What difference there is between the design of the annotator and that of Socinus, what compliance in the quotation of the parallel place of the Hebrews, what direct opposition and head is made in the Annotations against that book De Satisfactione, and how clearly the cause contended for in the one is given away in the other, need no farther to be demonstrated. But if this instance make not good the apologist's assertion, it may be supposed that that which follows, which is ushered in by this, will do it to the purpose. Let, then, that come into consideration.
A REVIEW OF THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS. 623
This is that of Isa. hii. Somewhat of the sense which Grotiiis in his book De Satisfactions contends for in this place is given us by the apologist : —
The 11th verse of the chapter, Avhich he first considers (in my book, p. 14), he thus proposes and expounds: — " Justificahit servus mens, jiistus- multos et iniquitates ipsoruin hajulabit, in Heb. est, 73D'; Xin Dnhij;'!.. Vox autem liV iniquitatem significat, atque etiam iniquitatis poenam, 2 Heg. vii. 9 ; vox autem ''?? est sustinere, baju- lare, quoties autem bajulare ponitur cum nomine peccati aut iniqui- tatis, id in omni lingua et maxime in Hebraismo significat poenas ferre;" with much more to this purpose. The whole design of the main dispute in that place is from that discourse of the prophet to prove that Jesus Christ "' properly underwent the punishment due to our sins, and thereby made satisfaction to God for them."
To manifest his constancy to this doctrine, in his Annotations he gives such an exposition of that whole chapter of Isaiah as is mani- festly and universally inconsistent with any such design in the words as that which he intends to prove from them in his book De Satis- factione. In particular (to give one instance of this assertion) he contends here that ^49 is as much as " bajulare, portare," and that joined with " iniquity " (in all languages, especially in the Hebrew), that phrase of " bearing iniquity " signifies to undergo the punish- ment due to it. In his Annotations on the place, as also in those on 1 Pet. ii. 24, he tells you the word signifies " auferre," which with all his strength he had contended against. Not to draw out this particular instance into any greater length, I make bold to tell the apologist (what I suppose he knows not) that there is no one verse of the whole chapter so interpreted in his Annotations as that the sense given by him is consistent with, nay, is not repugnant to, that which from the same verse he pleads for in his book De Satisfactione Christi. If, notwithstanding this information, the apo- logist be not satisfied, let him, if he please, consider what I have already animadverted on those Annotations, and undertake their vindication. These loose discourses are not at all to the purpose in hand nor to the question between us, which is solely whether Grotius, in his Annotations, have not perverted the sense of those texts of Scripture which are commonly and most righteously pleaded as testi- monies given to the satisfaction of Christ. But as to this particular place of Isaiah, the apologist hath a farther plea, the sum whereof (not to trouble the reader with the repetition of a discourse so little to the purpose) comes to this head, that Grotius, in his book De Satisfactione Christi, gives the mystical sense of the chapter, under which consideration it belongs to Christ and his sufferings; in his Annotations, the literal, which had its immediate completion in Jeremiah; which was not so easily discoverable or vulgarly taken
624 A EEVIEW OF THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS.
notice of. This is the sum of his first observation on this place, to acquit the annotator of the crime charged upon him. Whether he approve the application of the prophecy to Jeremiah or no, I know not. He says, " Grotius so conceived." The design of the discourse seems to give approbation to that conception. How the literal sense of a place should come to be less easily discovered than the mystical, well I know not. Nor shall I speak of the thing itself, concerning the literal and mystical sense supposed to be in the same place and words of Scripture, with the application of the distinction to those prophecies which have a double accomplishment, in the type and thing or person typified (which yet hath no soundness in it): but, to keep to the matter now in hand, I shall make bold, for the removal of this engine applied by the apologist, and for the preventing all possible mistake or controversy about the annotator's after-change in this matter, to tell him that the perverting of the first, literal sense of the chapter, or giving it a completion in any person whatsoever, in a first, second, or third sense, but the Son of God himself, is no less than blasphemy ; which the annotator is no otherwise freed from but by his conceiving a sense to be in the words contrary to their literal importance, and utterly exclusive of the concernment of Jesus Christ in them. If the apologist be otherwise minded, I shall not invite him again to the consideration of what I have already written in the vindication of the whole prophecy from the wretched, corrupt interpretation of the annotator (not hoping that he will be able to break through that discouragement he hath from looking into that treatise by the prospect he hath taken of the whole by the e^^istle), but do express my earnest desire, that, by an exposition of the severals of that chapter, and their application to any other (not by loose discourses foreign to the question in hand), he would endeavour to evince the contrary. If, on second thoughts, he find either his judgment or ability not ready or competent for such an attempt, I heartily wish he would be careful hereafter of ingenerating appre- hensions of that nature in the minds of others by any such discourses as this.