SOCINIANISM.

Give me leave to impart to my readers an observation that was made in my hearing against those who say that all the ingenious Italians who forsook Calvinism to set up a new Arianism, designed to form a greater party than that of the reformers of Germany and Geneva. It is supposed, that though they believed mysteries, they pretended to oppose them in order to have many followers. The captivating of the understanding to the belief of three persons in the Divine Nature, and of a God-Man, is a heavy yoke for reason; Christians are therefore very much eased when freed from such a yoke; and consequently it is probable that vast crowds will follow a man who removes so great a burthen. Behold the reason why those Italians who fled into Poland denied the Trinity, the hypostatical union, original sin, absolute predestination, &c. They thought that since Calvin, shaking off the necessity of believing all the incomprehensible things contained in Transubstantiation, brought over many people to him, they should make a greater progress still if they rejected all the inconceivable doctrines which that reformer had preserved. But it may be answered, that they had been very silly and unworthy of their Italian education if they had made use of such an expedient. The speculative mysteries of religion are little troublesome to the people; they will, indeed, tire a professor of divinity, very intent upon them in order to explain them, and answer the objections of the heretics. Some other studious men, who examine them with great curiosity, may also be troubled by the resistance of their reason, but all other men are at perfect ease about it; they believe, or fancy they believe, all that

is said of them, and quietly rest in that persuasion. Wherefore he would not be far from fanaticism who could imagine that citizens and peasants, soldiers and gentlemen, would be freed from a heavy yoke if they were dispensed from believing the Trinity, and the hypostatical union. They like much better a doctrine that is mysterious, incomprehensible, and above reason: they are more apt to admire what they do not comprehend; they form to themselves an idea of it more sublime, and also more comfortable. All the ends of religion are much better to be found incomprehensible things; they inspire a greater admiration, respect, fear, and constancy. If false religions have had their mysteries, it is because they have been forged by the ape of the true one. God, out of his infinite wisdom, has accommodated himself to the state of man, by mixing darkness with light in his revelation. In one word, it must be granted that in certain matters incomprehensibility causes approbation. If a man had a mind to invent a hypothesis only for philosophers, and such as might be called “Religio Medici,” it is likely he would think himself obliged to lay aside the doctrines difficult to be comprehended; but then he must not have the vanity to expect to be followed by the multitude. If he had a mind to satisfy his vanity in that respect, he should do as the hero of Lorenzo Gratian, who says, that El Heroe platique incomprehensibilidades de caudal: —and that he discovers himself without being comprehended. --- Gran treta en arte de entendie ostentarse al concimiento, pero no a la comprehension.” Father Bouhours, Entretiens d’Ariste, pag. m. 54. ⁹⁹ But granting that those Italians have been so silly as to think that people would be freed from an intolerable yoke, if they were dispensed from believing the Trinity, &c., must we also grant that they thought the prohibition of civil and military employments would not be a yoke a thousand times heavier than that which they intended to break? Will any one be so unreasonable as to require that we should have such a notion of those men, who wanted neither wit nor address as every body owns?

What I am going to say will, doubtless, resolve the question. When men of parts, designing to set up a new sect, pitch upon a loose method, and substitute an easy doctrine in the room of a difficult one, it may be said that they do not hit upon the most proper method to succeed in their design; but it ought not to be supposed that they are contented to suppress speculative mysteries, and that they keep the whole practical part, and even aggravate the yoke of the moral precepts. And yet this is supposed concerning the founders of the Socinian heresy, and therefore what is said of their design is a mistake. They are more rigid than other Christians about the prohibition of revenge and the contempt of worldly honours; they are not for any mitigated or figurative explications of such texts of the Scripture as relate to morality. They have revived the severity of the primitive church, winch did not approve that the faithful should concern themselves with magistracies, and should have any hand in the death of their neighbour, so far that they would not have them to accuse malefactors. The prohibition of civil and military offices is a heavier burthen than the prohibition of revenge, for it excludes the expedients both of deceiving one’s self and also of deceiving others. Those who preach most earnestly against revenge find out a thousand distinctions to elude that precept. Some say they do not hate their neighbour as he is a man, but as he is an enemy of God; others protest that they do him no harm to revenge a private quarrel, but for God’s glory. This is approving, by the help of some distinctions, what we pretend to condemn. Some deceive themselves; others are mere hypocrites, who deceive the

world; but no subterfuge can be alleged as to the doctrine which forbids going to the war, and exercising civil offices; those who profess such a doctrine must necessarily follow it; the practice cannot be separated from the theory; there are no distinctions nor equivocations. It is, therefore, a true constraint; it is not a transient mortification, like that of those who discipline themselves once a year; it is a perpetual and continual state. We may therefore affirm that those Italian refugees were no cheats; they were deceived by their subtilties, and by their relying too much upon the natural light of their reason; and if they kept only part of the Christian doctrines, it is because their first principle, whereby they will admit nothing that is directly against their reason, led them to it. This is apparently the cause of their choice: had they been mere impostors, greedy of followers, they would have gone another way to work. Let us, therefore, condemn their principle as a deceitful one, and not usurp the place of him that searcheth the reins and hearts. Their principle debases religion, and changes it into philosophy. The greatness, authority, and sovereignty of God require, that we should here walk by faith and not by sight. A Spanish politician hath wisely said, “that it is an excellent qualification to keep secret one’s thoughts and resolutions.—“Si todo excesso en secreto, lo es en caudal; sacramentar una voluntad sera soberania.—Arguye eminencia de caudal penetrar toda voluntad agena; y concluye superioridad saber celar la propria.” See father Bouhours, Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugene, p.201. ¹⁰⁰ The Heathens also said, “that mysteries better discover God’s majesty, and are an image of his nature, because he cannot be perceived by our senses.” Strabo, b. 10. ¹⁰¹

If it be considered that most men are more inclined

to acquiesce in the inward sentiments, than to follow the thread of innumerable consequences methodically connected, and proceeding from distinct notions, and that they may be quickly and easily offended by the paradoxes which reason throws them upon, it will appear somewhat probable that the Socinian system is not very proper to gain the people. It may rather lead studious and speculative men to Scepticism. There will always be something defective in that system whereby people may be kept from it. The eternity of matter, God’s extension, the limitation of this extension, and of the Divine knowledge, and of hell torments, are Socinian doctrines, which being eloquently represented to princes and their subjects, will always inspire them with great horror. If it be a convenient thing to each private person not to be afraid of being punished after this life, yet it is more inconvenient to think that one is daily conversant with people who are not afraid of it. And therefore it is not the interest of private persons, that any doctrine tending to lessen the fear of hell torments should be admitted in their country; and it is probable that the preachers of such a doctrine will always be more offensive than acceptable to the public. A certain author says, that “the same persons who reject the gospel by reason of the austerity of its moral precepts, would express a greater horror for a religion enjoining them to plunge themselves into the most infamous disorders, if it were offered to them when they are able to reason, and before they are blinded by the prejudices of education.” Pensées diverses sur les Cometes, num. 89, pag. 592. ¹⁰² He has made some reflections upon this, but he has omitted one of the best, for he says nothing of self love and personal interest. It is true, that a wicked man would like a doctrine, with respect to his own conscience, that should allow him to be a poisoner, and to commit adultery, perjury, &c. but he would not like it upon many other accounts. He has a mother, a wife, a sister, and nieces, who would vex him horribly if they grew infamous for their lewdness. There are more people who can poison, rob, and cheat him, &c. than there are against whom he can commit the same crimes. Every body is more capable of being offended than of offending others, for of twenty equal persons, it is evident that every one of them is less strong against nineteen than nineteen against one. It is therefore the interest of each private person, though never so wicked, that men should be taught such doctrines as will terrify the conscience.

I shall farther observe, by the by, that nothing has proved more prejudicial to the Socinians than this doctrine, which they thought very proper to remove the greatest difficulty a philosopher can find in our theology. A thinking man, who only consults reason and the bright idea of infinite goodness, which, morally speaking, makes up the principal character of the divine nature, will be offended at what we read in the Scripture concerning the eternity of hell torments: especially if he add to it the paraphrases and the many explanations that are to be found in several books. “Deus optimus maximus” were the current and usual titles of the Divine Nature amongst the antient Heathens. It was their set form when they spoke of God, and they never said, “Deus severissimus, implacabilissimus.” The two epithets “optimus” and “maximus,” properly speaking, were only the image and expression of one sole quality, I mean a supreme goodness, for goodness ought to be attended with greatness to appear in all its lustre. But what, I pray you, is greatness? Is it any thing else besides magnanimity, generosity, liberality, magnificence, and pouring out of favours? This natural idea, which

made the Heathens speak in that manner, is confirmed by the Scripture, wherein the goodness of God is all along extolled above his other attributes. Doing good, shewing mercy, is the daily and pleasant work of God, according to the Scripture: chastising, punishing, shewing severity, is to him unusual and unpleasant work. And therefore so long as a man shall adhere to his natural reason, and not humbly submit to some passages in the gospel, he will look with abhorrence upon that doctrine of the infinite torments and punishments of the whole human race, except a few only. The Socinians, relying too much upon reason, have limited those torments so much the more carefully, because they considered that men would be made to suffer only for suffering’s sake, since no advantage would accrue from those torments to the sufferers or the spectators: a thing never done by any well regulated legislature. They hoped to bring over to Christianity by that means those who are offended with a notion that seems little consistent with the supreme goodness. But they were not aware that this very thing would make them more odious and more unworthy of a toleration than all their other tenets. After all, few people are offended with the doctrine concerning the eternal duration of hell torments, like Theodorus Camphusius. He was a minister, born at Gorcum, in Holland; he turned Socinian, and publicly declared he should have had no religion, had he not met with some books, wherein he found that hell torments will not last for ever. “Memini, meminerunt et alii, fuisse quendam Didericum Camphusium, qui in epistola typis expressa, et canticis ipsius adjuncta, profiteretur, se pronum fuisse ad reliquendam omnem religionem, donec inciderit in illos libros, qui docerent, perpetuos ignes nihil esse et eternos cruciatus.” Cocceius, in Examine Apolog. Equitis Poloni, pag. 305. ¹⁰³—Art. Socinus.