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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79465	Anti-Socinianism, or, A brief explication of some places of holy Scripture, for the confutation of certain gross errours, and Socinian heresies, lately published by William Pynchion, Gent. in a dialogue of his, called, The meritorious price of our redemption, concerning 1. Christ's suffering the wrath of God due to the elect. 2. God's imputation of sin to Christ. 3. The nature of the true mediatorial obedience of Christ. 4. The justification of a sinner. Also a brief description of the lives, and a true relation of the death, of the authors, promoters, propagators, and chief disseminators of this Socinian heresie, how it sprung up, by what means it spread, and when and by whom it was first brought into England, that so we be not deceived by it. / By N. Chewney, M.A. and minister of God's Word.	Chewney, Nicholas, 1609 or 10-1685.	1656 (1656)	Wing C3804; Thomason E888_1; ESTC R207357	149,812	257

of others whom he borrowed the better to vend his false and deceitful ware by which the Church of God sustained much detriment none pleased him more then that which he wrote against Eutropius as Hieronymus Muscorovius a bird of the same feather reporteth of him as from his own mouth and l●kewise adds this of his own unto it that Socinus in that very work had much out-done himself But how much to be esteemed that book is or what account is to be made of his judgment who so much cryes it up may appear by the d sputation of the Trinity which is the argument of that transcendent peece of work We will not spend time to reckon up these writ●ngs in order or to set down the number I would they had bin fewer but if any of them shall happen to come to our hands as it is much if some of h●s or other such Doctors do not in the perusal thereof it is very necessary to employ our greatest judgm●nt and utmost diligence lest when we think we are tak●ng meat to nourish us we take in poyson to destroy us we cannot expect two contrary effects from one and the same thing So Tertullian no man can be built up by that by which he is destroy●d no man can be illuminated by that by which he is darkened and obscured This man now is Haereticorum Patriarcha the support of he●eticks and ●he prop of heresies and therefore gives denomina●ion to the whole Sect Of Socinus then are they called Socinians who professe any of those heresies which were either collected or broached by him And how should it be otherwise if we look upon Laelius Soci●us as the first Authour Faustus Socinus his Nephew as the chief amplifier and propugnator of this wretched heresy To the one is rightly referred the original of th●s pseudo divinity if it be considered materially to the other if we look upon it formally from him in respect of invention from this in respect of disposition from both by Divine permission To passe by all other arguments let this be sufficient that Socinus with the utmost endeavour that he could did first propagate this his heresy in Sarmatia and Transylvania where the seeds were sown partly by Laelius who about the year 1555. is said to disperse his errours in Polonia partly by his complices in Transylvania but after that of Faustus the whole heresy being compacted and neatly made up as it is at this day maintained among them was planted in these and in divers other places beside whose Doctrine although it were for somtime opposed and that in the chief heads and f●ndamentals as concerning the satisfaction which was made by Christ unto the Justice of God for our sins vvhich he strongly opposed as also his sacrifice compleated in Heaven and not on Earth of the Kingdome of Christ of Justification of Baptism and the like which at first suffered divers contradict●ons yet at last vvere embraced and accounted as the Oracles of God Insomuch that vvhole Churches and they of no small number and concernment vvere not only fallen to this heresy but vvere ready vi armis to maintain it against all opposition Neither vvas he sparing of any labour or toyle so that he m●ght disseminate and disperse abroad this heresy thus composed and compounded by him Witness his so many vvritings his frequen● letters of solicitation his private and publique disputations so many informations of those vvhom he had as interpreters of his mind and meaning his so long and tedeous journeyes from the utm●st confines of Silesia even into the heart of Lituania compassing Sea and Land as our blessed Saviour speaks of the Pharisees to make proselytes and to gain others to embrace their dangerous and deadly Doctrines Hence forth then we know them no more by the distinct name of Arian Ebionite Photinian Samosatenian Abaila●dian or Servetian but by this compound de●ominati●n of Socinian as including and comprehending all the rest I know that there are divers causes of heresy the ambition of some the contention of others may be and many times are causes of the springing and growing up of m●st damnable heresies In Socinus both these did concur being both ambitious to get a name by and to give a name to this lovely babe o● innovation and contagion And also contentious never g●ving over quarrelling and contending with those that held any thing contrary to his mind or liking till he had brought them to that passe that he would have them his own wicked and desperate designs to that issue which he desired Thus l ved he to be a trouble and vexation to al the Churches in Italy his own Country Germany Polonia the great D●kedome of Lituania Trans●lvania and where not by setting up and setting forth his deadly and destructive Doctrines and qualis vita finis ita as he oppos d Christ in his li●e Christ must needs deny him that comfort at his death which perhaps he might expect for faith Christ he that denyeth me before men him will I al●o deny before my father which is in Heaven and if Christ den us who will own us but own we him and he will own and honour us before God and his Holy Angels Franciscus Davidis Superintendens Audet Franciscus superis indicere bellum De summâ Christum trudere sede suâ THE next fire-brand of sedition and broacher of this blasphemous Doctrine which the Devil cast into the Church of God by which it was enflamed and which he set on work by which it was molested is this Francis Davidis Superintendent one as it were fitted on all hands to do mischief but to do good he had little knowledge and lesse will He was Authour with Blandrata of that hellish confutation which was written against George Major fraught full of blasphemy against the sacred Trinity For although he agreed with them of the Socinian party in opposing the Trinity of the persons in the Unity of the essence as the Orthodox professe and the Deity of Jesus Christ Yet he dissented from them and went beyond them in his opinion concerning the invocation of Christ Est illud mirabile saith Athanasius cum omnes haereses invicem pugnent in falsitate omnes consentire It is greatly to be wondered at that notwithstanding all heresies jar among themselves yet they agree well enough on opposition of the truth He was with them in all the rest he out-went them in this affirming that Christ ought not to be worshipped because he was not God not true God of the same essence with his Father Hence much contention and divers hot disputations arose among them in which they seem at once both bountiful and injurious to the Lord Jesus willing to invest him with the title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but d sr●be him of that glorious and his own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 granting him a like essence with the Father but not the same equal to him in power but not eternity By

he was made a curse For the third in what nature he was made a curse We have this answer In his humane nature consisting of body and soul yea in soul rather then in body the soul of man being the principal seat and place of residence for sin For saith Christ himself z Mat. 15.19 out of the heart which in Scripture beareth usually the name and title of the soul proceedeth evill thoughts murthers adulteries c. Yet I say in both compleating and making up the humane nature sustained and supported by the Divine being in Union with it Here is something to be borne and meet it is a Bishop Andrews ser that every one should bear his own burthen the nature that had sinned bear his own sin Mans nature had sinned and therefore mans nature ought to suffer But that which mans nature should mans nature could not bear not the heavy and insupportable weight of Gods wrath due to sin but God could The one ought and could not The other could but ought not if he had not bin man he could not have suffered if he had not bin God he had sunk in his sufferings and had never bin able to have gone thorow with them God had no shoulders Man had but too weak God knows to sustain so great a weight So that as he was man he was lyable and as he was God he was able saith that learned Prelate b Pag. to bear the burthen in the heat of the day c Psal 16. To the last how far forth Christ was accursed We answer thus There is a two-fold death a first and a second death in the first death there are two degrees separation of body and soul and the putrifaction of the body separated The first Christ suffered but not the second For his body being deprived of life according to the dialect of the Psalmist c Psal 16. saw no corruption Again in the second there are two degrees the first is a separation from God in sense and feeling The second is an absolute separation from him for ever never to be admitted into favour any more Into this last degree of death Christ entred not for in the midst of his most grievous sufferings in the exaltation and height of all his sorrows he yet cryed out my God my God declaring his trust in and dependance upon God notwithstanding all his misery Neither could it be otherwise without a dissolution of the personal Union But into the first deg●ees of this second death we affirm and that upon plain Scripture grounds against all opposition that Christ did enter that is the sense and feeling of Gods wrath and indignation d Cum ira Dei sit voluntas puniendi rectè etiam di●ipotest Iratus illo quèm vice loco delinquentium punire vult essen due to the Elect in regard of their iniquities by which they had provoked him to be highly displeased with them Not to muster up any more * Instances witnesses we will only take a short survey of that place of the Apostle to the Hebrews cap. 5. vers 7. Who in the dayes of his flesh when he had offered up Prayers and Supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared and so free it what we may from the violence done unto it by the Dialogue who notwithstanding his profession of reverence to those Authours who expound the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fear yea the fear of astonishment at the sense and feeling of Gods wrath for the guilt of our sins yet labours tooth and naile to overthrow their exposition and by one of his own to carry the meaning of the Text another way telling us that some translate it reverence others dignity a third sort piety to which because he himself adheres rather then to any other doth therefore conclude that it must be so taken here and must not cannot be otherwise But by the Dialogues good leave there is no such necessity for that as he would have us believe the proper signification of the word being fear together with the frequent use of it by all sorts of Greek Authours both holy d Heb. 12.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and humane e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Plut. in Camille declare the contrary as also the Proposition annexed f 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which cannot be bribed or corrupted to comply with the sense and interpretation of the Dialogue It was not an ordinary fear arising from an ordinary cause g Metus vel solitudo c. that thus constrained our blessed Saviour to entreat and supplicate for he felt such pains saith Piscator h In animo pariter corpore tales sensit dolores quales damnati sensuri sunt in inferno ut ita satisfaceret pro peccatis nostris quae ut Sponsor in se susceperat c. In Heb. 5.7 as the Elect if they had bin damned in Hell should have felt that so he might make satisfaction to the Justice of God for their sins the guilt of which as a Pledge or surety he had freely and voluntarily taken upon him He offered up saith the Apostle prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared If it had bin fear of bodily death only as the Dialogue would have it what need such cryes such strong cryes with tears Surely be would make him lesse then a man and more faint in a good cause then Malefactors are in a bad But the Text is plain he was heard in that he feared that is saved from the death he feared but he was not saved from the bodily death for he dyed and gave up the Ghost i Mat. 27.58 therefore it was not the bodily death but the great horrour of soul * Christus ut plenè pro nobis satisfaceret non tantum corporis sed etiam summos animi cruciatus sustinuit Vicit B●za in Mat. by reason of the wrath of God which he suffered that he so feared and from which he was in respect of the eternity there of delivered Nor was it Christs deliverance out of these sufferings much lesse from a bodily death only as the Dialogue but upon what grounds I know not doth most vainly to say no worse affirm but the glory of God his Father in the salvation of the Elect which was the Master-piece of all his prayers Well we have enough for our purpose He prayed that he might be delivered from death True but this death was the death of the crosse the principal part whereof was the curse that is the wrath of God due to the Elect for sin from which he was delivered in respect of duration but sustained it for a time for them that they might for ever be freed from the same And this we take to be the

suffer for us the one being infinite in time the other infinite in weight and measure The Son of God then truly suffered eternal death in respect of the greatness of those miseries which he endured and the sense of Gods wrath in those sufferings t Ex gravitate dolorum quos perpessus est filius Dei mortem aeternam subiit c. which he sustained Here the Dialogue by an imperfect and impertinent description of Hell torments labours to betray and beguile his over-confident and unwary Reader inferring from thence that because Christ suffered not circumstantially that is in al the circumstances of time place c. therefore he can in no sense be said to suffer any part or degree of the same as if the Devil because not alwayes in the place of torment cannot be therefore said to be tormented The New-English answer hereunto u Mr. Norton pag. 29. hath made such a breach in this Fort that every eye may sufficiently discern the weakness hereof and so put no trust to or confidence in it But yet again some may Object 3 object and say could temporal death or the suffering of the curse for so short a time counter-vail the suffering and substaining of that eternal death and destruction to which we by reason of our great impiety and Rebellion were lyable To which we give this affirmative answer Answ Yes if we do but consider that which is here worthy of our consideration namely the person that did suffer w Etsi enim temporalia tantum ac finita fuerint quae fecit ac perpissus est a persona tamen ejusmo●i quatis ipse fuit praestita equalis saltem meriti fuerunt ad justitiae Divinae cùm satisfactionem cùm illustrationem c. Bradshaw de Justificat For as our sin though not infinite in it self yet in respect of the object against whom it is committed the infinite Majesty of God may therefore be said to be infinite So the passion of Christ may be said to be infinite to in respect of the subject which did endure it the everlasting Son of the Father who thought it no robbery to be equall with God the least of whole sufferings for the least moment of time was more and of more esteem then if all the men in the World had suffered infinite and unspeakable torments unto all eternity Therefore the death of Christ the beloved Son of the Father both in respect of the measure of the punishment as also in respect of the worth and dignity of the person doth every way counter-vail and fully satisfie for that eternall death to which we were lyable and which we should have suffered to all eternity Object 4 Lastly it is objected could God be so angry with his own only begotten most innocent and alwayes obedient Son in whom he was for ever well pleased as to inflict so great wrath upon him Answ Answer If any where that distinction be to be used which the Dialogue would have so often remembred that is that Christ suffered as a Malefactor and as a Mediatour at one and the same time it is here though not in that sense in which the Dialogue takes it Christ is to be considered under a double notion as the Son of God and so at all times and for ever beloved of him and as our Pledge and surety and so lyable to the curse of God by reason of the guilt of our sins that lay upon him Neither is there any such contradiction in this as the Socinians dream of to say that Christ was grievously afflicted and yet highly beloved of God both a curse and a sacrifice of a sweet Savour unto his Father at one and the same time because it is not spoken in one and the same respect Christ was grievously afflicted x Afflictus execrabilis factus est Christus quae nostri locum sustinuit qui irae Dei maledictioni obnoxii eramus Calovius de satisfactione Christi and made a curse as he stood in our steed and took our place and case upon him who were our selves Children of wrath and obnoxious to the curse of God yet was he beloved of God and most dear to him in respect of his most holy and perfect obedience which he performed to all his commands likewise a sacrifice of a sweet Savour in regard of the Effect God being thereby pacified and reconciled to us So that God inflicted wrath upon him not as his only beloved Son but as our surety and one that undertook to bear the penalty for us that Gods Justice being in him fully satisfied we might be freed from that wrath which otherwise might and that justly have bin inflicted on us I suppose by this time we have sufficiently proved against the Dialogue and in him Socinus and all his followers that Christ Jesus as our Pledge and surety did suffer the wrath of God * Ira Dei peccata nostra in filio sponsore nostro vindicantis tenebrarum horrore sancitur Beza in Mar. 15. being made a curse for us yea that very curse which we should have suffered or else the Apostles Argument could not hold there being in it four terms in respect of the diversity of the signification of the word curse Hence are two things to be proved by us one that Christ suffered the curse for us to declare which we thus argue either Christ suffered the curse due to us for our sins or we suffer it our selves or the curse is not executed But we suffer it not our selves neither is the curse not executed for then the truth of the commination and Divine Justice should fail Therefore Christ suffered the curse due to us for our sins The other that he suffered that very curse to which we were lyable this is plain 1. From the Rule of interpretation rightly laid not having recourse to Tropes or Figures where there is no necessity for them 2. From the Apostles alternation we are freed from the curse of the Law Christ is made the curse of the Law for us which very variation or inversion doth evidently declare to any ordinary capacity that Christ was made the very true curse of the Law for us For the whole argument lyes thus As Christ freed us from the curse so did he suffer the curse But Christ did so free us from the curse that he hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly redeemed us from the punishment and damnatory Sentence of the Law to which we were lyable Therefore he hath also so suffered the curse that he hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly bin obnoxious to the punishment and damnatory Sentence of the same 3. From the quality of the curse He is made a curse the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 maledictus not in respect of men only as all the Socinian party would have it but also in respect of God for so we read that place of Moses y Deut. 21.23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉

the Dialogue professe he knows not what kind of imputation it is and yet doth he thus reproach it We may easily know then what Spirit he is of Iude 10. Speaking evill of those ●hings which he knoweth not And 't is a sign he knows it not indeed otherwise he would not so severely censure it yea condemne and blaspheme it as he doth which most darkens the necessary Doctrine of a sinners justification let the indifferent Reader judge If he desire to know what it is let him search the Scriptures for they do abundantly testify of it To the Law and to the Testimony * Legimus passim apud Paulum nos justos fieri justificari p●r Christum per Christi mortem sanguinem redemptionem obedientiam justitiam illam justitiam imputari nobis à Deo absque operibus Noster Amesius Bell. enerva 10.4 pag. 137. and they which speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them The very term Impute taken for judicial laying of that to the charge of a person which is not properly his but yet justly laid to him and put truly upon his account is ten times used by the Apostle Paul in the 4th to the Romanes In which sense we affirm that sin is imputed to Christ or else he could not have suffered This we take to be and shall stick by as an infallible truth No man dyes as death is a privation of the life of the body unlesse it be for his own sin or the sin of some others imputed to him The Scriptures that confirm this are divers Gen. 2.17 In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death Rom. 6.23 The wages of sin is death 1 Cor. 15.56 The sting of death is sin Rom. 5.12 As by one man sin entred into the World and death by sin and so death passed over all men for that all have sinned from whence we collect that every man that dyes dyes for sin that is either for his own or the sin of some other made his by imputation Death is not natural to man as man For that which is natural to him as he is man was engraffed into him and appointed unto him of God but death is not planted or engraffed into him by God neither was he by him made lyable to it e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Man before his fall was free from death as after the last judgment he shall be likewise Besides death is an enemy to humane nature threatning the ruine and destruction thereof will any man then say that that is natural to him which doth destroy him Is that agreeable to the nature of man which above all other he abborreth being accompanied with that which brings nothing but trouble anguish and vexation to him whence we see that death is not natural to man as man but to man only as a sinner Now that Christ dyed the Devils themselves have not impudence enough to deny being themselves instrumentally engaged for the effecting of his death But let the Dialogue or any man else for him answer me in good sadness was it for his own sin or for the sin of others None can none dare openly though these black mouth'd Socinians do secretly mutter so much affirm for his own therefore it must necessarily be for the sin of others Sin may be said to be anothers properly or improperly either truly or after a certain manner those sins are truly anothers of which in no sort thou hast bin partaker and for which by no Law thou art bound to suffer but for those whereof thou hast bin partaker no reason can be produced to the contrary but thou shouldst suffer Christ doth in a manner partake of our sins f Isa 53.6 the Lord hath laid on him or hath made to meet on him the iniquities of us all yea Peter in the 2. Chapter of his first Epistle and the 24. vers saith plainly that his own self bare our sins in his own body on the Tree c. and so cannot especially offering himself and becoming our surety undertaking for us the penalty due to us but be every way lyable to the same Christ was not subject to any necessity of dying being as God immortal as man holy and immaculate without the least tincture of sin therefore no necessity in him no necessity for him but in respect of us and as our pledge and surety This is a proposition of an undoubted truth that where there is no Original corruption there is no actual transgression Christ being free from the one must needs be acquit of any suspition of the other therefore not for his own sins but for ours the guilt whereof being laid upon him and imputed to him did he suffer that misery those torments and that death that accursed death of which we have already so fully spoken Here the Dialogue that he may the more closely and covertly beguile the over-credulous Reader which I perceive is his great endeavour doth ignorantly if not wilfully corrupt some texts of Scripture wresting and wringing them about to make them speak in his sense and to his purpose namely that Christ did not bear as we say by imputation but did bear away our sins and our iniquities from us Having therefore already freed those places quoted out of the Prophesie of Isaiah g Isa 53.7 c. expounded as he saith by that of Matt. 8.16 and from which he draweth this false consequence that Christ bore our sins as he bore our sicknesses whereas indeed there is great difference in the manner of bearing h Hos enim abstulit non pertulit illa non pertulit illa pertulit abstulit simul Sibran Lub lib. 2. cap. 4. these he did not bear but bear away those he bore and bore away together We shall now do the best we can by Gods assistance to clear this of St. Peter also and free it from the like corrupt handling In this 1 Pet. 2.24 the place before cited the Apostle saith expresly that Christ did peccata nostra sursum tulisse carry our sins up with him upon the crosse If the Spirit of God by the Apostle had intended herein a bearing away he might have used as learned Grotius well observes i De Satisfactione Christi cap. 1. and more apt for that purpose the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which barely signifies to take away But for the greater Emphasis and more cleer expressing of his meaning he useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is he took up which is so far from diminishing that it adds something to the signification thereof Now Socinus and his Ape the Dialogue that they may weaken if possible the strength of this place do tell us that this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie abstulit he bare away but quite contrary to the nature and use of the word For neither the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will admit of

unsavoury judgements of men they are taken though mistaken to have the Spirit of Truth which indeed are but Spirits of Error And again they are esteem'd as Spirits of Error in whom the spirit of Truth doth reside and hath taken up his Habitation We had need therefore be the more careful to what and whom we do give heed so as to follow or be led by it and how we judge lest we be judged for it Now the very God of Truth by his spirit the spirit of Truth guide us into all Truth and keep us blameless therein that we waver not our selves nor give occasion to others to reproach it by our disorderly walking in the Profession of it which is the earnest Prayer and hath been the careful endeavour of May the 13. 1656. Your once well-wishing Pastor and your ever well-wishing friend N.C. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or a Cage of Unclean Birds Containing the Authors Promoters Propagators and chief Disseminators of this damnable Socinian heresie Together with a brief description of their Lives and a true relation of their Deaths I Am perswaded that it hath bin one of Satans greatest designs either to br●ng Religion into scorn and contempt Satans project to overthrow the practise and profession of all true Religion by prostituting it to every base and unworthy enterprise For there hath not bin any rebellion so horrid nor any stratagem so hideous which he hath not shrowded under the cloak and covert of Religion Or else to confound it by so great variety every one pretending his own to be the truest that men might not be able to discern truth from falsehood a fond fain'd and counterfeit religion the result of some Enthusiastick brain from that which is commanded and commended to us in the Word of God Indeed variety in any thing distracts the mind Variety though pl●asing yet troublesome in Religion dangerous and leaves it in a waving and wavering condition and ●n a dubious trouble insomuch that it is then no hard matter to sway the mind to either side But among all diversities that we meet with none troubles us more and puts us to more anxious perplexity then those that are in Religion This stumbles the unsettled soul that not knowing which way to take without the danger of erring sticks to none so dies he ere he can set himself with any assurance or comfort about that for which he was made to live the service of God advancing his glory and working not with fear and trembling his own salvation and then the Devil rejoyceth as having so far as concerns this one poor soul brought his design to a desired issue And for this purpose he hath select and chosen instruments The Devils white boyes his own white boyes ready prest to raise up new or to revive some old heresies against the most absolute and substantial Articles of true Religion about which at this time and in these latter dayes they are busily employed Who can reckon up for I believe it would puzzle a good Arithmetician to number them what and how many portentous opinions he hath foisted into the World against God his Nature and Religion What horrid errours concerning God concerning Christ concerning mans redemption justification salvation and other articles of our faith are spread abroad among men and so handed from one to another that they are continued and propagated even to admiration Among the ancients we may read that Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Philastrius Augustine Damascene Leontius Byzantinus with Harmenopolus and divers others have bin all occupied in confuting the several sects and heresies of their age nor have we bin by reason of the great encrease and groweth of heresies ●n our t●me without our moderne heretick hunters which have traced them out and pursued them to the purpose And yet for all this a man would be amazed at the multiplicity and monstrority of the blasphemous Doctrine and diabolical suggestions which are still broached by these hereticks to obscure the bright face of Religion and are delivered over for Doctrines of truth to their Disciples yea there hath not b n any th●ng devised be it never so enormous and detestable never so void of reason and Religion which hath not by one heretick or other bin caught up published abroad maintained and defended as some notable and transcendent truth Now heresy ●s variously described Heresy described sometimes more largly sometimes more strictly Rightly to define heresy is as I think impossible there being so many faces as it were under one hood all mak●ng for it yet every one disclaining it or at least very difficult so though Augustine and yet in the first cap. to Honoratus he g●ves us his judgment concerning it in his description of an ●eretick which is saith he one who for some temporal commodity or vain-glory and desire of rule over the consciences of others doth either fondly beget or perversly and obstinately follow and maintain some strange and false Doctrines But this is somwhat to full and large That desciption of St. Hierome is more strict Whosoever understandeth and applyeth the Holy Scriptures for the maintenance of any Doctrine otherwise then the sense of the Spirit of God doth require or admit by the special direction and inspiration of whom it was first penned not withstanding he have the judgment of the Church in which he is and of which he professeth himself a member on his side yet as to be accounted an heretick especially if that Doctrine which he defends be known to be false and erroneous Papists mistake it The Papists do give us but an ill definition of heresy when they tell us that he is an heretick who in matters of Faith goes against the tenure and practise of the Church of Rome But we would teach them better could they be won to learn of us namely that it is an errour which is stiffely maintained contrary to the Articles of the Faith which are necessary to be held and defended by us I call it an errour not that every errour is a heresy though there can be no heresy without errour for errour persisted in constitutes an heresy The word being simply considered in it self hath no bad signification how Use The great Master of words doth alter and change them is another matter for according to the primitive use of it in the Schools from whence it came into the Church it did but serve to distinguish one sort or Sect of Philosophers from another or to speak more proper it signified the Election or choise or some one Sect being so distinguished in the business of Religion we now use it as an errour in matters of faith as when it is contrary to some or some one chief article of the faith then it is properly called heresy when it sets it self in opposition to all the Articles of our belief it is Apostasie Heresy and Sect neer related Heresy and Sect are so neer related that in divers places

looked to be obeyed not disputed and freely assented to not preposterously controverst He seems to me to be Master of little or no reason at all who would have Reason a competent judge of those things which are above and beyond reason and all finite apprehension whatsoever For his good conversation it deserves commendation if it were real I would be loath to be what ever the World and some ill byassed men think of me an Advocate for debauchery I here openly protest against it in the sight of God and man yet to speak my mind freely I believe the Devil that hath many wayes to catch men hath in'd a greater harvest by the means of such austerity and seeming purity I judge no man then ever he did by those that are too much addicted to company To decline offences to be careful and conscionable in our several actions is a perfection which every man ought to labour for and to attain unto which we may well do without a sullen segregation of our selves from all society or at least from all society that are not of our opinion The Donatists were pure in their lives but desperate in their Doctrines What Saints did the Anabaptists seem at their first rise and Original to be Insomuch that Luther himself wrote to the Duke of Saxonie in their behalf desiring him not to be too severe to those innocent and harmelesse persons yet afterwards when they had gotten the staff into their own hands what Monsters they discovered themselves to be what horrible outrages were acted what horrid impieties perpetrated by them poor Germany can yet remember and declare to her long lasting sorrow and their everlasting infamy An affected austerity a supercilious gravity a starch't deportment insteed of reverence which is looked for beget scorne and contempt If there be any priviledges they are surely granted to the Children of the Kingdome to which many without warrant intitle themselves If mirth and recreations be lawful surely such as desire to keep faith and a good conscience may lawfully use them Let us not then judge one another but every one of us labour to build up one another in our most holy faith that God may have the glory his Church the peace his Servants the comfort that is to be desired Well having considered this Laelius in his life and Doctrine we now come to his end having attained to the middle of his age being about seven and thirty years old and at that very time when being moved by the importunity of his friends he had determined yea had already begun to bring to light and publish to the World some fru●t of his laborious and industrious studies in Divinity he was cut off by the sudain stroak of death insomuch that all his endeavour which was wholly bent if possible to the ruin of Orthodox Doctrine and their great expectation for the present dyed with him and came to nothing How did death cousen both the living and dead This intended now out of hand to publish Those to enjoy the result of many years hard and painful studies yet both are prevented by one sudain and unexpected blow We are here even in our best condition but as a flower that lasts some dayes we last some years at a certain period both fade It should be our care to be alwayes well doing and then let death come when where and how it will We may then with comfort sing that Swan-like song of good old Simeon Nunc dimittis c. Lord now le● thy Servant depart in peace Mattheus Gribaldus Iurisconsultus Patavinus Jam Patavinus adest Gribaldus jure peritus At verae legis cognitione caret MAttheus Gribaldus to whom that runagate Galentinus Gentilis flying out of Geneva first betook himself was a Lawyer of Patavia as able in his profession as any in that School one that lived well and in good repute t●ll he was drawn away by the sly and subtil perswasion of Laelius Socinus that broker for the Devil who cunningly wrought the downfal of this man and many others He was familiarly present with Francis Spira in that desperate conflict which he had by reason of his Apostacy and ab●egation of the faith contrary to his conscience and his former pro●ession of the truth He also wrote the History of the same the whole matter whereof in his preface he terms and that very truly a great wonderfull example of Divine Justice upon the man to the terrour and astonishment of all beholders For he together with Paulus Vergerius Bishop ●f Justinopolitanus who unlesse he had seen Spira in that Agonie had never come over to Basil to us as himself was wont often to say did very often visite Spira and give him what comfort he could at that time in a better cond●tion then himself who having forsaken the faith and abandoned his profession he betook himself secretly to his village in the Country where he lay close and obscure for a time at length he joyned himself a companion to these Italian hereticks who took him off cleerly from the foundations of his Religion So that by degrees for nemo repente fit turpissimus he became as Arch an heretick as any in the company No enemy like to bad company it destroyes both our bodies and souls it gives us immedicabile vulnus such a wound as will admit of no cure How many have lived ignominiously and dyed miserably who have used their last breath only to complain of this as the witch that hath enchanted them to the commiting of those evills which now they must smart for and that for ever Many a man had bin good which is not had he not fallen into ill company This this wrought such an unhappy change in Gribaldus that the sad example of Spira which before had made some impression in him was now quite gone and that terrour which it had wrought was removed Quantum mutatus ab illo what can we think of him when as Beza writing concerning him saith that he had denyed with open and apparent perjurie that Religion which in his conscience he thought to contain the very truth This made Calvin refuse to take or give a hand when he met him unlesse they first might know each others minds and what agreement was between them in the prime Article of the Christian faith that is the sacred Trinity and the Deity of Jesus Christ But the difference proved so wide that Calvin and he were never at amity many times at enmity during his abode at Geneva After this we find that he returned to his profession of the Law but never to the profession of the truth And therefore t is not for nothing that this saying came in use to convince an heretick is next to a miracle that is so to convince him as to bring him to acknowledge his errours to be sorry for them and utterly to relinquish and forsake them By the favour of Vergerius who either knew not or winked at his errours and heresies

errours are the snares which the Devil layes by his instruments to catch living souls How much Beza made of this Dudithius with what a Christian affection he loved him how solicitous he was to draw him from errour and to perswade him to and confirm him in the truth against those doubtings and distractions by which he was much molested between the profession of the Papists on the one side and the Socinian on the other doth appear by a large and elegant letter written to him and is to be found among the letters of Beza Zanchie also wrote to Dudithius a letter concerning the true Church being the same argument about which he had written to Beza and Wolphius a little before proposing this question to them How comes it to passe that in your Church if it be the true Church there be so many dissentions and divisions among you and that in and about the chief articles of religion This is one stone of stumbling which the Devil hath cast in the way to the profession of the truth by which he hath hindred many from walking in it or giving any credit to it But to this that good man Zanchy gives a full and a solid answer First that there are not so many nor so great contentions among us who professe the true faith as the Devil and his complices would make the World believe thereby to bring the truth into suspicion And then that those which are among us are no argument of doubting of the truth of the Church but rather of approving it For the continued and common condition of the Church of God here is militant and subject to infirmity only in Heaven it is already in part and shall be hereafter wholly triumphant Christ himself gives the Church a caution hereof Matt. 7.15 Beware of false Prophets which come to you Not to Turks not to Infidels and yet to these but not to these only but to you also to you principally and especially who have the Gospel and to whom God affords the means of Salvation The Devil is let loose for a season Rev. 20. For a season to try the faith and patience of the Church And but for a season to fortifie the courage of the Church Had it not bin that Satan hath bin busy in the obtruding of errour the Church of God had not bin so busy in searching out the truth Therefore the Church is on the getting hand hereby Had not those Arians and Sabellians at the first vexed the Church of God with their heresies which are but branches and lims of this of Socinianism the deep mysteries of the sacred Trinity had not bin so accurately cleered so strongly fortifyed to the faith and belief of men as by the Ancient Doctors then it was and this day it is among us Heresie makes men sharpen their wits the better to confute it That Absynthium that smarts the eye cleers it and we thank that pain that gives us sight Dudithius then had no reason to douht of but rather to joyne issue with that as the true Church who by the contentions that were among them got the more knowledge of and laid the faster hold upon the truth of the Gospel But he was not so happy He wrote divers Orations and political admonitions In the Bodlejan library at Oxford are to be seen divers works of his as the signification of Comets divers and they very pithy speeches which he made in the councel of Trent An Apologie to Maximilian the II. An Epistle concerning the inflicting of capital punishment upon hereticks The life of Cardinal Pool was drawn out by his artificial hand and flourished by his pen. There are divers letters also of Socinus to him by which at first he solicited and and as is to be believed gained him to his party Raemundus reporteth of him that being invited by a certain friend of his to dinner who earnestly requested his company at that time in good health free from all sense or the least suspicion of sickness much lesse of death gave the Messenger this answer his friend must have him excused for that he was at that very time to go another way and had some other business of greater consequence to do Namely to pay the last debt which he owed to nature which accordingly at that very time he did and so departed Truly this man was much to be pitied who having forsaken a bad yet chose no better a religion then which a worse could not be raked out of Hell giving himself over to the Socinian faction in whose destructive opinions as he lived So he dyed without comfort That old saying may stand us in some steed if we list to make use of it Optimum est alinâ frui insaniâ to take heed by other mens harms is experience bought at a very cheap rate and whom they teach not may want not grief but pity Franciscus Puccius Florentinus Ecclesiae Christi membrum se Puccius instat Scilicet egreg●um Relligionis inops IF our souls were as sensible of sin as our bodies are of pain we would be m●re careful of our selves for ●ear of a relapse We would not willingly fall again into the same sicknesses under which we have a long time groaned and ●rom which we are for the present delivered and yet we take no care of falling into the same sins or runing into the same wayes of errour out of which God by his mercy hath luckt us like brands out of the fire when we were ready to be consumed This was verely the fault of Francis Puccius a Florentine of the noble and renowned family of the Puccij of Florence who so journing at Lyons being there about some necessary affair when as disputations about religion waxed hot and matters of moment were freely debated therein was convinced in his conscience of the vanity of the Popish religion in which he was at that time very Zealous after some debatement thereof with himself and some conference concerning it with others he utterly renounced it as tend●ng to the destruction both of body and soul Hereupon he came into England and first to Oxford where for some time he studied Divinity after that to London and so over to B●sil where he had that disputation with Socinus which was formerly mentioned by us But where or from whom he got those whimsies and fancies of dotage with which he was possessed those wild and mad opinions which he broached and by which the Churches were very much troubled we cannot learn nor do we greatly care to know For besides those opinions which he held in common with the Socinians he maintained a certain kind of natural faith by which we m●ght attain to salvation as also universal redemption and other stuffe ejusdem f●rmae of the same batch By reason of which he was constrained to leave Basil from whence he took his course directly for England and so up to London where he began to publish his paradoxical opinions and that with such