Secondly, I answer: Religious worship is not given to him as a Creature, but as he is a Creator, (God over all blessed for ever) for which there are Texts plain enough, would but the Socinians hold to the Rules which they seem to approve of, viz. Non esse recurrendum ad Figuras, donec absurditas Sermonis proprie ita ut sonat intellecti monstretur. If Schmalzius would but hold to what he says. Ludum & jocum e Scripturis facere pronunciat, qui absque necessitate a [Greek or Hebrew] discedunt: Would but the Socinians hold to these Rules, we shall find Christ to be a Creator, not of the new Creature only, but of the Creature; the Scripture cannot speak plainer than it doth as to this Point: Colos. 1.16. confutes that Socinian corrupt gloss which they put upon those Texts, which declare that all things were created or made by Christ, for the Angels, I hope, had no need of any new Creation: Now if the holy Scriptures must be believed, when they tell us Religious worship must be given to Christ, who is but a Creature (as say the Socinians) though this be contrary to sound Reason (yea, and as contrary to the holy Scriptures, which will call this Idolatry.) Then I hope the same Scriptures may as well be believed, when they tell us of one singular Divine ⟨image 16⟩Essence subsisting in three Persons, and of the Humane and Divine Nature united in one Person, which things are above, but not contrary to Reason. Our Reason at the best before our fall being but finite, but since our fall corrupt and dim. For my part I cannot see how this practise of the socinians can stand, but were. I of their opinion, I must go over to Franciscus David, and Christianus Francken, and so I believe will our English Socinians ere long, upon several grounds which move me to think so, but this among the rest persuades me, because they are fallen off from some part of his worship already, as I learn by the Socinians with whom I had discourse. For the Sacraments it is true, the Socinians differ from others as to the use and end of them: And they do differ among themselves about Baptism; Socinus did not judge it to be a perpetual Ordinance, yet others of the Socinians do use it. And in Transylvania, as Calo. 1nius tells us, the Socinians do baptize with water, and that, in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that so it was decreed, in a Socinian, Synod, hold Anno 1636.
Secondly, I answer: Religious worship is not given to him as a Creature, but as he is a Creator, (God over all blessed for ever) for which there are Texts plain enough, would but the Socinians hold to the Rules which they seem to approve of, viz. Non esse recurrendum ad Figuras, donec absurditas Sermonis proprie ita ut sonat intellecti monstretur. If Schmalzius would but hold to what he sayes. Ludum & jocum e Scripturis facere pronunciat, qui absque necessitate a 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 discedunt: Would but the Socinians hold to these Rules, we shall find Christ to be a Creator, not of the new Creature only, but of the Creature; the Scripture cannot speak plainer than it doth as to this Point: Colos. 1.16. confutes that Socinian corrupt gloss which they put upon those Texts, which declare that all things were created or made by Christ, for the Angels, I hope, had no need of any new Creation: Now if the holy Scriptures must be believed, when they tell us Religious worship must be given to Christ, who is but a Creature (as say the Socinians) though this be contrary to sound Reason (yea, and as contrary to the holy Scriptures, which will call this Idolatry.) Then I hope the same Scriptures may as well be believed, when they tell us of one singular Divine ⟨image 16⟩Essence subsisting in three Persons, and of the Humane and Divine Nature united in one Person, which things are above, but not contrary to Reason. Our Reason at the best before our fall being but finite, but since our fall corrupt and dim. For my part I cannot see how this practise of the socinians can stand, but were. I of their opinion, I must go over to Franciscus David, and Christianus Francken, and so I believe will our English Socinians ere long, upon several grounds which move me to think so, but this among the rest perswades me, because they are fallen off from some part of his worship already, as I learn by the Socinians with whom I had discourse. For the Saoraments it is true, the Socinians differ from others as to the use and end of them: And they do differ among themselves about Baptism; Socinus did not judge it to be a perpetual Ordinance, yet others of the Socinians do use it. And in Transylvania, as Calo. 1nius tells us, the Socinians do baptize with water, and that, in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that so it was decreed, in a Socinian, Synod, hold Anno 1636.
- 1Socinis. profliga. p. 851.
