Amongst the fanatics of the seventeenth century may be classed Jeremiah Felbinger, a native of Brega, a town in the Prussian State of Silesia, who was an early advocate of the heresy of the Unitarians. For some years he was a soldier, and then became a schoolmaster. He wrote _Prodromus demonstrationis_, published in 1654, in which he attempted to prove his Unitarian ideas. Shortly before this, in 1653, he wrote _Demonstrationes Christianae_, and finally his _Epistola ad Christianos_, published at Amsterdam in 1672. His strange views and perverted opinions first caused his dismissal from the army, and his works upon the Unitarian doctrines necessitated his removal from the office of teacher. He then journeyed to Helmstadt, but there the wanderer found no rest; for when he tried to circulate his obnoxious books, he was ordered to leave the city before sunset. Finally he settled in Amsterdam, the home of free-thinkers, where men were allowed a large amount of religious liberty; there printers produced without let or hindrance books which were condemned elsewhere and could only be printed in secret presses and obscure corners of cities governed by more orthodox rulers. Here Felbinger passed the rest of his miserable life in great poverty, earning a scanty pittance by instructing youths and correcting typographical errors. He died in 1689, aged seventy-three years. The seventeenth century was fruitful in fanatics, and not the least mad was Simon Morin, who was burnt at Paris in 1663. His fatal book was his _Pensées de Simon Morin_ (Paris, 1647, in-8), which contains a curious mixture of visions and nonsense, including the principal errors of the Quietists and adding many of his own. Amongst other mad ravings, he declared that there would be very shortly a general reformation of the Church, and that all nations should be converted to the true faith, and that this reformation was to be accomplished by the Second Advent of our Lord in His state of glory, incorporated in Morin himself; and that for the execution of the things to which he was destined, he was to be attended by a great number of perfect souls, and such as participated in the glorious state of Jesus Christ, whom he therefore called the champions of God. He was condemned by the Parliament of Paris, and after having done penance, dressed in his shirt, with a rope round his neck and a torch in his hand, before the entrance of Notre Dame, he was burnt with his book and writings, his ashes being subsequently cast into the air. Morin had several followers who shared his fantastic views, and these poor "champions of God" were condemned to witness the execution of their leader, to be publicly whipped and branded with the mark of fleur-de-lys, and to spend the rest of their lives as galley-slaves.