these things with some of them in their synods, and by writing, especially with Niemqjevius, one of the chief patrons of their sect.
In this condition of affairs, the man, being wise and subtile, obtained his purpose by the ensuing course of procedure : —
1. He joined himself to none of their societies, because, being divided amongst themselves, he knew that by adhering to any one professedly, he should engage all the rest against him. That which he pretended most to favour, and for whose sake he underwent some contests, was the assembly at Racovia, which at first was collected by Gregorius Paulus, as hath been declared.
From these his pretence for abstaining was, their rigid injunction of all to be rebaptized that entered into their fellowship and communion. But he who made it his design to gather the scattered Antitrinitarians into a body and a consistency in a religion among themselves saw plainly that the rigid insisting upon Anabaptism, which was the first principle of some of them, would certainly keep them at an unreconcilable distance. ^Vliere- fore he falls upon an opinion much better suited to his design, and main- tained that baptism was only instituted for the initiation of them Avho from any other false religion were turned to the religion of Christ ; but that it belonged not to Christian societies, nor to them that were born of Christian parents, and had never been of any other profession or religion, though they might use it, if they pleased, as an indifferent thing. And therefore he refused to join himself with the Racovians, unless upon this principle, that they would desist for the time to come from requiring any to be baptized that should join with them. In a short time he divided that meeting by this opinion, and at length iitterly dissolved them, as to their old principles they first consented unto, and built the remainder of them, by the hand of Valentinus Smalcius, into his own mould and frame.
The author of his life sets it forth as a great trial of his prudence, piety, and patience, that he was repulsed from the society at Racovia, and that with ignominy;^ when the truth is, he absolutely refused to join with them, unless they would at once renounce their own principles and subscribe to