This man was one of the sixteenth-century Italian Reformers who were speedily crushed or dispersed by the vigilance of the Inquisition.  Those who escaped wandered far, and some were at different times members of the Church for ‘Strangers,’ or foreigners, to which Edward VI assigned the nave of the great Augustine Church, still standing at Austin Friars in the heart of the City of London.  It is Interesting to observe here that a Dutch liberal congregation lineally inherits the place to-day.  Careful investigation has shown that among the refugees here in the sixteenth century were some whose opinions were unsound on the Trinity; possibly they affected English opinion in some small degree. Loelius Socinus (1525-62), uncle of Faustus (1539-1604), was for a short time in London, but interesting thinker as he was, his nephew who never set foot in England really exerted much more influence upon English thought.

It was, however, in Poland especially that the influence of Faustus Socinus first became prominent.  That country, then flourishing under its own princes, early became (as we have seen) the home of an Anti-trinitarian form of Protestantism.  Socinus joined this group, and during the latter half of the sixteenth century effected much improvement among them, organizing their congregations, establishing schools, promoting a Unitarian literature.  The educational work thus begun achieved great success; but in his own lifetime Socinus met with fierce opposition and even personal violence.  He died in 1604; the Polish Unitarian Church fell under the persecution of both Catholics and orthodox Protestants, and was finally crushed out in 1660.

Important for our present study is the fact that the literary output of these Polish Socinians was both large and of high quality.  Their ‘Racovian Catechism’ was translated into different languages, and early found its way into England.  James I promptly had it burned, despite the fact that the Latin version was dedicated to himself!  Other books and pamphlets followed, and even if we abate something as due to the exaggerating fears and suspicions of the authorities, there would seem to have been no time as the seventeenth century went on when Socinian literature was not widely circulated here, albeit at first in secret.

Into the details of this literature there is no need to go; it is sufficient to observe its outstanding features.  They correspond in the main to the temper of the master mind, Socinus, a man who in the absence of imaginative genius displayed remarkable talent as a reasoner, and a liberal disposition considerably in advance of his times.  The later Socinian writings, preserved in eight large volumes issued by the ‘Polish Brethren’ (Amsterdam, 1666), exhibit in addition the results of much diligent research and scholarship, in which the wide variety of opinion actually held by the Fathers and later Church authorities is proved, and the moral is drawn.  In the presence of so