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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52606	A brief history of the Unitarians, called also Socinians in four letters, written to a friend.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.; Biddle, John, 1615-1662.; Firmin, Thomas, 1632-1697.	1687 (1687)	Wing N1505; ESTC R37735	58,564	186

recited by St. Cyril and by St. Cyprian ad Numid and by Socrates Hist l. 1. c. 26. If the Compilers of this Creed had believed that either the Son or Spirit is God t is unaccountable that they should take no notice of it in a Greed and such a Creed as was purposely drawn up to represent all the necessary Articles of Religion If a Socinian say they were to draw up a Confession of his Faith he would do it in no other Words but these of the Apostles and on the contrary no Trinitarian after having described the Father by all the usual Characters of God saying he is God Almighty and Maker of Heaven and Earth would fail to mention the Divinity of the Son and Holy Spirit whence we must needs infer that the Apostles believed as the Socinians not as the Trinitarians believe concerning God Christ and the Holy Spirit 6. To conclude Theirs they say is an accountable and a reasonable Faith but that of the Trinitarians is absurd and contrary both to Reason and to it self and therefore not only false but impossible For you say they teach there are three almighty and most wise Persons and yet but one God as if every Almighty and most wise Person were not a God and consequently three such Persons three Gods. You add yet more absurdly that there are three Persons who are severally and each of them true God and yet there is but one true God This is an Error in counting or numbring which when stood in is of all others the most brutal and inexcusable and not to discern it is not to be a Man. But we would not say they trouble our selves at the non-sense of this Doctrine if it did not impose false Gods on us by advancing two to be Gods who are not so and rob also the one true God of the Honour due to him and of which he is jealous This Sir is the Doctrine of the Vnitarians more commonly by others call'd Socinians concerning Almighty God and these their Arguments which I have so related as not to judg or rail of their Persons because however learned and reasonable Men which is their Character among their worst Adversaries may be argued out of their Errors yet few will be swagger'd or chode out of them It remains that I make a brief and fair Deduction of their History from the time that they have been taken notice of in the World. They whom we call Socinians were by the Fathers and first Ages of Christianity called Nazarens by which name St. Paul is accused before Felix Acts 24. 5. They were also in those first times called Ebionites Mineans Artemonites Theodotians Symmachians Paulinists Samosatenians Photinians and Monarchians The Writings of these Ancients are all lost being destroyed by the Arians and Catholicks Notwithstanding they had I find some very considerable Men among them as 1. Theodotian who translated the Old Testament out of the Hebrew into Greek about the Year of our Lord 182. 2. Symmachus who published another Translation from the Hebrew also into Greek in the Year 193. Eusebius assures us both these were Ebionites or Nazarens and their Translations were greatly esteemed and much used in the Greek Churches 3. Paulus of Samosatum Bishop and Patriarch of Antioch a Man not only learned and eloquent but so much esteemed in that Capital City of the East that an Episcopal Council there assembled were not of sufficient Authority with his Citizens to cast him out of St. Peter's Chair 4. Photinus Bishop of Sirmium against whom other Bishops being by Imperial Authority assembled proceeded by Conciliary Acts and Censures of the Church but neither would his City part with him till the Emperour sent an Army to expel him Eusebius Hist l. 5. c. 28. and Theodoret Haer. Fab. l. 2. c. de Artem. say that these Nazarens constantly affirmed that they derived their Doctrine from the Apostles of our Lord and that it was the general Doctrine of the Church till the Popes Victor and Zepherin set themselves to root it up Victor say the Socinians began to persecute the Apostolick Doctrine of one God or what is the same that God is one in the Year 194 but with little Success till that which was afterwards the Doctrine of the Arians grew into general Credit and Accepance For Justin Martyr Origen and other principal Fathers teaching as the Arians afterwards did that the Father is indeed before the Son and Holy Spirit in Time in Dignity and in Power yet that the Word or Son who in the fulness of time took our nature on him was generated or created some time before the World and was the Father's Servant and Minister in making the World and that the Holy Ghost was the Creature of the Son and subservient to him in making all things this Doctrine being advanced by Justin Origen and others of note in the Church and seeming more for the Honour of the Son than the plain and simple Doctrine of the Nazarens by the Help of Persecution prevailed against theirs and became the more current Doctrine of the Church till in the Council of Nice it was condemned and another more popular and so more taking than that as attributing to the Son Eternity and Equality with the Father did generally obtain being supported by Imperial Authority But did Superstition say the Socinians stop here No for there shortly arose another Doctrine that the Son and Holy Spirit are the same God with the Father not only as the Nicene Fathers explained this matter by Unity of Wills and specifical Identity or sameness of Substance but by numerical or true Identity and sameness of Substance and Nature This last has been establish'd by so many terrible penal Laws partly obtained of the Roman Emperours by Catholick Bishops partly made by Popes in the times of their Omnipotence that now not only the Nazaren Faith but the Arian and the Nicene truly so called are no where openly profest in the Territories of Christian Princes and States except in a few Cities of Transilvania and some Churches of the United Netherlands in which Countries Liberty of Conscience makes a part of their Civil Rights and Franchises But in the Turkish and other Mahometan and Pagan Dominions where also the conquered Provinces of Christians have Liberty of Conscience the Nazaren and Arian Churches are very numerous Much of the new Conquests of his present Imperial Majesty in Hungaria Sclavonia and Illyricum are Arian But though the open and avowed Profession of the Unity of God as 't is taught by the Nazarens or Socinians and by the Arians be supprest yet 't is observed that not a few of the most learned and celebrated Writers of the Church whether Catholick or Reformed have certainly been either Arians or Socinians or great Favourers of them though they have used much Caution in so expressing themselves as not to lye too open to Exception Envy or a legal Prosecution 1. D. Erasmus the restorer of Learning hath given

Marseils who wrote about the Year of our Lord 460 saith thus concerning one sort of Vnitarians viz. Arians They are Hereticks but not knowingly They do so much judg themselves Catholicks that they defame us with the Name of Hereticks They err but with a good Mind not of Hatred but of the Love of God. How they shall be punish'd in the Day of Judgment for this Error of a false Opinion none can know but the Judg. De Gubern Dei. l. 5. where may be read more to the same purpose Though this Author according to the Vogue of Those times calleth the Arians Hereticks yet that which he says farther of them shows they were not so for the Character he gives of them shews them to be conscientious Christians and Lovers of God. St. Austin against the Manichees a sort of People that held there were two Gods one good the other evil saith thus Let them be fierce against you who know not how laborious a thing it is to find out the Truth and how difficultly we escape Errors Let them be fierce against you who know not how rare and hard a thing it is to overcome carnal Imaginations by the Serenity of a pious Mind c. Contr. Ep. Fausti Thirdly I added that the Trinitarians ought to own the Vnitarians for Christian Brethren and to behave themselves towards them as such For Protestants do agree that all necessary and fundamental matters of Faith are clear and plain in Scripture but other matters not so evident but that good Christians may err concerning them as we see they did even in the times of the Apostles now this Doctrine of the Trinitarians appearing to be no fundamental Doctrine it does by no means unchristian those that hold the contrary nor excuse the Trinitarians from those Offices which are due to them as Christians And the rather because they are not only willing to make Confession of Faith in all the forms of Words contained in the Holy Scripture but in the Words also of the Apostles Creed as also because they are not liable to any charge of Idolatry or Superstition in their Worship or of Uncharitableness in condemning those of contrary Minds as the Confederacy of Rome is Therefore I cannot but wonder at some learned Men that are so far carried away with an overweaning Opinion of their own Judgment that they will not allow those the name of Christians who do not believe besides the Bible and the Creed of the Apostles also the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds Nay some account the Trinitarian Doctrines to be so necessary to Christianity that though those who deny them be otherways very pious and useful Men yet going against the sense of the Catholick Church they err not for want of Instruction but from a certain Wantonness and Pride of Vnderstanding and are guilty of such unpardonable Immodesty as admits of no Excuse If what is hinted in these Letters concerning the Catholick Church of the Apostles times and first Ages be true then that Author builds his Condemnation upon a false and rotten Foundation and the Building falling impresses Rashness and Uncharitableness upon himself I mean as to this particular Case for otherways I readily acknowledg the Worth and Learning of the Author Neither can I sufficiently admire that another learned Man and a Sufferer for his Conscience should in a Pacifick Discourse treat the Socinians in the same contumelious manner not allowing them worthy of the Name of Christians because they go about saith he to overthrow the whole frame of the Christian Doctrine by arrogant Presumptions of false Reasonings and Sophistical Arguments Yea it is commonly objected against them that they exalt their Reasonings above plain and express Revelation in Scripture Which Crimination seems to me to be clearly taken away by the four Letters in which it appears by the many Unconcluding Texts false Translations unintelligible Reasonings and Distinctions cited and urged on the Behalf of the Trinitarian Doctrine and on the other hand by the numerous clear Texts allowed Translations Reasonings and Distinctions common to Mankind produced by the Vnitarians that these last may reasonably retort this great Objection on their Opposites the Trinitarians who in a thousand express Texts of Scripture do exalt their Reasonings to maintain another sense than the plain Words require For one Instance how many express Texts ascribe Parts and Members Affections and Passions Shape and Figure Place and Circumscription to God all which as the Author of these Letters notes are otherways expounded by learned Men because they judg these things in reason unsuitable to God. But what Principle more clear both in Reason and Scripture than this that there is but one God or that God is one All Christians and all Jews and all Mahometans who are said to be more in Number than Christians besides the wise Heathens do acknowledg it and all these understand by the term God a necessary existent Person Upon these clear Grounds the Vnitarians deny that there are three such as contrary to that Unity and introducing into the Godhead two unnecessary or superfluous Persons For if one be sufficient and he cannot be God if he be not sufficient then the two more are supernumerary and unnecessary and consequently not God. For my own part I was bred up in the Trinitarian Faith and took the Truth of it for granted but when these Scriptures and Reasons came into my View and I had got over the Fear of examining what some Men who name themselves the Church call Fundamentals I conld not avoid the Force of them though it grieves me that I cannot continue in consent with my old Friends as well in this as other parts of Christian Doctrine But certainly as in Philosophy Truth should be more dear to us than Plato or Socrates so in Theology the Testimony of plain Scripture agreeing with evident Reason should prevail with those who believe the Scriptures Divine more than obscure Texts dissonant to the clear Reason of Mankind And it may well allay any ones Fear of examining and judging concerning pretended Fundamentals when he shall consider that even the Church of England in another of her Articles says that as the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch have errred so also the Church of Rome which contends that she is the Catholick Church hath erred not only in her living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matter of Faith. So also Chillingworth with his Approvers says I see plainly and with mine own Eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councils against Councils some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a consent of Fathers of one Age against a consent of Fathers of another Age. There is no sufficient Certainty but in the Scripture only for any considering Man to build upon As to the boast of their Numbers 't is well known there was a time when the Christian World was Arian that is Vnitarian so that the Council of Ariminum and Seleucia in which 560 Bishops were present the greatest Convention of Bishops that ever was decreed for the Vnitarian Faith. Was number in those times an Argument of Truth If not how can it be so now The Author of these Letters has well observed besides that the Doctrine of the Trinitarians in these days is widely different from the Doctrine decreed in the first Council of Nice from whence I infer that their Boast of Antiquity is as vain as the other of Number I will only add to this Observation that though the more ancient and the modern Trinitarians may agree in terms yet those times and these have different senses of the same Words and Phrases SIR I pray accept of my hearty Thanks for this Publication and shew the Author how great an Honour I have for him I am Yours c. FINIS