A REVIEW

OF

THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS

IN REFERENCE UNTO THE

DOCTRINE OF THE DEITY AND SATISFACTION OF CHRIST;

WITH

A DEFENCE OF THE CHARGE FORMERLY LAID AGAINST THEM.

HENRY HAMMOND, the chaplain of Charles I., and the sub-dean of Christ Church, Oxford, from which office he was expelled by the Parliamentary visitors in 1648, was a divine of eminent learning, and, besides other works, was the author of " Annotations on Scripture," which still deserve to be consulted, although disfigured by his habit of explaining much in the New Testament by reference to the Gnostic heresy. He was the opponent of Owen on several questions, relating to the nature of church-government, the authority of the Ignatian Epistles, and the orthodoxy of Hugo Grotius.

In 1617 Grotius published a refutation of the errors of Faustus Socinus, entitled, "A Defence of the Catholic Faith concerning the Satisfaction of Christ." Though opposed to the Socinians, the work was not deemed in perfect harmony with orthodox sentiment. Ravensperger in consequence assailed him, in a work entitled, "Judicium de Libro Grotii," etc. G. J. Vossius came to his defence in the following year. On the part of the Socinians, Crellius replied to Grotius. A complimentary letter from the latter to his opponent confirmed the suspicions entertained of his own orthodoxy. Crellius was answered by Essenius, Velthuysenius, and Stillingfleet.

Owen, in the preface to his treatise on the "Perseverance of the Saints," had alluded to Dr Hammond as indebted to Grotius "for more than one rare notion" in his expositions of Scripture. An elaborate reply to the whole argument of Dr Owen against the Ignatian Epistles, contained in the same preface, appeared in 1655 from the pen of Hammond, and under the title, "An Answer to the Animadversions on the Dissertations concerning the Epistles of Ignatius." In the course of it, a digression was introduced vindicating Grotius from charges which Owen certainly had not mooted, but in which, to a certain extent, he could not refrain from concurring. These charges were, that towards the close of his life the learned Dutchman had veered towards Socinianism, and had become favourable to the interests of the church of Rome. In regard to the charge of Socinian leanings, it was founded partly on his letter to Crellius, partly on certain expressions which fell from him on his death-bed, and partly on his Scholia on the Bible. Two volumes of these Scholia appeared in 1641 and 1644, before the death of Grotius; and two, one including the Acts and the Epistles of Paul and James, and the other including the six Catholic Epistles and the Revelation, were published posthumously in 1646 and 1650. These Scholia contain expositions of Scripture which differ considerably from what Grotius had given in his work "De Satisfactione Christi." Hammond argues that his letter to Crellius was but an interchange of civilities, in which he was not called to discuss the points of controversy between them; gives a different version of his death-bed utterances; and maintains that the posthumous Scholia, because contrary to the opinions which he avowed in his lifetime, were notes taken by Grotius in the course of his reading, and by no means to be regarded as expressing his own views. Owen, in his "Vindicia Evangelicæ," proceeded to trace the perfect correspondence between Grotius and the Socinians, in their exegesis of those passages in Scripture which relate to the person of Christ. Hammond issued his "Second Defence of Grotius." Owen answered him in the following treatise; and was answered by his indefatigable adversary in " A Continuation of the Defence of Grotius." If the position of Owen had been that Grotius was in reality a Socinian, he would have been worsted in this collision with Hammond; but he guards himself against being supposed to assume it, making express admission that Grotius allowed one text to be proof of the Saviour's Godhead. That Grotius played into the hands of the enemy, by the surrender of almost every other scriptural fortress in defence of this cardinal doctrine, and spoke of it in terms which betokened no very cordial appreciation of its importance, is what Owen asserted, and what cannot be disproved, except by the most worthless special pleading. Hammond could only make out his case for Grotius by denying all authority to his posthumous Annotations, which," says he, "I deem not competent measures to judge him by."-ED.

A SECOND CONSIDERATION

OF

THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS.

HAVING, in my late defence of the doctrine of the gospel from the corruptions of the Socinians, been occasioned to vindicate the testimonies given in the Scripture to the deity of Christ from their exceptions, and finding that Hugo Grotius, in his Annotations, had (for the most part) done the same things with them as to that particular, and some other important articles of the Christian faith, that book of his being more frequent in the hands of students than those of the Socinians, I thought it incumbent on me to do the same work in reference to those Annotations which it was my design to perform towards the writings of Socinus, Smalcius, and their companions and followers. What I have been enabled to accomplish by that endeavour, with what service to the gospel hath been performed thereby, is left to the judgment of them who desire aλú v ȧyázŋ. Of my dealing with Grotius I gave a brief account in my epistle to the governors of the university, and that with reference to an apology made for him not long before. This hath obtained a new apology, under the name of " A Second Defence of Hugo Grotius;" with what little advantage either to the repute of Grotius as to the thing in question or of the apologist himself, it is judged necessary to give the ensuing account, for which I took the first leisure hour I could obtain, having things of greater weight daily incumbent on me. The only thing of importance by me charged on those Annotations of Grotius was this,-that the texts of Scripture, both in the Old Testament and New, bearing witness to the deity and satisfaction of Christ, are in them wrested to other senses and significations, and the testimonies given to those grand truths thereby eluded. Of those of the first kind I excepted one, yet with some doubt, lest his expressions therein ought to be interpreted according to the analogy of what he had elsewhere delivered; of which afterward.

Because that which concerns THE SATISFACTION OF CHRIST will admit of the easiest despatch, though taking up most room, I shall in the first place insist thereon. The words of my charge on the

Annotations, as to this head of the doctrine of the Scripture, are these: "The condition of these famous Annotations as to the satisfaction of Christ is the same;-not one text in the whole Scripture wherein testimony is given to that sacred truth which is not wrested to another sense, or at least the doctrine in it concealed and obscured by them."

This being a matter of fact, and the words containing a crime charged on the Annotations, he that will make a defence of them must either disprove the assertion by instances to the contrary, or else, granting the matter of fact, evince it to be no crime. That which is objected in matter of fact "aut negandum est aut defendendum," says Quintilian, lib. v. cap. de Refut., and "extra hæc in judiciis fere nihil est." In other cases, "patronus neget, defendat, transferat, excuset, deprecetur, molliat, minuat, avertat, despiciat, derideat;" but in matters of fact the first two only have place. Aristotle allows more particulars for an apologist to divert unto, if the matter require it. He may say of what is objected, "Hws oùx ἔστιν, ἢ, ὡς οὐ βλαβερὸν, ἢ οὐ τούτῳ, ἢ ὡς οὗ τηλικοῦτο, ἢ οὐκ ἄδικον, ἢ οὐ μέγα, ἢ οὐκ αἰσχρὸν, ἢ οὐκ ἔχον μέγεθος (Rhet. lib. iii. cap. xv.); all which, in a plain matter of fact, may be reduced to the former heads. That any other apology can or ought to take place in this or any matter of the same importance will not easily be proved. The present apologist takes another course; such ordinary paths are not for him to walk in. He tells us of the excellent book that Grotius wrote, "De Satisfactione Christi," and the exposition of sundry places of Scripture, especially of divers verses of Isa. liii. given therein, and then adds sundry inducements to persuade us that he was of the same mind in his " Annotations;" and this is called a defence of Grotius! The apologist, I suppose, knows full well what texts of Scripture they are that are constantly pleaded for the satisfaction of Christ by them who do believe that doctrine. I shall also for once take it for granted that he might without much difficulty have obtained a sight of Grotius' Annotations; to which I shall only add, that probably, if he could from them have disproved the assertion before mentioned by any considerable instances, he is not so tender of the prefacer's credit as to have concealed it on any such account. But the severals of his plea for the Annotations in this particular, I am persuaded, are accounted by some worthy of consideration. A brief view of them will suffice.

The signal place of Isa. liii., he tells us, "he hath heard taken notice of by some" (I thought it had been probable the apologist might have taken notice of it himself), as that wherein his Annotations are most suspected, therefore on that he will fasten a while. Who would not now expect that the apologist should have entered upon the consideration of those Annotations, and vindicated them from

the imputations insinuated? but he knew a better way of procedure, and who shall prescribe to him what suits his purpose and proposal?

This, I say, is the instance chosen to be insisted on; and the vindication of the Annotations therein by the interpretation given in their author's book, De Satisfactione Christi, is proposed to consideration. That others, if not the apologist himself, may take notice of the emptiness of such precipitate apologies as are ready to be tumbled out without due digestion or consideration, I shall not only compare the Annotations and that book as to the particular place proposed, and manifest the inconsistency of the one with the other, but also, to discover the extreme negligence and confidence which lie at the bottom of his following attempt to induce a persuasion that the judgment of the man of whom we speak was not altered (that is, as to the interpretation of the scriptures relating to the satisfaction of Christ), nor is other [i. e., different] in his Annotations than in that book, I shall compare the one with the other by sundry other instances, and let the world see how, in the most important places contested about, he hath utterly deserted the interpretations given of them by himself in his book De Satisfactione, and directly taken up that which he did oppose.

The apologist binds me, in the first place, to that of Isa. liii., which is ushered in by 1 Pet. ii. 24.

"From 1 Pet. ii. 24," says the apologist, "Grotius informs us 'that Christ so bare our sins that he freed us from them, so that we are healed by his stripes.""

This, thus crudely proposed,-Socinus himself would grant it,— is little more than barely repeating the words. Grotius goes farther, and contends that driveyx, the word there used by the apostle, is to be interpreted "tulit sursum eundo, portavit;" and tells us that Socinus would render this word "abstulit," and so take away the force of the argument from this place. To disprove that insinuation, he urges sundry other places in the New Testament where some words of the same importance are used and are no way capable of such a signification. And whereas Socinus urges to the contrary Heb. ix. 28, where he says avevεyxEN άuaprías signifies nothing but "auferre peccata," Grotius disproves that instance, and manifests that in that place also it is to be rendered by " tulit," and so relates to the death of Christ.

That we may put this instance, given us by the apologist to vindicate the Annotations from the crime charged on them, to an issue, I shall give the reader the words of his Annotations on that place. They are as follow:

*Ος τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν αὐτὸς ἀνήνεγκεν, etc. "'Avveyxe hic est abstulit, quod sequentia ostendunt, quomodo idem verbum sumi notavimus, Heb. ix. 28, eodem sensu; ä¡per àμapríav, Johan. i. 29;