To this height of atheism and blasphemy had Satan wrought up the spirit of the man ; so that I must say he is the only person in the world, that I ever read or heard of, that ever died upon the account of religion, in reference to whom the zeal of them that put him to death may be acquitted. But of these things God will judge. Socinus says he died calling on Christ ; those that were present say quite the contrary, and that in horror he roared out misericordia to the magistrates, but nothing else. But arcana Deo.
Of these men last named, their writings and endeavours for the propa- gation of their opinions, others having written already, I shall forbear. Some of note amongst them have publicly recanted and renounced their heresy, as Vogelius and Peuschelius; whose retractations are answered by Smaleius. Neither shall I add much as to their present condition. They have as yet many churches in Poland and Transylvania ; and have their superintendents, after the manner of Germany. Regenvolscius tells us that all the others are sunk and lost, only the Socinians remain ; ^ the Arians, Sabellians, David Georgians, with the followers of Franciscus David, being all gone over to the confession of Socinus : which makes me somewhat wonder at that of Johannes Lfetus, who affirms that about the year 1619, in a convention of the states in Poland, those who denied that Clirist ought to be invocated (which were the followers of Franciscus David, Christianus Franken, and Palteologus) pleaded that the liberty that was granted to Antitrinitarians was intended for them, and not for the Socinians ; and the truth is, they had footing in Poland before ever the name of Socinus was there known, though he afterward insults upon them, and says that they most impudently will have themselves called Christians when they are not so.'
But what numbers they are in those parts of the world, how the poison is
' " Denique Socinistse rccensendi mihi veniunt quia Fausto Socino, per Poloniam et Transylvaniam virus suum disseminante, turn nomen turn doctrinam snmpsere ; atque hi soli, extinctis Farncsianis, Anabaptistis, et Francisci Davidis sectatoribus supersunt ; homines ad fallaciaset sopliisinata facti." — Hist. Eccles. Slavon. lib. i. p. 90.
2 " Pala3ologuspraJcipuu8 fuit ex Antesignanis illorum qui Christum nee invocandum, nee adorandum esse hodic affii-mant et interim tamen se Christianos esse impudenter profiteutur, quo vix quidquam scelestius in religione nosti-a depravanda excogitari posse existimo."— Socin. ad Weik. Ref. ad cap iv. cap. ii. p. 42.
42 THE PREFACE TO THE READEE.
drunk in by thousands in the Papacy, by what advantages it hath [insinu- ated], and continues to insinuate itself into multitudes living in the out- Tvard profession of the reformed churches, -what progress it makes and what ground it gets in our native country every day, I had rather bewail than relate. This I am compelled to say, that unless the Lord, in his infinite mercy, lay an awe upon the hearts of men, to keep them in some captivity to the simplicity and mystery of the gospel who now strive every day to exceed one another in novel opinions and philosophical apprehen- sions of the things of God, I cannot but fear that this soul-destroying abo- mination will one day break in as a flood upon us.
I shall only add something of the occasions and advantages that these men took and had for the renewing and ^propagation of their heresy, and draw to a close of this discourse.
Not to speak of the general and more remote causes of these and all other soul-destroying errors, or the darkness, pride, corruption, and wil- fulness of men ; the craft, subtilty, envy, and malice of Satan ; the just re- venging hand of God, giving men up to a spirit of delusion, that they might believe lies, because they delighted not in the truth, — I shall only remark one considerable occasion or stumbling-block at which they fell and drank in the poison, and one considerable advantage that they had for the pro- pagation of what they had so fallen into.
Their great skimbling -block I look upon to be the horrible corruption and abuse of the doctrine of the Trinity in the writings of the schoolmen, and the practice of the devotionists among the Papists. With what des- perate boldness, atheistical curiosity, wretched inquiries and babbling, the schoolmen have polluted the doctrine of the Trinity, and gone off from the simplicity of the gospel in this great mystery, is so notoriously known that I shall not need to trouble you with instances for the confirmation of the observation. This the men spoken of (being the most, if not all of them, brought up in the Papacy) stumbled at. They saw the doctrine concerning that God whom they were to worship rendered unintelligible, curious, intri- cate, involved in terms and expressions not only barbarous in themselves, and not used in Scripture, but insignificant, horrid, and remote from the reason of men : which, after some struggling, set them at liberty from under the bondage of those notions; and when they should have gone to "the law and to the testimony" for their information, Satan turned them aside to their own reasonings and imaginations, Avhere they stumbled and fell. And yet of the forms and expressions of their schoolmen are the Papists so zeal- ous, as that whoever departs from them in any kind is presently an antitrini- tarian heretic. The dealings of Bellarmine, Genebrard, Possevine, and others, with Calvin, are known. One instance may be taken of their ingenuity : Bellarmine, in his book, " De Christo," lays it to the charge of Bullinger, that in his book, " De Scripturse et Ecclesire Authoritate," he wrote that there were three persons in the Deity, " non statu, sed gradu, non sub- sistentia, sed forma, non potestate, sed specie differentes ;" on which he exclaims that the Arians themselves never spake more wickedly : and yet these are the very Avords of Tertullian against Praxeas ; which, I confess, are Avarily to be interpreted. But by this their measuring of truth by the forms received by tradition from their fathers, neglecting and forsaking the simplicity of the gospel, that many stumbled and fell is most evident.