The later Socinians, even those nearest to the time, did not follow their master in this part of his tenets.[92] The treatise of Volkelius, son-in-law of Socinus, De vera Religione, is chiefly taken from the latter. It was printed at Racow in 1633, and again in Holland in 1641; but most of the latter impression having been burned by order of the magistrates, it is a very scarce book, and copies were formerly sold at great prices. But the hangman’s bonfire has lost its charm, and forbidden books, when they happen to occur, are no longer in much request. The first book out of five in this volume of Volkelius, on the attributes of God, is by Crellius. [90] Eichhorn, vi. part 1, p. 283. Simon, however, observes that Socinus knew little Greek or Hebrew, as he owns himself, though he pretends to decide questions which require a knowledge of these languages. I quote from Bibliothèque Universelle, vol. xxiii., p. 498. [91] Tillotson, in one of his sermons (I cannot give the reference, writing from memory), dissents, as might be expected, from this denial of natural religion, but with such encomiums on Socinus as some archbishops would have avoided. [92] Socinum sectæ ejus principes nuper Volkelius, nunc Ruarus non probant, in eo quod circa Dei cognitionem petita e natura rerum argumenta abdicaverit. Grot. Epist. 964. See too Ruari Epist., p. 210. |Crellius. Ruarus.| 40. Crellius was, perhaps, the most eminent of the Racovian school in this century.[93] Many of its members, like himself, were Germans, their sect having gained ground in some of the Lutheran states about this time, as it did also in the United Provinces. Grotius broke a lance with him in his treatise De Satisfactione Christi, to which he replied in another with the same title. Each retired from the field with the courtesies of chivalry towards his antagonist. The Dutch Arminians in general, though very erroneously, supposed to concur in all the leading tenets of the Racovian theologians, treated them with much respect.[94] Grotius was often reproached with the intimacies he kept up among these obnoxious sectaries; and many of his letters, as well as those of Curcellæus and other leading Arminians, bear witness to the personal regard they felt for them.[95] Several proofs of this will be also found in the epistles of Ruarus, a book which throws much light on the theological opinions of the age. Ruarus was a man of acuteness, learning, and piety, not wholly concurring with the Racovians, but not far removed from them.[96] The commentaries of Grotius on the Scriptures have been also charged with Socinianism; but he pleaded that his interpretations were those of the fathers.