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Untitled Article
at that time compelled to have recourse , for the purpose of disseminating their opinions . Sometimes an obnoxious author's name was concealed tinder an anagram , or an acrostic : sometimes a work was published , professing to be on the orthodox side of a question , but intentionally sustained by weak and trifling arguments , with a view to excite doubts : sometimes
the language of truth insinuated itself into the mind under . the form of dialogue , when it could make its way through no other channel : and sometimes an heretical sentiment was promulgated under the cover of a work which was otherwise of a character not to excite suspicion . These were the methods by which the abuses in the Church of Rome were attacked before the time of Luther ; by which the remaining errors of the reformed
churches were covertly undermined , before the friends of rational Christianity found an asylum in Poland and Transylvania ; and of which persecution affords some palliation , indefensible as they are . It was thus that Curio acted , when , in accordance with the spirit of the times , and regarding his own safety , he published his volume of Opuscula , and made it the instrument by which the seeds of Unitarianism were first disseminated among the rocks and valleys of Switzerland . In this volume the
Paraphrase on the beginning of John's Gospel occupies the last place ; and it was , no doubt , intended a . s an expressionNof the mature and deliberate opinion of its author , on an important subject , to which he had only slightly and incidentally adverted in the former pieces . It was sent into the world at a time when Unitarianism had not dared to shew itself under any shape among the reformed churches of Switzerland ; and although Curio survived its publication a full quarter of a century , no circumstance appears to have occurred , during : the whole of that time , to weaken the doubts which had
arisen as to his soundness in the faith , but many to strengthen and confirm them . The first of these , which it falls in our way to mention , is the confidential nature of Curio ' s intimacy with Laelius Socinus . —Leelius left Italy on the dispersion of the celebrated society at Vicenza , A . D . 1546 ; and
after wandering over a great , part of Switzerland , arrived safely at Basil , in the year following , where he was kindly received and hospitably entertained by Curio . This fact , which might of itself be deemed unimportant , is far otherwise , as connected with the subject of our present inquiry . Curio thought highly of the mental and moral qualities of Laelius ; nor was the connexion which subsisted between them a mere casual intimacy , but a friendship founded upon mutual esteem . At the time that Laelius became
Curio ' s guest , his religious opinions were perfectly formed , and never afterwards underwent any change of the slightest importance . He is said to have taken the lead among the followers of Servetus in Italy , and to have disbelieved the doctrine of the Trinity long before he had any thoughts of quitting that country . But he had the prudence to conceal his heretical opinions ; and was in the habit of proposing them in the shape of doubts ,
Untitled Article
640 Biographical Notices of Eminent Continental Unitarians .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1831, page 640, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2601/page/64/
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