LXXVIII. 1.

The Socinians.

THE reformation had scarcely dawned, before some persons secretly promulgated antitrinitarian opinions.

The first of these was Martin Cellarius, a native of Stutgard, in 1499; John Campanus, who maintained the same doctrine, was his contemporary, and is better known. Soon afterwards, the celebrated Michael Servetus, an Arragonese, published his first work on the Trinity*: it produced a powerful sensation among the leaders of the reformation: they all openly professed their abhorrence of its doctrines. Undismayed by their clamours, he published a second work†, of the same tendency, and afterwards his last and most celebrated work, intituled" Christianity Restored." By the treachery of a person employed in printing it, several sheets of this work fell into the possession of Calvin. He forwarded them to the inquisition at Lyons, with an intimation that Servetus was the author of them, and that he was in the neighbourhood of the inquisitor. Upon this information, Servetus was arrested, and thrown into prison, but soon effected his escape and wandered to Geneva.

* "De Trinitatis Erroribus, libri septem, per Michaelem "Servetum, alias Reves, ab Aragonia, Hispanum, 1531," 8vo. +" Dialogorum de Trinitate, libri duo:" "De justitia Regni "Christi, capitula quatuor, 1532," 8vo.

"Christianismi Restitutio, 1553," 8vo.

There, he was recognized, and, at Calvin's instigation, committed to prison: he was afterwards sentenced by the council to be burned alive; and the sentence was executed with circumstances that aggravated his sufferings. Calvin never denied or disguised the part which he took in this transaction: it was defended by Beza*.

Still, the antitrinitarians increased: particularly in the Italian territories bordering on Germany. Meetings of them are said to have been held at Vicenza, a small town in the Venetian state; the inquisition seized several who attended these meetings, and put some of them to death: others escaped into Switzerland, Moravia, Poland, and Transylvania: they found catholics and protestants equally hostile to them: the most eminent of the wanderers were John Valentine Gentilis, who was tried for his heresy and beheaded at Berne, and Lælius Socinus. The latter concealed his opinions and lived peaceably at Zurich: there he died, and left many controversial writings. Faustus Socinus, his nephew, possessed himself of them, and imbibed their principles: this became generally known, and he was obliged to quit Zurich. He settled in Transylvania: there, and in Poland, his disciples obtained a legal settlement.-In 1658, they were banished for ever from the state by a solemn act of the diet:

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* In his celebrated treatise "De Hereticis a civili Magis"tratu puniendis, 1554, 8vo."-Beza also advocated the severe measures of the magistrates of Zurich against the celebrated Ochin: Bayle exposes the futility of Beza's arguments, in a happy mixture of ridicule and reasoning. Art. Ochin, note L.

but they have always preserved their Transylvanian settlement.

They hold Christ, though the son of Mary, to have been born of her without a father, by the extraordinary power of God: and, as such, to be, though in a qualified sense, truly God, and entitled to worship.

LXXVIII. 2.

The Unitarians.

FROM the Socinians, the unitarians differ principally in this, that while they consider Christ as a teacher sent of God, and afterwards raised by him from the dead, they hold him to have been a

mere man.

The founder of them appears to have been Francis David, a divine of great learning and eloquence at Coloswar. After having been successively a roman-catholic, a lutheran, and a calvinist, he settled fially in unitarianism. He was persecuted by the trinitarian divines of Hungary. At a meeting of the state, they denounced him to the prince, and concluded a long address to him in these words: "We, this day, by virtue of our office, cite thee, O thou illustrious prince, the keeper of both tables, with thy consort, thy children, and all thy posterity, before the tribunal of the awful judge, "Jesus Christ, whom this man has blasphemed,"if thou suffer him to live."-The prince, probably with a view to evade the scandalous requisition,

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condemned David to close confinement: after a short time, he died in prison*.

The socinian exiles from Poland dispersed themselves into the adjacent provinces, and penetrated into Denmark, Holstein, Holland, France, and England. The celebrated Jurieu discovered, that, before the close of the seventeenth century, socinianism abounded in the United Provinces, and that the dispersion of the French hugonots, in consequence of the edict of Nantes, had revealed to the terrified reformers of the primitive schools, the alarming secret of the preponderance of socinianism in the reformed churches of Francet. In our times, d'Alembert proclaimed the socinianism of Geneva; the defence of the Genevan pastors rather confirmed than weakened the charge.

"The socinians in England," says Dr. Maclaine+, "have never made any figure as a community: but "have rather been dispersed among the great variety "of sects that have arisen in a country, where liberty

displays its most glorious fruits, and at the same "time exhibits its most striking inconveniences."

* What has been said on socinianism, has been from the historical sketch prefixed by Mr. Rees to his "Racovian "Catechism, with notes and illustratious, translated from the "Latin, 8vo. 1818."

+ See the fourteenth book of Bossuet's " History of the "Variations." He avails himself with great skill of the confessions and lamentations of his antagonist.

In his translation of Mosheim's "History of the Church," vol. v. p. 55, note RR.

Unitarianism has been more successful: in the reign of Charles the first, and during the protectorate, the famous John Biddle maintained, both in public and in private, the unitarian system, and at length established an unitarian congregation in London there, since this time, it has been always on the increase. The unitarians have now several congregations; a society for promoting christian knowledge and the practice of virtue by the distribution of books, and a fund for sending missionaries to preach their doctrines over England *. Probably also, we may say of them, what Mr. Gibbon says of the arminians, that "they must "not be computed from their separate congrega❝tions."

LXXVIII. 3.

The Deists.

THE first disciples of modern infidelity appeared among the classical enthusiasts of Italy. Thence, they passed into France, and made a settlement, from which they have never been dislodged. Bayle's Dictionary operated as a signal to call them into action: the writings of Voltaire enlisted thousands; the Encyclopédie embodied them; after this, it was too evident, that in France the new opinions had, in every order, too many friends.

In England, sir Walter Raleigh was suspected of infidelity; and, about the same time, lord Herbert * See Mr. Lindsay's "View of Unitarianism."

+ "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,"

ch. 54.