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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

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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
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
reason shew me the height of Heaven and the depth of Hell can they number the sands of the Sea the drops of rain that fall from the skie or the hayrs that are upon their own head Could they plane me out by some perfect demonstration the truth of these things here below I should then think their reason were able to aspire to those things which are above but they have no power of compassing the one nor any possibility to atchieve the other And therefore their rational Divinity is nothing worth But to return to our purpose as this Laelius did magnifie reason on the one hand So did he vilifie and deprave true religion on the other even the most substantial and fundamental Articles thereof as the Satisfaction of Christ his death and merit our justification faith c. which depravation to what purpose it tended namely to the utter subversion and destruction of all true sound and saving Religion that holy man Calvin saw and wisely foresaw when as by a more then ordinary severe admonition or rather increpation he endeavoured at first to restrain him from this exorbitancy to which he was violently tending and to keep him within the bounds of modesty and true religion which he was heedlesly passing There is saith he no cause that you should expect an answer from me to those prodigious questions which you put forth If it be your pleasure to soar aloft through those aiery speculations suffer me I pray you an humble Disciple of Jesus Christ low and submisse in mine endeavours to meditate those things which conduce to the edification of my faith and the encrease and growth of true religion And I hope shall get that by my silence which I desire namely that you trouble me no more hereafter Yet I cannot but be grieved that you should employ that liberal wit which God hath bestowed on you not only in things of no moment and to no purpose but should take a course utterly to overthrow it and your self to by deadly and destructive figments which mischief I have openly declared before and now if not too late do admonish you of again unlesse therefore you do timely prevent this extraordinary desire and itch of searching and diving into those things which are not necessary it is to be feared that you will provoke God to hasten some judgment on you to your own misery and the example of others deterring them thereby from the like vanity If by indulgency I should nourish vice which I know to be very abnoxious to those that are addicted to it I should be false and injurious to you yea I should thereby contract a guilt upon mine own Soul which would not easily be washed off Wherefore I had rather you should now be offended a little with my austerity then being caught in an evil not by the enticing baits of curiosity be carried away past recovery There will be a time I hope wherein you w●ll have cause to rejoyce that ever you were so violently roused up Thus Calvin to him Hear we now what Beza saies of him He was saith he descended of an ancient and noble family sufficiently instructed b●th in the Greek and Hebrew tongues with other additaments of Arts necessary for his p●ofession and correspondent to his condition And which is much to be desired and very commendable in all especially such whose employment it is to instruct others outw●rdly of an unblamable life and conversition for which cause saith he I contracted with him a more then ordinary friendship and familiarily but he was a man full of errours and compacted of heresies wh ch yet for all that so artificially did he cover them and so politickly discover the judgment of others concerning them and what propensity or inclination they had towards them that he seemed never to propose any of them to me but by way of conference and only for disputation sake and often propounding questions as if he earnestly coveted instruction and satisfaction I believe that for many years together he favoured the Samosatenian heresie and perswaded many to a liking and embracing of the same he assayed me also with divers arguments and if he could have prevailed to have overwhelmed me in errour and destruction both together But through Gods mercy I did so often foil him that many times he had not a word to say for himself Learned he was and very studious but alas learning in many is a disease not a perfection yea a meer surfeit A greedy knowledge feeds not our understanding but oppresseth it and like a ravenous appetite chews more to poyson then to nourishment Were I to drink freely of what is sacred I should desire that which flows of it self rather then that which is pumped for waters that are troubled yeild mud and are oftentimes as well the bane as the comfort of the receiver A. Pioner or bold myner which diggs too far for his rich vein of Ore meets many times with a damp which choaks him And we may find some dispositions of which this mans may justly be one rather desperate then venturous discerned more by a heady resolution then a wise cautelousnesse whom we may resemble to that silly and shipwrackt Seaman who dived so long for a piece of his sunken treasure that he was at once deprived both of life and fortune So Laelius digging so deep and diving so far into these sacred mysteries by the strength of his natural reason only by which he was wholly guided that at once he lost both himself and his Religion if he ever had any to loose He hath bin so long conversant in the School of Philosophie that he hath forgotten that it is Religion with which he hath to do insomuch that turning the World upside down he makes that the Mistresse of which before was but the handmaid to Divinity And therefore might I be thought worthy of hearing or determining this matter I should count it no lesse a policy then right in such sad learning and deep mysteries to give Divinity the chair for if Arts themselves with their subtile retinue do but once invade it Sense and Reason will quickly hisse faith and Religion out of doores As we may see by woful experience in these times and among these men it is already come to passe He that trades only with the stock of reason in such weighty matters is like to make but a sorry market Those enterprizes are temerarious and over-headstrong which put on where there is not only danger but a despair of conquest How can reasonable man but lye buried under the weight of such a mysterie at which the very grand Pillars of the Church have not only shook but shrunk All reason then whatever Laelius and his sect do think is tongue-tied all apprehension non-plust all understanding darkned when we come to speak of the high and mysterious things of faith and Religion For these carry with them such an awe do bear such a Majestick port as if they
are believed and esteemed to be the saving axiomes of Christian Religion which he presumptuously takes upon him to demonstrate to be very dangerous and pernicious errours and would fain shape us out a form of Religion according to his own fancy as if the Doctrine of Christ and the true Religion stood in need of such a tricker and trimmer of it to make it saleable This disputation was after printed and published by a friend and follower of Socinus Elias Arcissevius a Polonian with the Authours name to it which was never done before in any of his other writings which is so magnified by this beastly merchant on purpose to prostitute it to every customer and of which he doth so exceedingly boast that he is not ashamed to say that there is so much knowledge of Christ and his office contained in it as could possible be desired when as on the contrary it may be more truly said of it that there is so much perversion of the Doctrine of Christ and his offices as could be imagined and more then ever was before published Before Socinus could fi●●sh his book de Servatore he was interrupted with sickness and by his absence from the City for all his treasure namely the writings of his uncle Laelius out of which as himself confesseth he was principally instructed concerning the matter in controversie was conteined within the Walls of Basil from whence he was constrained to absent himself by reason of the plague vvhich vvas there begun so that he could make no progresse in his intended purpose That God which d●d for a time retard could have wholly hindered and prevented the comming forth of this pestiferous book but he often permitteth such things to be for the glo●y of h●s name in bringing good out of evil and that those which are stedfast might be made manifest Besides we see what a Doctor Faustus was who was able to do nothing of h●mself without the help and directions of his Uncles writings h●s confidence was more then his ab●lity otherwise he had never waded so far into these great and mysterious matters by which he hath cast away him●elf and all that follow him While he remained at Tigurum he had another disputat●o● with Francis Puccius a Florentine concerning whom more hereafter of the state of the fi●st man wherein it was debated whether Adam in his fi●st estate were mortal or no What and how necessary such questions as these are to salvation let any man judge yet such curious questions as these were commonly the subject of all his disputations whereas indeed matters of a far lower stra●n would better have sorted with the indifferency both of his arts and parts to discusse them Q●aeries that are too nice rather torment the understanding then inform it and are more apt to puzzle our judgment then to rectifie it Subtilty of questio●s I know not whether it hath more convinced or begotten errour or improved us in our knowledge or staggered us And hence I suppose was the substance of the Apostles advice to the Romans cap. 14.1 He that is weak in faith receive you but not to doubtfull disputations Curiosity of questio●s have ever b n the very engines and stales to heresie and therefore to be avoyed by us He wrote many and divers things and so far he went that at last he brought this heresy into a more perfect form and raised as he thought a goodly structure on that foundation which was laid by Laelius following that rule which Architecture layes before us the higher we build the deeper to lay our foundation laying the foundation of t●is his monstrous religion even in the depth of Hell that he might raise if possible this his Babylonical structure up to Heaven What others have done or attempted to do by peece-meale he hath effected as it were at once upon the very body of religion For there is almost no article of our religion to which he hath not offered some violence and hath as much as ●n him lay endeavoured either utterly to overthrow it or to pluck it up by the very roots thinking it worth the while by defacing or turning off the old to bring in another form of religion under his own name and according to his own liking He was a man of a crafty and quick wit but insufferably audacious and petulant specie formâ magis quàm virtute religiosus sed gloriae novitatis improbe cupidus as Ruffinus saith of Arius In vertue not so much refined as in the depor●ment of the outward man which promised some gravity though no truth of religion violently th●rsting and pursuing a●ter honour and novelty He was guilty o● very much levity being drawn partly from the nature of the Country where he was borne partly from the family out of which he sprung and partly from the Court in which he was bred Insomuch that he was constant in nothing but inconstancy which yet was not in any thing so pernicious as in those sacred mysteries with which he above measure desired to be tampering and into which diving though he drowned himself therein For he had but a light tincture of learning as the writer of his life affirms and he himself is not ashamed to confesse what exquisite judgment saith he or deep understanding in these kind of Philosophical Theological and hard disputes could be expected from me a man who neither learned Philosophy nor at any time could attain to the knowledge and understanding of that Divinity which they call Scholastick nor tasted but o●ly of the rudiments of Logick and that very late to And ●n his Epistles pag. 587. he complains that he spent a great part of his time in Italy his native country but yet the very seat of idleness and va●ity and therefore it was no wonder if he came short in the knowledge both of humane and Divine mat●ers So that he ●oared up to those sacred mysteries meerly upon the confidence or his own wit having not had time for the laying of any solid f●undation T●at height of Spirit which he had either gotten or augmented while he was a Courtier he ever afterwards retained and often declared in overturning and demollishing the very foundations of all Catholick Antiquity and Christian Religion As also in curbing and subduing those which were his companions or had yeilded themselves up to be guided by his crooked direction He must be chief among them and Lord over them or else it is no bargain He was indeed very proud and high minded scorning to receive ●nstruction from any being in his own judgment inferiour to none Trimness and court-like gaudiness was strongly riveted to him and deeply rooted in him his apparel and deportment much unbeseeming such a man as he professed himself to be like unto those ancient Arians of whom Hilarie speaks that were rather Bishops of the Court then of the Church Of all those books which he wrote and truly there are many under his name and the names
escape the like misery from an inundation of all false Doctrine and heresy Good Lord deliver us Franciscus Lismanninus Claudiopolitani caetus Pastor Se Lismanninus puteum conjecit in altum Triste erat exemplum Justitiae Domini MEn do commonly wrong themselves with a groundlesse expectation of good fore-promising to themselves all fair terms in their proceedings and all happy successe in the issue and indeed they may go on with a prosperous gale and full saile for a time but at last they fall into unexpected trouble and danger so that their former misreckoning makes their present dis-appointment so much the more grievous to them and drives them into the greater desperation This we shall find verified in Lismanninus who encouraged himself with a hope of gaining many to the embracing and following of his wicked and abominable opinions and for this purpose he thought no pains to much travelling from place to place to propagate the same It were to be desired that we that professe the truth would be but half so industrious for the converting of some and the confirming of others in the profession thereof as these instruments of the Devil these Factors for Hell are for the subverting them in or seducing them from their holy profession to their diabolical tenets and hellish devices He was one of those which that runagate Blandrata having insinuated into the favour of the most illustrious and excellent Prince of Transylvanià sent for thither to unsettle the newly setled Churches of God in those parts by sowing tares among their good corne his most pernicious heresies even then when they least suspected it But he could not go over to them as yet for having so much of the devils business to do in other places he could not at present intend to wait upon them there His expectat on was high and soaring thinking to over-run all the Churches in Italy first with his damnable Doctrines and that in a moment ere he could perform the desire of Blandrata in going into Transylvania Hear what he wrote back unto him and you see his aime Before he returned he must constitute the Churches of Bernen Lausanna and Geneva formerly visited by him and to which he was again taking his journey to observe the form of doctrine discipline and ceremonies together with the administration of the Sacraments which were in each of them and to confer and reason with the Ministers by whose help and councel he should co●e the better instructed and inform'd to their Church when time and opportunity served Which he performed according to his promise and by which he did very much retarde the blessed reformation which Calvin so much endeavoured to promote among those Churches For he did so exceedingly fascinate the minds of divers that they could not be restrained by the faithful admonit on s no not of Calvin himself whom they once highly esteemed and vvho much laboured in the business but vvould needs rush head-long into the dangerous pit of Arianisme or Tritheitarisme to their ovvn ruine and destruction This man vvas Pastor of the conventicle at Claudiopolis to vvhich he openly preached the Doctrine of Arius and held that Christ was a certain spiritual substance being before all others created of God who afterwards took unto him an humane body in which he performed many things for our example At last being openly confuted plainly detected and too late if God had not othervvise permitted it for the Churches good convicted either for shame of vvhat he had done or for fear of vvhat he vvas to suffer he threvv himself head-long into a vvell and so perished He that wilfully cast many others avvay doth novv desperatly cast avvay himself both body and soul Andraeas Dudithius Episcopus Quinquecclesiensis Dudithius doctus cupiens vitare Charybdim Incidit in Scyllam fata dolenda sua THis Andraeas Dudithius by nation a Hungarian Bishop of Quinquecclesiae a City in Panonia was a very learned and famous man employed in divers Embassies to Ferdinand and Maximilian Caesars being present as a Bishop in the name of the Hungarians at the Councel of Trent he there made two elegant Orations the one of the necessity of the Cummunion under both kinds the other of the lawfulness of Priests marriage both composed very eloquently and full of excellent variety yet home to the purpose for which they were intended For he was an exquisite Orator himself a great admirer and follower of the Tullian eloquence insomuch that as Thuan reporteth of him he thrice copyed out Tullies works with his own hands After all this bidding the Pope with all his shavelings adieu he marryed a wife a noble young Lady Sophia Gonicella whom he light upon by chance in the Court of the Polonian King when he was sent thither Embassador from Maximilian the Emperour For shee being extreamly taken with his discretion judgment and other good parts he with her beauty piety and perfection they mutually combined each to other in holy matrimony As for religion he was better seen in the leaving then the taking part For having forsaken popery and not having joyned himself to the reformed Churches he was a long time disquieted in mind not knowing what course to take or which way to turn himself in matters of religion He knew the Church of Rome was full of errours he saw the Churches professing the Protestant Religion to be full of dissentions and divisions which caused him to doubt and as we use to say to look before he leapt Hast makes wast is a true Proverb in the precipitant carriage of business Fair and soft goes far Not too fast for falling Stay a little and we shall have done the sooner These be the sayings of Moderation to correct and qualify the rashness of our terrene and sublunary undertakings But in our spiritual proceedings when our journey is Heaven and the end eternal salvation Delay is more dangerous then Celerity it proved so here for while he was uncertain what to do and so did nothing at all he was artificially drawn aside by Socinus and his fellows under the specious allurement of vain and doating reason he is sudainly hurryed into their mischi●vous heresy of denying the Trinity the merit and satisfaction of Jesus Christ for sinners with all the rest of their blasphemous opinions In defence whereof he wrote a letter to John Lasius a Polonian Knt. and an intimate friend of his which was lately published with the answer of Maresuis annexed to it As in dark nights pyrates use to kindle fires and make great lights upon the rocks and maritime coasts whether poor weather beaten Sea-men do steer in hope of harbour and there meet with wrack and ruin So these hereticks with their flourish of the Scriptures or at least with some flashes of them like false fires and deceitful lights did entice this poor soul to repair for succour but found nothing being come but pernicious and deadly errour And it is a common thing to see that dead
where having spent some time in observing the several sorts of Orders which were there he chose as being most and best affected with their manner and Discipline the order of the Fryer Dominickes according to whose rule he lived and conformed himself Yet did he not carry the matter so close nor live so regularly therein but that he gave to some it seems that had an eye over him a shrewd suspicion and jealousy of his wavering and incertainty in the faith In so much that he is delivered over to the Inquisitors and by them as who ever escaped their talons being once suspected and taken by them committed to prison out of which escaping he fled away secretly first into Germany to the Protestants with whom he lived for a time but like●ng not the way of truth as children of darkness love not the light he forsook them and went into Poland to the Arians as they were then called to whose heresy he was so closely rivetted that he was never loosed from them to his dying day He that hath strayed into these thickets is so amazed with intricate circumnolutions that he can very hardly unwind himself ever after Now he passeth from thence to Moravia where he manifests his affection to these desperate opinions which he formerly entertained and digested Here he makes all ring again so that neither Scriptures Patriarchs Prophets Evangelists Apostles no nor Christ himself can be heard for him and his Socinians Pope Pius V. did his utmost endeavour to catch him in his traps which he had laid in several places and by several persons for him but while he lived he kept out of his clutches But Gregory the 13. by the means of Maximilian the 2. brought it to passe that being at dinner with some other company he was suddainly apprehended clapt up into a coach which stood ready provided for him was brought first to Vienna from thence to Rome where he was made sure enough for ever escaping again He was often examined by the Jesuites Magius and Bellarmine and being conuicted of Arianisme which it seems stuck closer to him then any other profession he was for the present doomed to the deep dungeon of the tower of Nonnana into which his hands feet and neck being laden with gyves and fetters he was miserably thrust down there to remain til farther order should be taken with him Where in the mean time he had divers exhortations and admonitions to forsake those damnable heresies into which he was fallen But continuing or rather encreasing in his former obstinacy being brought forth to the Chappel of St. John de Lateran according to the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome was first degraded then delivered over to the Secular Power and so condemned to the fire When he came to the place of execution and beheld the fire prepared for him with certain Sorcerers standing ready bound to their stakes which were to be burned with him he was so exceedingly terrified and wholly agast that he gave publick testimony of his will●ngness to retract and recant his errours if he might have liberty so to do Which being signified to the Pope he is repreived from the fire and brought back again In a place appointed for that purpose he makes his recantation renounces and forswears his errours and damnable heresies confessing that Jesus Christ is the very true and eternal Son of God We see that fire could extract from him a confession of that truth which before he denied The fear of death striketh us into such a dump that we are contented to do any thing rather then dye By the way what is it should make us so unwilling to dye seeing it is a debt we owe to nature and the payment thereof cannot be avoyded Is it the horrour of the pain that doth affright us Is if the fear and doubt of what shall become of us hereafter that doth terrify us Or is it the guilt of our misguided souls already condemning us by the pre-apprehension of a future punishment which waits upon us If death were alike terrible to all we might think there were something more in it then we can imagine But some men can look upon it when it comes w●thout any terrour at all though ●t set out in all it's pomp for to destroy them yea they long for it before it comes and sing St. Pauls cupio dissolvi desire to passe hence though it be in Elias fiery Charriot whereas others are stroke into such a tripidation with the very sight of it that they are at their wits end know not which way to turn themselves The cause of this difference is not in death but in our selves for death comes alike to all but finds not all alike when it comes Guilt of sin and fear of punishment here and hereafter may be cause why many labour to avoid it which might for the present as not being fully hardened in impiety move Palaeologus to desire mercy But now he comes to act his last part upon the Stage of this world and 't is a deadly one for remaining as yet in prison till he had given a further confirmation of his former recantation he most wretchedly hardens his heart insomuch as that God hardens it also and the Devil driving him on to a relapse into his former herisie which being openly manifested he is ipso facto condemned and by the fury of the flames wholly consumed This saith Raemundus is briefly the History of the unhappy life the heretical Religion and the deserved death of miserable Palaeologus I● any man shall think the better of him or his Doctrine because he was condemned by the Church of Rome for an Heretick by whom all true Religion ●s accounted Heresie let him know 't is the cause and not the sufferings that make the Martyr though some are unjustly condemned by them yet this man for Heresie and that justly Iacobus Arminius Leydensis Professor Sampsonis vulpes Arminius atque Socinus Juncti per caudas ora diversa sua HEresie creeps in at a little hole but infects infests the whole house l ke a plague that comes in at the windows and then propagates it self beyond all measure And for that purpose the Divel raiseth up instruments in all places such who are so over-wise that the very curdle of their wit procures a breaking out into faction then grows to error and at last to some notorious and blasphemous Heresie Cum discipuli veritatis non erunt magistri erroris sunt Refusing to be schollars of Truth they become Masters of errors They must be Masters though it be of the black Art And such an one was this James Arminius once Divinity Reader in the University of Leyden who having had some familiarity either with the men of whom we have already spoken or their works did very much favour this Socinian heresie He did first secretly teach and subtilly instil it into the ears and hearts of many of his Disc●ples and afterwards did op●nly p●ofess it as we
and man sinful man be spared and relieved The contention stayes not here but every one begins to make it their own case and see themselves highly concerned in it For sayes righteousness what shall become of me or what use at all of Justice if God spare sinners that have thus offended And what use of mee sayes Mercy the sweetest Attribute of the Deity if God spare them not Here is hard hold indeed insomuch as Perij nisi homo moriatur sayes Justice I dye if he dye not and Perij nisi misericordiam consequatur sayes Mercy if he dye I dye to To this passe it came and upon these terms brak up their meeting and so they parted each from other Terras Astraea reliquit away flings Justice up to Heaven Mercy stays behind and keeps poor distressed man company For where should Mercy be n Ubi enim misericordia esset si cum misero non esset Hugo if with misery shee should not be Peace being grieved to see this difference plyes her hard between both and doubles her endeavour to get if possible a meeting upon some better terms to reconcile these two great and glorious Attributes of God set them at rights or else we might be sure it would go wrong with us Our Salvation all this while doth as it were lye a bleeding The Plea hangs and we stand but as Prisoners at the bar not knowing what to do or what in the end will become of us Fain would Peace procure a meeting Mercy longs to see that day Justice shee is willing to where then lyes the fault only shee stands upon terms of satisfaction Justice else should be no Justice and righteousness should not be righteous If shee remain unsatisfyed there is no hope at all for us but if shee be once satisfyed all is well The whole matter then rests upon her satisfaction and hic labor hoc opus here is the work indeed how to satisfie her to her mind that so shee may be content content to save us and to set us free All the World cannot do this not render unto Justice such and so compleat a satisfaction as may procure this from her But behold there is one that undertaketh for us and speaks thus to Justice in our behalf o Psal 40.6 Sacrifice and offerings thou wouldst not have therefore lo I come of whom it is written in the volumne of thy Book that I should do this thing He then the only Son of God by taking our nature upon him and laying down both soul and body an offering for sin must needs give Justice full and condigne satisfaction For what Justice either in Heaven or Earth could require more men or Angels could not expect so much If we speak of an expiation a ransome an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christs own word p Matt. 16.26 here it is and no where else and this will do it to the full But here the Socinians are so sottish as to object and Object 1 say to what purpose is all this What need any satisfaction at all Hath God lesse power then every common creditor Can he remit such debts as are dwing to him freely and at his own pleasure and cannot God forgive offences against him committed of his own free mercy and goodness without satisf●ction and putting his well beloved Son to all this pain Surely say they this must needs be an high derogation of the power and mercy of God * Aut Deus non voluit aut non potuit nobis nostra peccata nisi satisfactione interveniente condenare si non voluit non est misericors c. We will answer these Answ Least as Solomon tells us they should seem wise in their own eyes though otherwise we esteem it not worth the while If God who can do all things that make for his own glory and the good and benefit of his people would quit his Justice and wave his Truth he could indeed But his Justice and Truth are in him as essential as intrinsically essential as his Mercy of equal regard and every way as dear unto him and so he cannot Justice otherwise remains unsatisfied and satisfied it must be either on our Surety or us not on us alas poor wretches we are never able in the least measure to give her that satisfaction which shee requireth Therefore the Son of the most high God the Lord Paramont of Heaven and Earth took our nature on him Our nature that in our nature for our nature he might make to God his Father even as the schools expresse it q Stando interminis Justitia standing on the terms of his most exact and strict Justice a compleat full and every way sufficient satisfaction Object 2 Here again it is objected that the word satisfaction is no where to be found throughout the Scriptures and therefore is justly to be suspected For God say they would not have left us without some mention yea plain and evident expression of that had it bin of him which we take to be an Article of our faith and such an one as is even the very all in all of our Religion Answ For answer whereunto we urge not the words satisfaction merit c. as if our Religon consisted in words which being taken from us it could not subsist we bid open defiance to such as say so of us and would lay so foul an imputation on us we would have them know that we build not the hope of our Salvation upon so slight and sandy a foundation Not words but things are the matter upon which we rest and such things as neither Socinus Gitichius Ostorodius c. with all their complices abroad Nor Biddle r Some of whose black blasphemous lines I have seen more fit to be burnt by the hands of the Common Hangman then to go abroad so uncontrouled to the prejudice of others Dialogue or Devil at home shall be able to move us much lesse remove us from our holy profession with all their sly and subtil whisperings by which they closely endeavour to seduce some or those fearfull and horrible blasphemies which they thunder out and by which they endeavour to bear down all before them We grant the word Satisfaction is not to be found in Scripture yet that there is not any such thing couched in and intended by the Scripture none but Sicinians dare deny For though the word be not there the thing it self signified by the word is not only extant in it but is the very subject matter of it as he that hath any spiritual insight into the Scriptures may easily discern by terms and expressions equivalent and correspondent to the same Hugo Grotius ſ De satisfactione Christi a man well skilled in this kind of Militia musters up many testimonies to evidence and confirm the truth hereof ranking them into these several files First such as speak of Gods aversion and turning away of his anger from us being in Jesus
and by such as know the signification of words they are taken for one and the same thing and the one translated by the other but yet we may conceive them to differ thus Wherein they differ Heresy hath relation to Doctrine Sect to men or a Company of men separating themselves from others and observing one and the same customes practised and following the same opinion professed among themselves So then they are hereticks who under the name and profession of Christian Religion do wilfully hold some opinions contrary to the Christian verity and the chief heads and foundations thereof Infidels they fight against the truth But it is not under the banner of a Christian profession and therefore not so dangerous Hereticks fight under her banner and yet against her they wound truth in her own coate Those are without Turks Jews and Gentiles the Lord in due time bring them in the other are within too many in conscience the Lord in his good time drive them out against both these must Christians defend their Religion and quit themselves like men against those that they openly cut it not off against these that they secretly root it not up These are many indeed No heresy more dangerous and desperate then Socinianism but none more dangerous and de●perate as being farther gone from Christianism and neerer to Gentilism then this Sect of the Socinians whose Spseudo-Divinity ariseth from no other fountaine then the abuse of the principles of reason the corrupting of the words and sense of the Scriptures and the pretence of Divine revelation So that they first determine by the rule and judgment of their own reason what is and what is not to be bel●eved and then they wrest and wring the Scriptures to make them if possible speak to their purpose if any of these fail then they fly to their last refuge they have a revelat●on for it and therefore it must needs be so and cannot be otherwise which being taken ●or granted what old heresies may not be revived what new ones invented and published for Doctrines of the Gospel needfull and necessary for all men to observe and by all means be obedient to But this must not be granted For if our dim understanding should search into those sacred mysteries which the Word of God doth publish to us we should certainly lose our selves in their turnings and windings there being in every one of them someth●ng to believe above that reason which leads us to the search Reason commands and shews the causes why Religion bids and shews not wherefore Reason gives us the Anatomy of things and illustrates to us with a great deal of plainness all the wayes that shee takes and all the business that shee undergoes but her line is too short to reach the depths of Religion Reason commands and shews the causes thereof Religion bids do a thing without any enquiry either why or wherefore and therefore procures and that justly the greater reverence For what we know not we reverently admire what we do know in in some sort subject to the triumphs of the soul because shee hath made a discovery of it besides this not knowing makes us not able to judge and so for the present have lost the use of reason and so are forced to cry out with St. Paul as in an Holy Extasie O altitudo profunditas should Reason be our purveyor in matters of Religion we might quickly find we had a fat Reason but I am sure we should have but a lean Religion Besides I should more then suspect his knavery that should set the Scripture on the tenters to make it any wider then the genuine sense will admit or should suborne it to attest any desperate opinions or heretical blasphemies which it utterly abhors As for their pretended revelations they are not to be regarded Revelation meer pretences for if they get it not by Hook they shall never have it by Crook if neither Reason can perswade it nor Religion laid down in the Scriptures prove it or allow it pretended Revelation shall never obtain it at our hands to believe their opinions so far as to be guided and ordered by them unlesse we shall by Gods permission be so much deprived of our understanding as that we shall not be able to descern between the right hand and the left in matters of Religion Nor is there a plainer presage of ruin and destruction then when God so taketh away the understanding that refusing the true sense of the Scriptures and the good councel that by them is given men betake themselves to their own inventions and imaginations or follow the brainlesse advice of others and thereby led aside after seducing Spirits and Doctrines of Devils When men are once at this point we may say that God is rearing of a scaffold whereon to take some exemplary punishment of them If the strict Justice of Almighty God Doth sometimes draw the wicked to the rod It first bereaves them of their understanding Then blindeth them that furious they may run then By steep down wayes devoied of stay or standing Unto that death which their lew'd courses won them This appeareth plain by these men whose head long courses in their heretical wayes brought them to finish their course with ignominie and reproach For the manifestation of the just judgment of God upon such as forsake the known truth and make it their whole employment to seduce others from the same We will not trouble our selves with any of those famous or rather infamous hereticks of former ages we have monsters enough neerer hand and of our own times to deal with nor shall we encounter with all of them but only such as have bin the chief Ring-leaders of and grand Factors for this heresy of Socinianism with which we have had to do in the former tract In which discovery we shall observe the names manners places where and means by which they have dispersed and spread abroad their desperate and damnable opinions together with a short description of the lives and a sad yet t●ue relation of the deaths of many yea the most of them that the Reader may know what and what manner of persons they were by whom this cursed heresy was first invented after propagated and promoted that so he may be the lesse moved by or affected with those sly and subtill Doctrines which they thrust upon the consciences of their disciples as absolutely necessary on all hands and in all points to be believed to salvation the contrary whereunto being very prejudiciall and ready at all times to bring unto eternal damnation Petrus Abailardus Parisiens Professor En Abilardus ego sum primus in ordine turmae Dogmatis inferni Dux Origo fui IN the year of Christs incarnation 1540. 1540. in France was famous Petrus Abailardus Professor at Paris a Philosopher and Divine of great name of whom Bernard in he cxc Epistle writeth thus We have here in France a new Divine
enjoyned to perform Such execrable blasphemies are therein contained which without inevitable danger of contagion may not be suffered to passe among Christians being no small disparagement to their holy profession and an high measure of despight done to the Spirit of Grace Which things being so we are in hope your Honors will wisely and speedily take a course that these men which have brought in and dispersed abroad these cursed writings and books may not long abide with you or remain within your coasts and also that the writings and books themselves may not come into the hands of any to whom they may be a snare either through simplicity or curiosity Renowned Lords we beseech God that he would bestow upon you more and more the Spirit of truth and wisedome and would be present with you from Heaven in all your affairs and especially in this great and weighty cause which pertains so much to establishing of the truth of God and the common salvation of his people that those things which are pious holy and just may be seasonably provided for by you and perfected in the Lord That those things also which have any tincture of errour or heresy may be wholly extirpated by you Dated at Leyden the 12. of August 1598. An extract of the Resolution of the Lords States General of the United Princes March and September 1598. taken out of the Registry THE States General of the United Provinces being informed that there are certain books found with and in the possession of two Persons here present at the Hague which came lately from the Kingdome of Polonia into these united Provinces the one named Christopher Ostorrodus the other Andraeas Voidovius which books being examined in Leyden by the faculty of Divines there are divers things therein found to agree with the Doctrine or religion of the Turks denying the Divinity both of the Son of God and of the Holy Ghost And that the foresaid persons openly professing the same Doctrine came purposely into these Provinces that they might publish the same herein and so disturb the present State and quiet of the Church hereby We therefore be●ng willing to prevent ●n time the ensuing mischief hereof for the maintaining of the honour of God together with the profit and commodity of the United Provinces which like Democritus Twins do laugh and cry l●ve and dye together have decreed that the foresaid books in the presence of the foresaid persons shall openly be burnt to morrow before noon opposite to our Chamber of General meeting A●ter that the aforesaid two persons shall be charged and straitly commanded as by these presen●s they are charged and commanded that within the space of ten dayes next to come they shall depart out of these united Provinces under the penalty of such punishment as shall be inflicted on them according to discretion if afterwards they be found or taken herein All which we thought fit to ordain for the peace and quiet of the Church of Christ and for the benefit and commodity of the united Provinces Conceiving it also very necessary for the better and more due accomplishing hereof that all the Provinces should be admonished of th●s and a Copy of this Attestation be conveyed to them which is above written and subscribed by the faculty of Divines at Leyden concerning the foresaid books that the foresaid persons be not suffered to tarry or abide longer in these Provinces then the time limitted for them and that their abominable Doctrine may be expelled hence also Mar. 1599. What better course could have been taken for the dispatch of these Brethren in evill with all their trumpery with them out of these parts But what are good and wholesome Laws without execution even like a body without a soul for as a body without a soul doth quickly perish and come to nothing So the best Laws that can be made without due execution do dye in the very letter For notwithstanding this decree made and published with so much strictness and good intention on the States part there was some connivence in the matter by which these persons thus proscribed were yet retained and secured If it be true which John Uytenbogardus saith who wrote the story they remained still in Friesland and there privily drew up an Apologie to the decree of the States General which they printed and published both in the Latine and high Dutch tongues I cannot but wonder at the mad folly or foolish madness of those that professe either reason or religion that they should be so far transported with the novell Doctrines of the●e half Lunatick Teachers that they should keep them and secure them within their own bosoms who watch all opportunities to destroy them Yet a new fashion does not more take a proud Lady nor a new Tavern a drunkard nor a new drug an Emperick then a new opinion does those that are affected to heresy be it never so divelish and blasphemous And I beleeve they made a great I cannot say a good reurn of them For I have heard of above thirty Sects and sorts of Religion in one Town in those parts so that come will you be of our Church was a solicitation as frequent as the ordinary salutation one to another of good morrow or good even To be w●lling to be seduced hath given occasion to divers to attempt it which otherwise had never been attempted so did these Hereticks play with and play upon those that gave them entertainment This Ostorrodus was a notable factour for the Devil deceiving many with his cousening trash For besides that disputation against Tradelius which he had concerning the Deity of Christ which was the mark they all shot at the Deity also of the blessed Spirit to deny which I take to be an high degree of the sin against the holy Ghost the expiation of our sins the imputatio● of sin to Christ the satisfaction he made to Divine Justice paying the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our redemption that it stood not with the freeness of Gods mercy in pardoning sin to require satisfaction for it by which and many other damnable opinions destructive to the very essence of Religion he drew many away after him to the liking and embracing of his Socinian tenets He wrote also certain institutions of the cheif Articles and principal points of Christian he would he should have said Socinian Religion which have perverted divers yet are learnedly opposed and confuted by Iacobus ad Portum that excellent instrument of Gods glory and painful labourer in his vineyard Jacobus Palaeologus Graius Si quaeras cur iste Pal'ologus igne crematur In promptu causa est haeresiarcha fuit TO be loose in the main joynts of Religion is very bad and gives the Devil and his instruments great advantage against us we may see the truth of this in the example here set before us Jacob Palaeologus of the ancient and Jmperial family of the Graecian Palaeologi came from his own country to Rome
and erroneous doctrines of Socinus and his followers so that they may see out of what puddles they were raked and by whom they had their first rise and publication and may not give credit any longer unto those seducers which vent them as their own The bondage of this land was lamentable under the tyranny of Anti-Christ when we were driven to eat the bread of superstition and to drink the wine of fornication or fast But God hath delivered us and confirmed our deliverance for many years together if we shall now apostate and revolt from the integrity of his seruice our latter end will be worse then our beginning Insteed of Popery we shall find errour and heresie Turcisme and Devilisme til we can only say Here was once the Church of God No surer way no speedier course for the effecting of this then to be carryed away with the desperate and damnable opinions of the Socinians whom some have thought not worthy of the name of Christians and so not fit to live among us who professe the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ We will bring the matter into further question and see what may be said concerning it whether the Socinian Religion be the Christian Religion and so Socinians true Christians yea or no Socinians above others pretend to the name of Christ and boast of it for that purpose they entitle their Catechises The Institutions of Christian religion as is manifest by those of Socinus and Ostorrodus they only will have their denomination from Christ Smalcius against Franc reasoneth thus If those which do not confesse Christ are not Christians then it must needs follow that those which do confesse Christ are Christians We both by word of mouth writings and endevour do professe Christ before the whole Christian world witness so many books that are written and so many confessions that have bin made by us saith Muscorovius another of the same train Yea we are not only Christians but the only true Christians if they may be Judges in their own cause and for that purpose they argue thus Every Spirit that confesseth that Jesus is the Christ is of God But our Churches and they alone do confesse that Jesus is the Christ Therefore are they of God Seducers will say or do any thing so they may deceive Absolom what expensive bravery doth he put himselfe unto what liberal promises doth he make what courtly policie doth he use that he might seduce the hearts of the people from their due and true obedience Insomuch that the common acclamation must needs be this O courteous beau●eous bounteous Absolom So who can be by and hear the outside profession the seeming Christian confession which is made by these Socinians and forbear to cry out O Vertuous Pious Religious Socinian who would not take part with thee and be on thy side But O this heart of man how deceitful is it upon the weights how apt to be deceived and to dece●ve for do but search th●m sift them sound them and you shall find 't is no such matter their pure oare is but dross their sweet fruits but bitter to the tast and all this glorious boasting nothing but dissembling To stop their mouths and the mouths of all their adherents and complices we shall consider the name and appellation of Christian under this twofold Notion First 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 generally or improperly Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 specially or properly We do not deny the Socinians to be called Christians in the first sense that is the general or improper signification of the word for whosoever does acknowledge that Jesus is that promised Messias and that his Doctrine is only to be embraced and obeyed by us are such Christians making a difference between them and Jews who deny that the Messias is already come and Turks who professe and follow the Doctrine of Mahomet contained in their Alchoran We give them this to distinguish them from Infidels which know not Christ and from Jews which deny Christ but we cannot give them the title of Christians in that special sense in which the Scriptures use it nor may they proudly arrogate it to themselves for they are not worthy of it And this we make good by these ensuing Arguments First Because Christians are the peculiar Disciples of Christ and his Apostles Act. 11.26 But the Socinians are not the peculiar Disciples of Christ and his Apostles seeing they dissent from the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles in very many mysteries and principal foundations of the Christian faith and do their utmost endeavour by their subtilties to overthrow them Therefore the Socinians notwithstanding their glorious outside profession are not Christians Secondly There is required to the compleating and making up of a true Christian a true and lively faith or an acknowledging and sincere profession of the true faith Rom. 10.9 1 Pet. 3.15 But they whose faith and profession concerning God and Christ is not true but false erroneous and heretical are not to be accounted for true Christians But the faith and profession of the Socinians both concerning God and Christ is false and erroneous yea and heretical too as we shall shew out of the Scriptures and shall set forth to the judgment of the whole Christian world Therefore the Socinians are not to be accounted or esteemed as true Christians Thirdly They which worship any other then the only true God are not true Christians But the Socinians worship another and not the true God for they adore not neither do they worsh●p the holy and ever blessed Trinity the Father Son and Holy Ghost one God in Essence in three distinct persons whom the whole Christian world doth acknowledge and adore but frame another God to themselves who is only one in person and essence who is not the eternal Father nor hath he an eternal Son of the same essence with himself and so they worship an Idol devised by themselves far different from the true God of the Christians but the true God of the Christians in whom we are baptized rhe Father Son and Holy Ghost the Holy Trinity blessed for ever they provoke and revile with horrid and most execrable blasphemies Therefore they are not true Christians Fourthly They which deny the proper Essence of Christ are not to be counted Christians For as he which denyeth the Essence of Man taketh away man so he which denyeth the proper Essence of Christ taketh away Christ and so is not truly a Christian But the Socinians deny the proper Essence of Christ because they deny the Divine Nature of Christ which is his proper Essence being Jehovah Jer. 23.6 God blessed for ever Amen Rom. 9.5 For he can no more be true God without the Divine Nature then man w●thout his humane nature Therefore they cannot be true Christians Fiftly he which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh or denies that Jesus is the Christ is not truly a Christian but is to be accounted as an