ciatus, Valentinùs Gentilis, Bernardus Ochinus, and some others, are so well known out of the epistles of Calvin, Beza, Bullinger, Zanchius, with what hath of late from them been collected by Cloppenburgius, Hornbeck, Maresius, Becmanuus, &c. that it cannot but be needless labour for me to go over them again. That which I aim at is, from their own writings, and what remains on record concerning them, to give a brief account of the first breaking in of Antitrinitarianism into the reformed churches of Poland, and their confused condition, before headed by Socinus, into whose name they have since been all baptized.

This, then, was the state of the churches in those days. The reformed religion spreading in great abundance, and churches being multiplied every day in Poland, Lithuania, and the parts adjoining; some tumults having been raised, and stirs made by Osiander and Stancarus, about the essential righteousness and mediation of Christ (concerning which the reader may consult Calvin at large), many wild and foolish opinions being scattered up and down, about the nature of God, the Trinity, and Anabaptism, by many foreigners; sundry being thereby defiled; the opinions of Servetus having wholly infected sundry Italians. The persons before spoken of then living at Geneva, and about the towns of the Switzers, that embraced the gospel, being forced to flee for fear of being dealt withal as Servetus was (the judgment of most Christian rulers in whose days leading them to such a procedure, how rightly I do not now determine), scarce any one of them escaping without imprisonment and abjuration (an ill foundation of their after profession); they went most of them into Poland, looked on by them as a place of liberty, and joined themselves to the reformed churches in those places. And continuing many years in their communion, took the opportunity to entice and seduce many ministers with others, and to strengthen them who were fallen into the abominations mentioned, before their coming to them.

After many tergiversations, many examinations of them, many false subscriptions, in the year 1562, they fell into

• Cum dici jus non possint in ecclesia delitescere, manifesto scismate Petriconiæ anno 1562, habito prius colloquio eam scindunt et in sententiam suam pertrahunt plurimos tum ex ministris, tum ex Patronis. Ministri qui partem eorum sequebantur erant in principio Gregorius Pauli, &c. Histor. Ecclesi. Slavon. Regn. lib. 1. p. 86.

open division and separation from the reformed churches. The ministers that fell off with them, besides Lismannus and his companion (of whom before), were Gregorius Pauli, Stanislaus, Lutonius Martinus Crovicius, Stanislaus Paclesius, Georgius Schomanus, and others; most of whom before had taken good pains in preaching the gospel. The chief patrons and promoters were Johannes Miemoljevius, Hieronymus Philoponius, Johannes Cazaccovius, the one a judge, the other a captain, the third a gentleman, all men of great esteem.

The Pyear that this breach was made, Lælius Socinus, then of the age of thirty-seven years, who laid the foundations that his nephew after built upon, died in Switzerland; as the author of the life of Faustus Socinus informs us. The man's life is known: he was full of Servetianism, and had attempted to draw sundry men of note to his abominations. A man of great subtilty and cunning, as Beza says of him, incredibly furnished for contradiction and sophisms; which the author of the life of Socinus's phrases, he was sugge rendæ veritatis mirus artifex.' He made, as I said, many private attempts on sundry persons to entice them to Photinianism; on some with success, on others without. Of his dealing with him, and the advantage he had so to do, 'Zanchius gives an account in his preface to his book 'De Tribus Elohim.'

He was, as the author of the life of Faustus Socinus relates, in a readiness to have published his notions and conceptions, when God by his merciful providence, to prevent a little the pouring out of the poison, by so skilful a hand, took him off by sudden death; and Faustus himself gives

P Lælius interim præmatura morte extinctus est: incidit mors in diem parendinum id. Maii. 1562, ætatis vero ejus septimi supra trigessimum. Eques Polon. vita. Faus. Socin. Senens.

q Fuit etiam Lælius Socinus Senensis incredibiliter ad contradicendum et varios nectendos nodos comparatus: nec nisi post mortem cognitus, hujusmodi pernicio sissimis hæresibus laborare. Epist. ad Eccle. Orthodox. Epist. 81.

r Fuit is Lælius nobili honestaque familia natus, bene Græce et Hebraice doctus, vitæque etiam externæ inculpatæ quarum rerum causa mihi quoque intercesserat.cum illo non vulgaris amicitia, sed homo fuit plenus diversarum hæresium, quas tamen mihi nunquam proponebat nisi disputandi causa, et semper interrogans, quasi cuperet doceri: hanc vero Samosatanianam imprimis annos multos fovit, et quoscunque potuit pertraxit in eundem errorem: pertraxit autem non paucos: me quoque ut dixi diversis tentabat rationibus, si eodem possit errore simul, et æterno exitio secum involvere. Zanch. Prefat. ad lib. de tribus.

the same account of the season of his death in an epistle to Dudithius.s

At his death, Faustus Socinus, being then about the age of twenty-three years, seizing upon all his uncle's books, after awhile returned into Italy; and there spent in courtship and idleness in Florence twelve years, which he afterward grievously lamented, as shall be declared. Leaving him awhile to his pleasure in the court of the great duke, we may make back again into Poland, and consider the progress of the persons, who made way for his coming amongst them. Having made their separation, and drawn many after them, they at length brought their business to that height, that they came to a disputation with the reformed ministers at Petricove (where the parliament of the kingdom then was), by the permission of Sigismund the King, in the year 1565, whereof the ensuing account is given by Antonius Possevine the Jesuit, in Atheis. sui sæculi, cap. 13. fol. 15. ́

The assembly of states was called against the Muscovians; the nobility desiring a conference between the ministers of the reformed churches and the Antitrinitarians, it was allowed by Sigismund the king. On the part of the reformed churches, there were four ministers: as many of the other side came also prepared for the encounter. Being met, after some discourse, the chief martial of the kingdom, then a Protestant, used these words: "Seeing the proposition to be debated is agreed on, begin in the name of the one God, and the Trinity.'

Whereupon one of the opposite party instantly cried

out;

* 'We cannot here say amen: nor do we know that God, the Trinity.'

Whereunto the ministers subjoined, we have no need of any other proposition, seeing this hath offered itself; for,

s Cum amicorum precibus permotus tandem constituisset, atque etiam cœpisset, saltem inter ipsos, nonnulla in apertum proferre. Socin. ad Andræum Dudithium.

Cum his Antitrinitariis publicam habuerunt evangelici disputationem Petricoviæ in comitiis regni Sigism. 11. Aug. rege permittente Anno. 1565. Disputatores fuerunt, &c. Regenvolscius. ubi supra.

"Jam igitur constituta propositione qua de agendum est, in nomine Dei unius et Trinitatis exordimini.

* Nos vero hic non dicimus Amen, neque enim nos novimus Deum istum Trinitatem.

y Nulla jam alia propositione nobis opus est, cum hæc se obtulerit, nos autem Deo volente, et volumus, et parati sumus demonstrare, quod Spiritus Sanctus non

God assisting, we will, and are ready to, demonstrate that the Holy Ghost doth not teach us any other God in the Scripture, but him only, who is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; that is, one God in Trinity.'

This colloquy continued three days. In the first, the ministers who were the opponents (the other always choosing to answer), by express texts of Scripture in abundance, confirmed the truth. In the beginning of their testimonies, they appealed to the beginning of the Old and New Testament, and upon both places confounded their adversaries.

The second day, the testimonies of the ancient writers of the church were produced, with no less success.

And on the third, The stories of Arius, and some other heretics of old. The issue of the disputation was to the great advantage of the truth, which Possevine himself cannot deny; though he affirm a little after, that the, Calvinists could not confute the Trinitarians, as he calls them, though they used the same arguments that the Catholicks did; chap. 14. p. 366.

a Possevine confesses, that the ministers (as they called themselves of Salmatia and Transylvania), in their book of the true and false knowledge of God, took advantage at the images of the Catholicks; for whose satisfaction, it seems, he subjoins the theses of Thyreus, wherein he labours to prove the use of those abominable idols to be lawful; of which in the close of this address.

And this was the first great obstacle that was laid in the way of the progress of the reformed religion in Poland; which, by Satan's taking the advantage of this horrible scandal, is at this day in those parts of the world, weak and oppressed. With what power the gospel did come upon alium nos Deum in Scriptura doceat, nisi solum Patrem, Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, id est, Deum unum in Trinitate.

z Nos quidem o amici haud difficulter poterimus vobiscum eam rem transigere, nam ubi primum biblia aperueritis, et initium veteris et novæ legis consideraveritis, statim offendetis, id ibi asseri quod vos pernegatis, sic enim Geneseos primo Scriptura loquitur. Faciamus hominem ad imaginem nostram.' Nostram inquit, non meam : postea vero addit, Fecit Deus. Novæ autem legis initium hoc est. Verbum erat apud Deum, et verbum erat Deus. Videtis ut in veteri lege loquatur unus Deus tanquam de tribus; hic vero quod Filius, verbum æternum (nam quod ab initio erat, æternum est) erat apud Deum, et erat idem, non alius, uti vos perperam interpretamini, Deus.

a Mox agunt de imaginibus sanctissimæ Trinitatis, non contenti simpliciorum quorundam picturas convellere, eas item quæ ab Ecclesia Catholica rite usurpatæ sunt, scommatibus et blasphemis carminibus proscindunt. Anton. Possev. Lib. 8. cap. 15, 16.

the inhabitants of those nations at the first, and what number of persons it prevailed upon to forsake their dumb idols, which in Egyptian darkness they had long worshipped; is evident from the complaint of "Cichovius, the priest, who tells us, that' about those times in the whole parliament of the dukedom of Lithuania, there were not above one or two Catholicks,' as he calls them, 'besides the bishops.'

Yea, among the bishops themselves, some were come off to the reformed churches, amongst whom Georgius Petrovicius, bishop of Sarmogitia, is reckoned by Diatericus, Chron. p. 49.

Yea, and so far had the gospel influenced those nations, that in the year 1542, upon the death of king Sigismund the second, during the interregnum, a decree was made in parliament with general consent, that no prejudice should arise to any for the protestant religion; but that a firm union should be between the persons of both religions, Popish and Protestant. And that whosoever was chosen king, should take an oath to preserve this union, and the liberty of the Protestant religion. (Sarricius. Annal. Pol. lib. 8. p. 403.)

And when Henry, duke of Anjou, brother to Charles the ninth, king of France, was elected king of Poland (being then a man of great esteem in the world, for the wars which in France he had managed for the Papists against the Prince of Conde, and the never enough magnified "Gasper Coligni, being also consenting at least, to the barbarous massacre of the Protestants in that nation), and coming to the church where he was to be crowned, by the advice of the clergy, would have avoided the oath of preserving the Protestants, and keeping peace between the dissenters in religion; John Shirli, Palatine of Cracovia, took up the crown, and making ready to go away with it out of the convention, cried out,

b Profecto illis temporibus res catholicorum fere deplorata erat; cum in amplissimo senatu vix unus aut alter præter Episcopos reperiebatur. Casper Cicovius Canon. et Parock. Sardom. Alloquia.

c Neque vero hoc juramentum pro tuenda pace evangelica præstitisset, nisi eum Johannes Shirli Palatinus Cracoviensis, vir plenus zeli et magnæ cum potentia authoritatis, adegisset; fertur enim cum rex Henricus jam coronandus esset nec pacem inter dissidentes se conservaturum jurasset, sed silentio illudere vellet, accepta quæ regi tum præferebatur corona, exitum ex templo parasse, et in hæc prorupisse verba, si non jurabis non regnabis. Hist. Eccles. Slavon. Regenvol. lib. 1. p. 92.

d Condæo succedit Colignius, vir natalibus et militia clarus, qui nisi regi suo moveret bellum, dissidii fomes et caput, virtutis heroicæ exemplar erat, supra antiquos duces, quos mirata est Græcia, quos Roma extulit. Gramond. Histor. Gal. lib. 6.