Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	church_n	faith_n	unity_n	2,037	5	9.1432	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91323	The life of that incomparable man, Faustus Socinus Senensis, described by a Polonian knight. Whereunto is added an excellent discourse, which the same author would have had premised to the works of Socinus; together with a catalogue of those works.; Vita Fausti Socini Senensis. English	Przypkowski, Samuel, 1592-1670.; Biddle, John, 1615-1662.	1653 (1653)	Wing P4136; Thomason E1489_1; ESTC R203303	35,107	77

THE LIFE OF THAT Incomparable Man Faustus Socinus Senensis Described by a POLONIAN Knight Whereunto is added An Excellent Discourse which the same Author would have had premised to the Works OF SOCINUS Together with a Catalogue of those WORKS London Printed for Richard Moone at the seven Stars in Pauls Church yard neer the great North-doore 1653. TO THE READER THe Life of Socinus is here exposed to thy view that by the perusal ther of thou maist receive certain information concerning the man whom Ministers others traduce by custome having for the most part never heard any thing of his conversation nor seen any of his works or if they have they were either unable or unwilling to make a thorow scrutiny into them and so no marvel if they speak evil of him To say any thing of him here by way Elogy as that he was one of the most pregnant wits that the world hath produced that none since the Apostles hath deserved better of our Religion in that the Lord Christ hath chiefly made use of his Ministry to retrive so many precious truths of the Gospel which had a long time been hidden from the eyes of men by the artifice of Satan that he shewed the world a more accurate way to discuss controversies in Religion and to fetch out the very marrow of the Holy Scripture so that a man may more availe himself by reading his works then perhaps by perusing all the Fathers together with the writings of more modern Authors that the vertues of his will were not inferior unto those of his understanding he being every way furnished to the work of the Lord that he opened the right way to bring Christians to the unity of the faith and acknowledgement of the Son of God that he took the same course to propagate the Gospel that Christ and the Apostles had done before him forsaking his estate and his nearest relations and undergoing all manner of labours and hazards to draw men to the knowledge of the truth that he had no other end of all his undertakings then the Glory of God and Christ and the salvation of himself and others it being impossible for Calumny it self with any colour to asperse him with the least suspicion of worldly interest that he of all Interpreters explaineth the precepts of Christ in the strictest maner and windeth up the lives of men to the highest strain of holiness to say these and other the like things though in themselves true and certain would notwithstanding here be impertinent in that it would forestall what the Polonian Knight hath written on this subject To him therefore I refer thee desiring thee to read his words without prejudice and then the works of Socinus himself and though thou beest not thereby convinced that all which Socinus taught is true for neither am I my self of that belief as having discovered that in some lesser things Socinus as a man went awry however in the main he hit the truth yet for so much of Christ as thou must needs confess appeareth in him begin to have more favourable thoughts of him and his Followers I. B. THE LIFE OF Faustus Socinus Senensis TO pursue the Life of Faustus Socinus in a brief and perfunctory manner would be below the dignity of so great a man but to do it fully and elaborately would perhaps be above our strength For to relate the praises of renowned men by snatches and in a negligent fashion is an injury to vertue and if there was ever any certainly this is the man who deserveth to be described not only with care but also with wit Yet since it is better that excellent endowments should be commended below their merit then wholly passed-over in silence it is unreasonable either that the meanness of the Relators should prove prejudicial to famous men or the greatness of those who are celebrated be any prejudice to the wit of the Writers But as for my self pardon is due to me upon another account being cumbred with many cares and hurrying my discourse within the limits prefixed to a pittance of time Socinus was born in Sene a most famous City of Tuscany The Nobility of his stock was ancient and the splendor of his Alliances exceeding the condition of a private man His father besides the honors of his own Family was on his mothers side further ennobled by the Salvetti Which family sometimes flourished with so great power amongst the Florentines that Pandulphus Petruccius being expelled out of Sene was chiefly beholding to the assistance and wealth of Paulus Salvettus for the restitution of his Country and shortly after of his Princedome By which benefit being obliged he conferred on him the freedom of the City and perswaded him to leave his countrey and dwell at Sene. This Paulus was father to Camilla who being marryed to Marianus the yonger was mother to Alexander and Laelius Socinus and grandmother to Faustus His mother born to the hope of more then a private fortune was daughter to Burgesius Petruccius sometimes Prince of the Commonwealth of Sene and to Victoria Piccolominea who being the daughter of Andreas Piccolomineus Lord of Castilio and Piscaria and Niece to Pope Pius the second and third of that name and either Sister or Kinswoman to Cardinal John Piccolomineus to the Dukes of the Amalphitani to the Marquisses of Capistranum to the Earles of Calanum and many other Italian Princes marryed into the house of the Petruccii which then held the Fortune of the Princedome of Sene. But Burgesius succeeding his father Pandulphus and not long after by a fatal change expelled out of his countrey did not long survive his dignity Nevertheless Cardinal Raphael Petruccius was his successor in the Government of his countrey and held for a while the helm of that Commonwealth But Victoria being left a widow suffered not her mind which in the splendor of her former height she had never lifted-up to be quailed with so disastrous a vicissitude of things So that for the space of fifty six yeers wherein she survived the life and common fortune of her husband she did with singular modesty and approved integrity and chastity endure the solitary condition of widowhood Her daughter Agnes whom according to the dignity of so great a family she had trained up in most holy manners she gave in marriage to Alexander Socinus a young man of noble extraction but private condition He was the Father of our Faustus and born in such a family as had for a long time not by Arms and Power but by wit and Scholarship seemed to hold a kind of Princedome in one sort of learning For this very Alexander was called the master of subtilties and his Father Marianus the younger the Prince of Lawyers and Bartholmew the Un●kle of Marianus the younger was by Angelus Politianus stiled the Papinian of his age finally Marianus the elder Bartholmews father a most grave Lawyer is by Aeneas Sylvius so highly extolled that that the

belief of the Heavenly Revelation as to a known starting-hole As if it had been long since granted that this were a Doctrine delivered by God and not the very Doctrine it self were then most called into question By this means whilest Uncertain Reason fetcheth unseasonable help from Suspected Revelation Suspected Revelation from Uncertain Reason neither of them is found to have any stability Last of all there are in the Scriptures so many and so clear testimonies of the contrary opinion that neither can those paradoxes consist with the safety of them nor the authority of Holy writ remain safe if they be called into question And therefore no Christian dares to make a scruple concerning either the certainty or sense of those testimonies only it is urged that they are maimed and defective and consequently have need of something added to them from abroad for the full knowledge of Divine things And indeed let us herein grant their request so that they abuse not this liberty of adding to undermine those things which they promised to supply But what if they produce such additions as quite overthrow the certainty and reason of those things to which they are added This certainly is not to be endured inasmuch as they had promised to supply our testimonies and not to abolish them But they fetch those supplements out of the Sacred Oracles by whose rule they would have their other testimonies tryed Truly we deny not that the Scripture is the most faithful interpreter of it self But first we must consider with what fidelity they draw that from some places of the Scripture which is repugnant to the open sense thereof elsewhere Next we must demand of them with what forehead they require that those places concerning whose meaning by reason of the open evidence they do in a manner agree with the Adversaryes should be explained by others concerning whose exposition there is the greatest controversie What perverse and preposterous order of knowledge is that to illustrate the light by darkness As if this were the way to perceive the most known things even to be blind in such as are unknown How great support therefore in the Divine Oracles those opinions have which are otherwise repugnant unto reason and how justly they implore the help of Faith is evident from those things which we have discoursed But to what purpose is all this if notwithstanding the greatest part of men are perswaded that it very much concerneth the Christian Religion that so incredible things be believed Neither is this the only point wherein the truth of so Divine Faith is traduced What should I here mention that sink of most filthy errors wherewith the most pure doctrine of the Gospel hath been over-flowed There was heretofore none so profane an opinion none so silly a dotage none so ridiculous a superstition which by the great injustice of men did not only find place therein but also esteem I omit the portentous opinions touching Transubstantiation touching the infinite Power of the Priests and the Pope and touching the worship of Images I omit the fables fetched out of the Academy touching Limbus and Purgatory I omit so many bug-bear-apparitions so many marts of absolutions and sales of sins so many strange rites and forren ceremonies and sundry other things which either the Greek also or the Latin Church only hath not blushed so long to propose for the main pillars of the Faith For whatsoever either abhorrent from all reason or repugnant to the Holy Scripture hath for so many ages been obtruded on the Generality of Christians all that hath redounded to the disgrace of our Religion and Faith since neither could the inbred light of our mind be extinguished by any means nor the authority of the Scripture be overthrown as long as our Faith remained safe But let that pass for the deplorable calamity of the world faln in barbarism now that the light of a happier age is risen and the world beginneth to come out of that thick darkness it is a great indignity that being now awakened and stirring it should again be pothered in the same or a worse fogge For whereunto tendeth the unavoidable condition of Divine Destination whereunto the most unjust necessity of Fate far more silly and barbarous then the dreams of the Ancients which doth not prescribe such a law of life as is equal and common unto all but a fixed decree concerning the inmutable state of every particular man which finally thinketh this only worthy of immense rewards or direful torments that men though they be never so willing are not able to resist the will of God Whereunto I say tendeth so cruel and sinister an opinion but to enwrap in fable darkeness the reason both of Gods Empire and Man's Obedience What also meaneth that peculiar opinion of some touching the pravity of good works or that other more common opinion touching our propriety and possession of anothers holiness Besides the darkning of our mind are we not averted from the study of true piety by the strange mixture of repugnant things if when we do never so well we are frighted with the conscience of our good deeds and when we live never so ill we have the confidence of anothers merit What should I commemorate the price properly paid for our free impunity and that it is enjoyned us by the law of a most equal severity to do impossibilities and that the will that is the freedome of man is servile All these opinions can no more be reconciled with a sincere endeavour to live piously then with themselves For who would with the loss of those things that are most dear to him seek to attain such a reward as he thinketh to be already purchased at anothers cost and without any pains of his who would press towards a place through rough and craggy wayes when in the mean time he is perswaded not only that he cannot get thither but also cannot so much as will to go I know I have touched those points of the Reformed Doctrine as they call it which like the ulcers of a most delicate part cannot be handled without an exquisite sense of pain Wherefore I will add no more for neither can those things be comprehended in a compendium of words whose number cannot easily be reckoned up in the mind Besides I know right well that some one having read those few words will fly-out and chase as if he were pricked on a sudden although I endeavour so to moderate my stile that none may justly take offence For the Christian world sleepeth quietly in his sins being bolstered up with those opinions so that if any one attempt to draw away the pillow from his delicate neck the inflamed faction of Divines falls presently a raging worse then a tyger robbed of her whelps and crying-out that Faith and Religion lye at stake when in the mean time onely the private credit of certain men or the publike allurement of sinning is brought into danger They