s o c 



ihiiik It proper to diftingui(h them by any other namea than 

 thole by which they were known to the natives ; viz. 

 Ulietea, Otaiia, Bolabola, Huaheine, Tubai, and Maurua. 

 See each refpeAively. They are fituated between S. lat. 

 16° 10' and 16" 55', and between W. long. 150" 57' and 152°. 

 Ulietea and Otaha lie within about two miles of each other, 

 and are both inclofed within one reef of coral rocks, fo that 

 there is no pafTage for (hipping between them. This reef 

 forms feveral excellent harbours ; and though the entrances 

 into them are narrow, yet a (hip within them is exempt from 

 all injury. The inhabitants, climate, and produce, are fimi- 

 lar, in many refpefts, to thofe of Otaheite, from which 

 ifland they are not above 50 leagues dillant towards the 

 N. W. Captain Cook fays, " while we were employed about 

 thefe iflands, we expended very little of the fliip's provifions, 

 and were very plentifully iupplied with hogs, fowls, plan- 

 tains, and yams, which we hoped would be of great ufe to 

 us in our courfc to the fouthward ; but the hogs would not 

 eat European grain of any kind, pulfe, or bread-duft, fo 

 that we could not preferve them alive ; and the fowls were 

 ▼ery foon feized with a difeafe that affeftcd the head, fo that 

 they continued to hold it down between their legs till they 

 died : much dependence, therefore, mud not be placed in 

 live-llock taken on board at thefe places, at leall not till a 

 difcovery is made of fome food which the hogs will eat, and 

 fome remedy for the difeafe of the poultry." 



SociETY-Land, a townfhip of America, in the ftate of 

 New Hamplhire and county of HiUlborough ; containing 

 199 inhabitants. 



SOCII, Allies, among the Romans. See Alli.\nce 

 and Social IVar. 



SOCINIANS, in Ecchftaftcal Hiftory, a feft of Anti- 

 trinitarians, who arc faid to have derived this denomination 

 from the illuflrious family of the Sozzini, which flourilhed 

 a long time at Sienna, in Tufcany, and produced feveral 

 great and eminent men ; and, among others, La;hu6 and 

 Faullus Socinus, who are commonly fuppofed to have been 

 the founders of this fedt. Lxlius was the fon of Marianus, 

 a famous lawyer, and diltinguifhed by his genius and learn- 

 ing, as well as by the luitre of an unblcmifhed and virtuous 

 conduct. Having conceived a diigull againft popery, and 

 difapproviag many doftrines of the church, he left his coun- 

 try in 1547 ; and having palled four years in vifiting France, 

 England, Holland, Germany, and Poland, he at lait fixed 

 his refidence at Zurich, in Switzerland, where he died in 

 1562, in the thirty-feventh year of his age. Although he 

 adopted the Helvetic confeffion of f'iitl)» and profelled him- 

 felf a member of the church of Switzerland, he entertained 

 doubts with refpedl to certain doftrines of religion, whicii 

 he communicated to fome learned men, whofe judgment he 

 refpefted, and in whofe friendftiip he could confide. How- 

 ever, liis icntiments were propagated in a more public man- 

 ner, after his death ; as Fauftus, his nephew and his heir, 

 w luppofed to have drawn from the papers he left behind 

 him, that religious fyllem, upon wiiich the feft of the So- 

 cinians was founded. This Faullus Socinus was born at 

 Sienna in 1539; and having continued many years in his 

 own country, twelve of which he fpent in the court of the 

 grand duke of Tufcany, lie determined, in the year 1574, 

 i and the thirty-fifth of his age, to withdraw from Italy into 

 Germany. During this period he had laboured under many 

 difadvantages in the purfuit of knowledge, and his iludies 

 had been chiefly confined to the rudiments of logic and ju- 

 rifprudence ; but at Bafil, where he firlt refidcd after his 

 voluntary exile, he devoted himfelf for three years to the 

 Ihidy of theology, under the direftion and aflillance of the 

 writings of his uncle Lxlius ; and in 1577 he began to pro- 



s o c 



pagate his religious opinions without referve or difguife. la 

 1578 he was invited by Blandrata, a perfon of eminence in 

 Tranfylvania, to compofe the commotions which were occa- 

 fioned by a party under the lead of Francis David, in the 

 Antitrinitarian churches of that country. But faihng of 

 fuccefs, he removed to Poland in 1579, zealoufly wilhing to 

 join himfelf to the Unitarian churches ; but here he fuffered 

 many vexations, and much oppofition, from a confiderable 

 number of perfons, who looked upon fome of his tenets as 

 highly erroneous. At length, however, he vanquilhed the 

 animofity of his enemies by his gentlenefs and firmnefs, by 

 his addrefs and eloquence, and the favour and proteftion of 

 the nobility, with which he was honoured, and lived to form 

 the Unitarians into one community, under his own fuperin- 

 teadency and direftion. Having retired to a village about 

 nine miles from Cracow, he there clofed his life, in the 

 year 1604 > ^^"^ ^^^ following epitaph was infcribed on his 

 tomb : 



" Tota licet Babylon deftruxit tefta Lutherus, 

 Muros Calvinus, fed fundamenta Socinus :" 



i. t. Luther deftroyed the houfes of Babylon, Calvin the 

 walls, but Socinus fubverted the foundations. The fenti- 

 ments of Socinus, with regard to the principal theological 

 fubjefts controverted among Chrillians, will appear in the 

 following abltraft of them from his own writings ; fome of 

 which were pubhlhed during his own life, and fome after 

 his death ; and the coUeftion of them, in two volumes, 

 folio, forms part of the " Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum." 

 With regard to the nature and charafter of Chrift, Socinus 

 maintained, that he was a man, conceived and formed in the 

 womb of the Virgin, without the intervention of a man, by 

 the power of the divine fpirit ; on this account he was, in 

 a pecuhar fenfe, God's own and only begotten fon, as no 

 other perfon ever was the fon of God in the fame way, by 

 the immediate origin of his being. Moreover, he was con- 

 llituted the fon of God by his refurreftion from the dead, 

 and was then begotten by God, when God raifed him from 

 the dead. As to thofe pafl'ages which have been fuppofed 

 to alfert Chrill's exillence in the heavenly world, previous 

 to iiis birth and appearance among men, he explains them, 

 by aUeging that Chrilt himfelf, after he was born, and be- 

 fore he entered on the office affigned him by his Father, was, 

 in confequence of the divine counfel and agency, in heaven, 

 and remained there for fome time ; that he might hear from 

 God, and being with him, ar- the Scripture fays, might fee 

 thofe things which he was to announce to the world, in the 

 name of God himfelf; though he explains John, iii. 13, as 

 figurative language. Accordingly, in explaining the firlt 

 words of St. .John's gofpel, In the beginning ivas the ivord, 

 &c. he obferves, that the terms, in the beginning, do not re- 

 late to eternity, but to the order of thofe things which 

 •John was about to write concerning .Tefus Chrill ; imitating 

 Mofes, who, in writing his hiftory, opens his introduftion 

 with this word beginning, in reference to the tranfaftions 

 which he was about to record. And Jcfus is called the 

 Word, he iuppofes, not on account of his nature or fub- 

 (lance, but btcaufe of the ofEce he difcharged when he re- 

 vealed to us the word of tiie gofpel from the Father. The 

 luard auas luith God, i. e. Jefus, as the word of God, before 

 he was pointed out by the preaching of the Baptilt, was 

 known to God alone. And the ivord ivas God: the term 

 God, fays this commentator, does not denote (ubllancc, but 

 autliority, power, and beneficence, whicii were derived from 

 the Father, and which entitled Chrift, according to the 

 opinion ol this writer, to adoration and worlhip. His ideas 

 of the cfikacy of our Lurd't death and mediation are utterly 



rcpuguant 



