A KEVIEW OF THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS. 629
in another place (on verse 8), " Sequitur Christum quoque obtulisse pro se vTsp a,(ji,apTiuv.:" giving thereby such a sense to that expression as is utterly inconsistent with a proper expiatory sacrifice for sin. And, which is yet worse, on chap. ix. 14 he gives us such an account why expiation is ascribed to the blood of Christ, as is a key to his whole interpretation of that epistle. " Sancfuini," saith he, " pur- gatio ista tribuitur, quia per sanguinem, id est, mortem Christi, secuta ejus excitatione et evectione, gignitur in nobis fides, quse deinde fides corcla piirgat." And, therefore, where Christ is said to offer himself by the eternal Spirit, he tells us, " Oblatio Christi hie intelligitur ilia, quse oblationi legali in adyto factse respondet, ea autem est, non oblatio in altari crucis facta, sed facta in adyto coelesti." So that the purgation of sin is an effect of Christ's presenting himself in heaven only ; which how well it agrees with what the apostle says, chap. i. S, the reader will easily judge. And to manifest that this was his con- stant sense, on these words, verse 26, EJg dderyjaiv ccf/^aprjag, hik rljg ^v(r!ag aiirou, he thus Comments: " E/g dfsrTigiv d/j^apriag. Ut pecca- tum in nobis exting^ieretur ; fit autem hoc per passionem Christi, quse fidem nobis ingenerat, quae corda purificat." Christ confirming his doctrine by his death, begets faith in us, which doth the work. Of the 28th verse of the same chapter I have spoken before. The same he affirms again more expressly on chap. x. 3; and verses 9, 12, he interprets the oblation of Christ, whereby he took away sin, to be the oblation or offering of himself in heaven, whereby sin is taken away by sanctification, as also in sundry other places where the ex- piatory sacrifice of Christ on earth, and the taking away of the guilt of sin by satisfaction, are evidently intended. So that notwithstand- ing the concession mentioned, I cannot see the least reason to alter my thoughts of the Annotations as to this business on hand.
Not farther to abound in causa facili, in all the differences we have with the Socinians about Christ's dying for us, concerning the nature of redemption, reconciliation, mediation, sacrifice, the mean- ing of all the phrases and expressions in which these things are de- livered to us, the annotator is generally on the apostate side through- out his Annotations; and the truth is, I know no reason why our students should with so much diligence and charge labour to get into their hands the books of Socinus, Crelliiis, Smalcius, and the rest of that crew, seeing these Annotations, as to the most important heads of Christian religion, about the deity, sacrifice, priesthood, and satisfaction of Christ, original sin, free will, justification, etc., afford them the substance and maiTOw of what is spoken by them; so that as to these heads, upon the matter, there is nothing peculiar to the annotator but the secular learning which in his interpretations he hath curiously and gallantly interweaved. Plautus makes sport, in his Amphitryo, Avith several persons, some real, some assumed, of
630 A REVIEW OF THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS.
such likeness one to another that they could not discern themselves by any outward appearance; which caused various contests and mistakes between them. The poet's fancy raised not a greater similitude be- tween Mercury and Sosia, being supposed to be different persons, than there is a dissimilitude between the author of the book De Satisfactione Cliristi and of the Annotations conceruinof which we have been discoursing, being one and the same. Nor was the con- test of those different persons, so like one another, so irreconcilable as are these of this single person, so unlike himself in the several treatises mentioned. And I cannot but think it strange that the apologist could imagine no surer measure to be taken of Grotius' meaning in his Annotations than his treatise of the Satisfaction of Christ doth afford, there being no two treatises that I know, of any different persons whatever, about one and the same subject, that are more at variance. Whether now any will be persuaded by the apo- logist to believe that Grotius was constant in his Annotations to the doctrine delivered in that other treatise I am not solicitous.
For the re-enforced plea of the apologist, that these Annotations were not finished by him, but only collections, that he might after dispose of, I am not concerned in it, having to deal with that book of Annotations that goes under his name. If they are none of his, it is neither on the one hand nor other of any concernment unto me. I say not this as though the apologist had in the least made good his former plea by his new exceptions to my evidence against it, from the printer's preface to the volume of Annotations on the Epistles. He says, " What was the opus integrum that was commended to the care of o hiTvaV and answers himself, " Not that last part or volume of Annotations, but opus integrum, the whole volume or volumes that contained his av'sythoTa adversaria on the New Testament." For how ill this agrees with the intention and words of the prefacer, a slight inspection will suffice to manifest. He tells us that Grotius had himself published his Annotations on the Gospels five years be- fore; that at his departure from Paris, he left a great part of this volume (that is this on the Acts and Epistles) with a friend ; that the reason why he left not opus integrum, that is, the whole volume, with him was because the residue of it was not so written as that an amanuensis could well understand it; that, therefore, in his going towards Sweden, he wrote that part again with his own hand, and sent it back to the same person (that had the former part of the volume committed to him) from Hamburg. If the apologist read this preface, he ought, as I suppose, to have desisted from the plea insisted on. If he did not, he thought assuredly he had much rea- son to despise them with whom he had to do. But, as I said, herein am I not concerned.