Thebais and Libya to receive Arius and Euzoius with willing Minds as being restored they say by so great a Synod and they write another to the Emperour to give him an account of what was done and to desire him to see them actually restored Arius then comes to Alexandria but Athanasius who understood all the Fraudulence of the proceeding looking on him still as excommunicate avoided him as an execrable Person and would not restore him Then Arius strives by infusing his Heresie into the People of the City to raise a Tumult thereby to attain his end that way but this not succeeding Eusebius procures a Letter from the Emperour to command him to it This Athanasius civilly answers and informs him That Arius being anathematized by a general Council he cannot be restored by him again This very much inflames the Emperour not well understanding the merits of the Cause and occasions an angry Letter from him in which he threatens his deposing him from his Bishoprick upon refusal This Opportunity Eusebius gladly improves and suborns one Ischyras a rascally Fellow that had usurped the Priesthood without Ordination in the Diocess of Athanasius but being detected by him flies to Eusebius in Nicomedia who receives him as a Priest and promises him a Bishoprick if he would accuse Athanasius which having done he did afterwards procure him Then were trumpt up the Forgeries of the broken Chalice and the cutting off Arsenius's Hand and using it for Magick c. which were the subject of the Debates of the Arian Council at Tyre and have of late made such a noise in our Socinian Pamphlets Now in all this here is no real Disobedience at all of the Bishop to the Emperour as the Authour would pretend for the Emperour will not have him restored unless he be of the opinion of the Nicene Council and besides he does not think it a Point in which he ought to meddle but leaves it to the Council which he thought Orthodox when it was mostly Arian But Athanasius finds that Arius's Creed was drawn up so ambiguously that any one might see he designed nothing but shuffling the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which was the Test of Arianism was left out and Arius still as fond of his Doctrines as ever and moreover that the Council which pretended to restore him was but Provincial at best and most of the Orthodox in it retired and the Eusebian Party taking off his Excommunication by a trick and therefore thinks he may very well upon these considerations refuse to restore him notwithstanding the Imperial Letters And truly he or any other Bishop that would take into his Flock such a Wolf as this upon these terms would little deserve the name of a good Pastour and he that should refuse to do so might justify himself from disobedience to any Earthly Authority whatsoever He that will see more of Athanasius's Vindication may see it in his own Apologies I have been more full in the Vindication of this good Man because the scurrillous Pens of late have made it their business after so many hundred years to calumniate him again The next thing that the Authour offers is against the word Consubstantial and this from a saying of Socrates Lib. 1. Cap. 18. not Book the 2. as he quotes it in which the Authour would have him to condemn the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a word which did trouble Mens Minds and which the Bishops themselves did not understand Now Socrates is Friend enough to the Orthodox Cause every one knows which makes the Authour brand him with the name of partial and in many places shews he had no dislike to the word Consubstantial but he has one fault which is common to many Historians that he makes too many remarks upon his Relations and oftentimes in matters the true reason of which we was far from understanding But 't is no great matter what the Historians remarks are 't is their Relations and not their reflections which we are to value and yet after all Socrates does not in the least reflect upon the Orthodox Doctrine or the test of it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shews his dislike indeed to those that made too nice explications of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that crumbled this question into many little Cavils and raised upon it some nice disputes and therefore they that did so were to blame but they might believe what was signified by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any of these Cavils and they might without any of these Niceties stand up for the word as being thought by the wisdom of the Council to be the best Test to discover the Arian Heresy Then the Authour applauds himself mightily in fansying that the Doctrine of the Trinity is not the same now as it was in Athanasius's time because he in his Dialogues explains this Mystery by the similitude of three Men who are one in their common nature and three in their individual Capacity this the Authour would have to infer a Tritheism and as well to justify the Heathen Polytheism as the Trinity Now these Dialogues though bound up with Athanasius's Works are not his but according to the Opinion of most learned Men are Maximus's but however there is nothing in them which would infer any thing like that which the Authour pretends to He and several other of the Fathers give many Illustrations to explain as far as possible to humane understandings this Mystery but yet they as all other similitudes must not be strained farther than the Authours designed them 't is enough if they bear that Analogy or likeness which are there singled out not that these should have in their whole nature an uniform similitude Now Peter James and John three Individual Men and yet agreeing in one common nature Man are a very good illustration of the Blessed Trinity for as Peter is Man James is Man and John is Man and yet there is but one Man that is one common nature of humanity so the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God and yet there is but one God that is one common Divine Nature but yet this illustration does not bear an universal Analogy with the Trinity for Peter James and John agree only in the same common collective nature and are only collectively one but Father Son and Holy Ghost are essentially one So that I say this illustration of the Trinity may be very good though it does not hold universally 't is enough if the three Persons in each agree in a general Unity though they differ in the specification of this Unity 't is enough if both are three and yet one though one be by a collective and the other an essential Oneness So Bishop Priest and Deacon agree in one common Office of Ministry in general and this is brought by the same Father as a farther illustration of this Mystery and so may any other three Species of a Genus or any
old Cerinthian Race starts up who was Bishop of Sirmium and asserts again That Christ was mere man and had no Being before the Ages and That he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had his sole Beginning from the time he was conceived in the Virgin 's Womb. These were the chief Propugners of this Heresie in the Primitive times there being none of any considerable note after these for then almost all the Heresies ran into Arianism Nestorianism Eutychianism c. the prevailing Heresies of the succeeding Ages And indeed this Heresie seemed to be quite lost till Petrus Abelardus in the Twelfth Century did revive it He about the Year 1140 was a famous Philosopher and Divine and Professor at Paris he asserted That he could comprehend the Godhead with humane Reason totum id quod Deus est humanà ratione comprehendere and wrote such things of the Trinity of the Generation of the Son and the Procession of the Holy Ghost and innumerable things of the like nature as were unheard of by Catholick Ears he affirmed The Holy-Ghost not to be of the Essence of the Father and denied Original Sin and the Satisfaction of Christ Which are all the true Characteristicks of the Socinian Heresie These were the most remarkable of this sort of Vnitarian Hereticks till the time of the Reformation and the first then that stood up for this Heterodoxy was Michael Servetus a Spaniard by Profession a Physician who having travelled into Africa and being instructed in the Principles of Mahometanism set up for the Vnitarian Doctrine in Europe He in the year 1531 published his Book Entituled Lib. 7. de Error Trinitatis which was printed at Basil This Book was filled with innumerable Blasphemies and impious Mockeries upon the Holy Trinity upon which account most of the Copies of it were soon after publickly burnt at Frankford But notwithstanding this they were privately handed about so that many that were inclinable to a separation from the Romish Errours were poysoned by this Book into worse And therefore Philip Melanchton writes a Letter from Lipsick 1539. to have the Senate of Venice put in mind of suppressing his Heresy But Servet in the mean time uses all imaginable diligence to disseminate his Doctrines and to this end goes from place to place practising Physick under the feigned name of Michael Villonovanus when he wrote a Book of Syrops and as Munster says a Comment on Ptolemies Geography He afterwards wrote some other Heretical Pieces alike blasphemous with the other as one Entituled A Dialogue de Restitutione Christianismi quoted by Bullinger an Apology to Melanchton and the Ministers of Geneva Calvin c. in which Books Calvin in his Confutation says plus centum c. he more than a hundred times over calls the Holy Trinity the three headed Cerberus a Diabolical Phantasm the Monster Gerion the illusion of Satan c. His Book of the Restitution of Christianity which was a large Volume he published at Vienna Allobrogum where for the same he was cast into Prison but he escaped from thence to Geneva where he was discovered and afterwards condemned and burned in the year 1568. by the desire of the Evangelick Cantons The next follower of Servetus and the fore-runner of Socinus was Valentinus Gentilis born at Consenza in Italy who agreed with Servetus in his Doctrine that the Father was the only Divine Essence but asserted that the Son was essentiated by him and made another God as likewise the Holy Ghost So that there were not three Persons in one Essence but three distinct Essences in the God-head or rather one Primary God and two Secundary or Deisied Ones These Blasphemies he having for some time vented in the World particularly at Geneva he was by the Magistrates of that City thrown into Prison where not having staid long he of his own accord promises amendment recants his Errors and desires to be freed But the Magistrates resolved not to free him unless he will undergo the Pennance they prescribe him which accordingly he did to be stripped to his Shirt and barefooted and bareheaded to kneel down and beg pardon for his Crimes and with his own hands to throw his Heretical Writings into the Fire to be prepared for that purpose and in this Habit to be led through all the Streets of the City declaring his Repentance before all the People This having performed he petitions again for his enlargement which would not ye be granted unless he would swear not only to forbear the spreading of his Heresy but that he would never go out of the City without leave from the Senate And this too he readily did But no sooner was he freed but he little valuing his Oath flies from Geneva to his Friend Gribaldus living at a place called Farges in the Canton of Bern where he had conference with Alciat a famous Vnitarian in order to the spreading their Heresy From thence he went to Lyons to diffuse his Doctrine there from thence to Grenoble from thence to Cambray and so to Farges again where the Governour of Gaia to whose Jurisdiction Farges does belong imprisons him again but upon promise of living quietly releases him From thence he goes again to Lyons and was there imprisoned a third time by the Governour of that City but he perswading the Papists there that his Controversy was only against Calvin they thinking thereby to do Calvin a spight forthwith release him Afterwards he having spread his Poyson in France and Italy flies to Poland where he joyns with Blandrata and Alciat to infect the Polish Church Here not having staid more than two years these Heresiarcks fall out among themselves Blandrata turning down-right Arian and Alciat Mahometan so Gentilis passes to Moravia and strikes in for some time with the Anabaptists there from thence he goes for Austria and afterwards for Savoy and so roving from place to place and disseminating his Blasphemies he came at last again into the Province of Bern where being discovered he was tried for several blasphemous Positions there and being convicted was executed persisting in his Heresy to the very last blasphemare simul vivere desiit Georgius Blandrata who was another Zealous Vnitarian about this time was a Physician by Profession and propagated his Doctrines at Geneva where he had several Disputes with Calvin in whose Work is extant Responsum ad Quaestiones Blandratae but he flew from thence presently after Gentilis did suspecting that the Magistrates had a design against him too From thence he went and practised Physick in Poland and Transylvania thereby to have the better covert for his Heresy and the more easily to instill it into Persons of the highest Quality He wrote a Book in Answer to Georgius Major against the Trinity full of blasphemous Expressions such as Symbolorum de Patre Filio figmenta Deum confusum tripersonatum ex tribus Personis compositum and calls
each other not by any particular modality but by a true and real subsistence But when the Doctor makes the Son to be only Reason he can only make him an accident or at best but a Modality of the Father For if he only be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or what answers to it the internal Conception of the Father's Mind he would be only an Accident or Attribute or Mode or what else you 'll please to call it but would be far enough from that which the Church has all along called a Person And therefore the learned Fathers in the Church have been always careful to distinguish between this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 between the prolative or enunciative word and the essential and substantial one For the Son is not therefore called the word because he is the Reason of the Divine Mind or the Father but because he is generated of the Father without Passion For they explained this Generation by the production of a thought or word which was not produced by division or separation of parts which implies Passion but in a certain manner incommunicable to all Corporeal Beings So when the Doctor makes the Holy Ghost to be only the Power or Energy or Action of God what is this more than what the Socinians contend for and the Samosetanians and Followers of Simon Magus were Condemned for Nazianzen says that the Simonians thought the Holy Spirit was only an Energy and Leontius tells us that Paulus Samosetanus held the like Besides if the Holy Ghost be only an action with what propriety of speech can he be said to act or do With what tolerable sense can an action be said to speak and the Spirit said unto Peter Act. 10. 20. The Holy Ghost said uno them at Antioch Act. 13. How can an action or energy be said to search all things to make intercession for us to divide to every man severally as he will to reprove the World to guide us into all truth 'T is the nature of an Action to be acted but it can in no propriety be said it self to act But the Doctor says this Doctrine is stated by the Fathers as he has done it I hope by his Fathers he does not mean such as the Ministers of Alba Julia call so the famous Fathers Berillus Samosetanus Photinus c. and indeed some of these we have shewn to have explained the Trinity something at this rate but none of the Orthodox ones that I know of say any thing like it But he says St. Austin the Oracle of the Schoolmen states it thus whom Dr. Sherlock follows in his Book of the Trinity I know St. Austin in his Books de Trinitate if he means those has a great many strange Platonick Notions which I confess I do not understand and which perhaps St. Austin himself had no clear conceptions of when he wrote them but however there is enough in those Books to shew that St. Austin never designed such a nominal distinction in the Trinity as this Authour does What Dr. Sherlock says on this matter I have not time now to consult though when I read his Book I don't remember he gave any Countenance to this Opinion nay on the contrary some have been displeased with that Learned Doctor for making too great a distinction between the Persons of the Trinity not for making them three Names or Modus's as our Doctor does but for making them three distinct Minds or Spirits which are one by mutual Consciousness But what though these great Men should speak more nicely than ordinary of these Mysteries though they should wade deeper into them than other men The great Genius's of these admirable Persons and the strength of their natural reason will help to bear them out but I would advise our Authour to a little more cautiousness he poor Gentleman may be out of his depth before he is aware and therefore I am sure 't is his best way to keep within the ordinary Compass FINIS A Short HISTORY OF SOCINIANISM THE Heretical Persuasion of our Blessed Saviour's being only mere Man and the consequent Doctrines which ensue thereupon have of late Years been called Socinianism from the two Socinus's the most famous Inventors and Propagators of this Doctrine in the last Age for though the Heresie it self as to some parts of it was much older yet it had been altogether unknown for many Ages till by the Books of Servet the Socinus's and some other Hereticks in the last Age it was revived The first that set up this damnable Doctrine was the Heretick Cerinthus who lived in the Apostlick times and was Contemporary with St. John the Evangelist He asserted That Jesus was mere Man as others were and that he did not excell the rest in Justice or Wisdom or Prudence The Confutation of this Heresie was a special motive to St. John to write his Gospel or at least to be more express than the rest of the Evangelists in asserting our Lord's Divinity Ebion the Scholar of Cerinthus followed after his Master in this Heresie and propagated his Doctrines in Asia Cyprus Rome and elsewhere he asserted That Christ was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pure Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only common and mere Man This Heresie in the Second Age was propagated by one Theodotus Scytes or the Currier who taught likewise That Christ was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mere Man and was excommunicated by Victor Bishop of Rome for this Blasphemy Artemon followed Theodotus who said That Christ was mere Man only more excellent in Vertue or Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than the Prophets Against this Artemon there was a famous Book wrote which Eusebius mentions in which it was proved That the Ancient Christians did not believe his Doctrine as he pretended and in which the Authorities of Justin Martyr Miltiades Tatian Clemens are brought to confute him Sixty years after his Death in the Third Age about the Year 270 Paulus Samosetanus disseminated this Doctrine and asserted That Christ had only the common Nature of Man He was condemned in the Council at Antioch 272. Much about this time or somewhat before Sabellius broached his Heresie not much unlike the rest of these he held That there was but One Person in the Deity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under Three Names which does in effect as St. Basil says upon this account deny Christ's Divinity Arius who followed after and made such a noise in the World with his Heresie whatever his thoughts might be yet he did not expressly assert Christ to be mere Man but only to be a Creature produced in time yet one that had a Being long before his conception in the Womb of the Virgin and therefore he cannot so properly come into the List of these Hereticks But soon after the Nicene Determinations against Arius Photinus one of the
AN ANSWER TO AN Heretical Book Called the Naked Gospel Which was condemned and ordered to be publickly burnt by the Convocation of the University of Oxford Aug. 19. 1690. With some Reflections on Dr. Bury's New Edition of that BOOK To which is added a short HISTORY of Socinianism By William Nicholls M. A. Fellow of Merton College in Oxford and Chaplain to the Right Honourable Ralph Earl of Mountague 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nazianz. Orat. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. Nomoc. Tit. 12. c. 2. LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1691. TO THE Right Honourable RALPH EARL of MOUNTAGUE c. My Lord I Am induced to lay these Papers at your Lordship's Feet both from the Relation I bear to your Lordship which does exact all my Labours as a Tribute and Acknowledgment of my Duty and Obligation as also from the Knowledge of the great Affection and Zeal You have always continued to shew for the True Religion assuring my self that whatsoever shall be offered in Defence of that especially against the now growing Heresie of the Times will find no small Acceptance in your Lordship's Favour It is sufficiently known my Lord what a signal Example of True Christian Piety and Courage against the Anti-trinitarian Heterodoxes was shewn by the excellent Sir Ralph Winwood your Lordship's Grandfather when he was Embassadour in Holland for King James I. in so strenuously opposing Vorstius the Socinian's Accession to the Professorship of Leyden whose Advice if the States had then been so prudent as to have taken the Socinian Heresies had not made the Progress in the World as now they have from the Lectures of him and his Successours in that Chair And therefore my Lord I am encouraged to think that your Lordship who does possess all the Noble Endowments of that great and good Statesman your Ancestor will favourably look upon that which is designed against those Heretical Tenets the Seeds of which have been mostly sown in this Nation by the Books of Vorstius and his Successours though often under Colour of Opinions of a more specious Name May it therefore please your Lordship to accept these my poor Endeavours in Defence of the True Faith which I have here presumed to entitle to your Lordship's Protection and be pleased to look on them as a small Token of the Duty and Service which shall be always owing to your Lordship from My Lord Your Lordship 's Most Dutiful Chaplain and most Obedient Servant W. Nicholls THE PREFACE THE occasion of writing this Treatise was to hinder the mischief that the Book it is designed to Answer was like to do which having lain so many Months without an Answer I did reasonably presume there was none design'd and therefore I thought such a one as I could supply would be better than none at all I should never have troubled the World with this if I had had the least Item of Mr. Long 's design but that was perfectly unknown to me till these Papers were wrote out fair for the Press As to the Method I have taken in the answering this Book I have followed the Authour in his own and have given his Titles to each of the Chapters In those Chapters in which he most impugns our Saviour's Divinity I have traced him step by step and given an Answer to every Shadow of an Argument that he brings In other Chapters where there are only oblique stroaks against the Doctrine of the Trinity or which are only Introductory to his main Design I have only summed up the Substance of them and so given an Answer to them in general or at least to so much of them as seemed to make against the Truth of this Doctrine or any other important Truth of our Religion Now it may by some perhaps be thought unfair when I use these Expressions The Authour would insinuate would pretend c. when he does not in express Terms assert that thing in his Book But it must be considered That it was the Authour's design not to let his Book appear with too Heretical a Face but to lay his Premises so that the Reader should often draw his Consequences for him without his setting them down in express Words This is a Subtilty which is common to all such sort of Writers that dare not speak out their full Minds though by the way I think this Authour has as little minced the matter as any But however I have carefully endeavoured not to pervert his Sense but to take his words in that meaning which any indifferent Reader would think the Author designed they should be understood in If I have any where mist his Meaning 't is thro' Mistake and not thro' Wilfulness And in truth I am not absolutely sure after the greatest Diligence that I have always hit his Sense for he has a peculiar way of Writing different from all the Writers of the age his Periods are long and uneven filled with odd sort of Similes and affected Phrases broken with unnatural Parentheses and almost constant Hyperbatons which to be sure will occasion Obscurity in his Book so that if I have mistaken his Meaning upon this account he is to charge that upon himself and not upon his Answerer In short I have performed this Task with all the fairness I could with a design not to triumph over my Adversary but to evince the Truth to vindicate the Honour of my Blessed Saviour which was here so highly calumniated and to assert the Doctrine of the Holy undivided Trinity into the belief of which I was baptized and in which I hope by God's grace to die THE CONTENTS OF THE ANSWER to the PREFACE THE Doctrine of the Trinity could give no incouragement to Mahometanism The true Reasons of the great prevailing of Mahomet's Religion Animadversion upon the Authour's mistake about the establishment of Image-worship Vpon his saying Mahomet professed all the Doctrines of the Christian Faith The Heterodox greater furtherers of Mahometanism than the Orthodox That the belief of the Trinity is very consistent with the simplicity of the Christian Religion That the requiring a belief of this Doctrine does not suppose unlearned Men to understand all the disputes about it The Socinian Doctrines much fuller of niceties than the Orthodox CHAP. I. Necessary to be believed and necessary to Salvation not the same The chief Rules of Christianity not easily discernible by the light of nature by instance of Tully and Aristotle Doctrine of the Trinity not contrary to the fewness of Christian Precepts How all the Gospel is Faith and Repentance CHAP. II. That we are justified by Faith alone proved by Scripture Antiquity c. This Faith ought to be Orthodox in all fundamentals The reason why Faith is so pleasing to God as to justify Men by it CHAP. III. What natural Faith is Faith under the Gospel is an inspired habit or grace proved by Scripture Antiquity c. The Faith of Abraham and the
the Orthodox Tritheites and Athanasius Tritheitarum Antesignanum He got a great sum of Money by his Practice in the Polish Court but was at last as a signal Example of God's Vengeance murdered in his Bed by his Nephew whom he designed to make his Heir Paulus Alicatus who was the intimate Friend of Blandrata and a busy Vnitarian of this time was born at Millain a Souldier by Profession a Man of fiery Zeal for his Opinions as appears by those blasphemous Expressions he used against the Trinity For Calvin relates that he was wont to say That we worshipped in our Trinity three Devils worse than all the Idols of the Papists So that the Divine Judgment was very Remarkable in suffering him to fall away into the Mahometan Infidelity after so great Impiety Franciscus Stancarus a Mantuan was now likewise a violent asserter of the same kind of Heresy who tho' he began his Heterodoxy at first by denying only Christ's Mediatorship as to his Divine Nature yet he proceeded at last to deny the Persons of the Trinity and with Sabellius to make God only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Person under three Names He was as Zanchius says a Learned Man but only unquiet and proud and too curious which lead him into these Errors Franciscus Lismaninus was another Heretick of this time of the same stamp he was Doctor of Divinity and formerly a Franciscan Monk who after a pertinacious spreading of his Opinions died mad Bernardus Ochinus was another promoter of the Anti-trinitarian Doctrine who as Beza says of him was something cunninger than the rest of the Vnitarians and like the Academicks would seem rather to doubt of than to define any thing For in his Dialogues against the Trinity he makes his other Collocutor to oppose the Trinity and himself to defend it tho' by such mean Arguments as always gave away the Victory to his Antagonist He was a favourer of Polygamy too as appears by his 21 Dialogue which has this Title thus made up of mirth and prophaneness To all Husbands that complain of their Wives and all Wives that complain of their Husbands Bernardus Ochinus wishes patience in Christ Jesus In which Dialogue he lets his Antagonist Telipolygamus strenuously make good his point against himself Franciscus Davidis was another very Famous one of these Hereticks who assisted Blandrata in his Book against Major he was Superintendent or Bishop as Sandius says of the Vnitarians in Transylvania but tho' he agreed with the rest of the Vnitarians in denying the Divinity of our Saviour yet he dissented from most of them about the Invocation of him and did to his Death maintain that as he was not God so he was not to be worshipped There were besides these several others that were fore-runners to Socinus or else contemporaries with him who did not agree to all the System of his Heresy which now the Vnitarians do generally maintain Such as were Nicolaus Parula an Italian a great Friend of Laelius Socinus Andreas Tricicius Modrevius a Polish Knight Adam Pastor who had several Disputes with the Anabaptists Gregorius Paulus who was first a Tritheite and afterwards an Vnitarian Petrus Statorius formerly Beza's Scholar Paulus Latomirskius and Simon Budnaeus a violent man afterwards in the anti-adoration Faction with several others But however these at best were but Labourers or Coadjutors in the building up the Socinian Heresy but the two great Master-builders were Laelius and Faustus Socinus of whom now we come to speak Laelius Socinus was born A. D. 1525. at Siena in Tuscany of a Noble Family his Fathers Names was Marianus Junior a famous Lawyer in Italy at that time his Mothers Name was Camilla the Daughter of Paulus Salvettus He was an Auditor of Servetus when he was in Italy and before he was of Age he began to model a New System of Divinity upon the Vnitarian Principles He as the Author of the Life says reading the Scriptures chiefly to further him in the Study of the Laws and relying only upon his own Judgment finds many of the Doctrines of the Church contrary to the Divine Testimony as he thought and therefore explains them without farther search according to his own Judgment He having thus for a considerable time been laying the Grounds of his Heresie travelling into England France Holland Germany he fixed his seat at last at Zurick in Helvetia yet not so but that after this he goes twice into Poland A. D. 1551 and again 1557 where he infected many of the Polish Nobility He infected also his own Brothers Celsus Cornelius and Camillus and Faustus his Brother Alexander's Son And Zanchius in his Preface to his Book de Tribus Elohim further says He for many Years pursued the Samosetanian Heresie and drew as many as he could into the same Errour and those were not a few He endeavoured likewise by many Temptations to pervert me into the same Errour and to involve me in the same eternal Destruction with himself Whilst he lived at Zurick or in his Travels he contracted some Familiarity with Melancton Brentius Musculus Bullinger and Calvin and therefore Calvin when he heard of his audacious Curiosity in Divinity wrote to him to dissuade him from it Si tibi per aëreas illas Speculationes volitare libet sine me quaeso humilem Christi discipulum ea meditari quae ad fidei meae aedificationem faciunt You may if you please fly through these aereal Speculations but suffer me an humble Disciple of Christ to meditate upon those things which serve to the Edification of my Faith And now so many of the Family of the Socinus's being perverted by Laelius the whole Family began to be suspected for Heresie which brought a storm upon all the House so that as the Authour of the Life says the Harvest was spoil'd in the springing Blade Cornelius being imprisoned and the rest being either forced to fly or afraid to profess their Opinion This Fear drove young Faustus being now but Twenty Years old not only from his place of abode but from Italy who went to live for some time at Lyons in France in the same Year in which the Magistrates of Basil digged up the Body of David George after he had been dead Three Years and burned it Laelius continued still to study at Zurick till he died which was in the Year 1562. on the 16th of May. He was the first that brought to light that notion of the Person of Christ and his Sufferings c. which the Socinians do since maintain and was forming some great Designs for the furthering his Heresie but did not live to perfect them The only Books that he published were the Dialogue between Calvin and Vaticanus against the persecution of Hereticks upon the occasion of Servet's execution in which he makes Calvin a great Instrument which Book was reprinted in Holland by some of the Remonstrant Party 1612. and has