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 opinions had long been developed there. Under the protection of the Transylvanian Prince, Stephen Bathory, the sect had flourished, and had acquired in the town of Racow its own school, church, and printing-press. Sozzini speedily won great influence, and was able to influence the doctrines of the Unitarians. Eventually the sect received his name, and was known as Socinian.

The distinctive doctrine of the Socinians was the denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, the teaching of One God. They recognised divinity in the Father alone, and denied it 'to the Son and the Holy Ghost. They reverenced Christ as the Messiah, as a teacher and a reformer, but as a human being. They believed nevertheless in His supernatural birth, in His miracles, His resurrection, His ascension. They believed that He received revelations from the Father. They followed also the Bible as their guide and standard; giving it their own interpretation, which differed from that of the Protestants and of the Fathers of Nicaea. They rejected the Augustinian doctrine of original sin, and believed that salvation was to be obtained by conscientious following of Christ's teaching, and virtuous living. They rejected therefore also the doctrine of the Atonement. Baptism was for them only the symbol of admission into the Christian communion, and the Lord's Supper a mere memorial. This remarkable sect had its origin in the active brains of speculative Italians, its favourable ground for growth in the religious liberty or anarchy of Poland, but it received its definite organisation, its tenets, and its name from Fausto Sozzini.