A REVIEW OF THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS. 635
sense, decked with many Platonical encomiums, was intended in the Annotations on John i. (though I confess much, from some quota- tions there used, may be said against it), I shall readily undertake the task ; but at present, in this running course, I shall add no more. But now, as if all the matter in hand were fully despatched, we have this triumphant close attending the former discourse and ob- servations:—
" If one text acknowledged to assert Christ's eternal divinity" (which one was granted to do it, though not clearly) " will not suffice to conclude him no Socinian" (which I said not he was, yea, ex- pressly waived the management of any such charge) ; " if six verses in the Proverbs, two in Isaiah, one in St Peter, one in St Paul, added to many in the beginning of St John" (in his annotations on all which he speaks not one word to the purpose), " will not yet amount to above one text ; or, lastly, if that one may be doubted of also which is by him interpreted to affirm Christ's eternal subsist- ence with God before the creation of the world" (which he doth not so interpret as to a personal subsistence), " and that the whole Avorld was created by him, — I shall despair of ever being a successful ad- vocate for any man:" from which condition I hope some little time will recover the apologist.
This is the sum of what is pleaded in chief for the defence of the Annotations; wherein what small cause he hath to acquiesce who hath been put to the labour and trouble of vindicating near forty texts of Scripture, in the Old Testament and New, giving express testimony to the deity of Christ, from the annotator's perverse inter- pretations, let the reader judge. In the 13th section of the apolo- gist's discourse, he adds some other considerations to confirm his former vindication of the Annotations.
He tells us that he " professeth not to divine what places of the Old Testament, wherein the deity of Christ is evidently testified unto, are corrupted by the learned man ; nor will he, upon the dis- couragement already received, make any inquiry into my treatise." But what need of divination? The apologist cannot but remember at all times some of the texts of the Old Testament that are pleaded to that purpose ; and he hath at least as many encouragements to look into the Annotations as discouragements from casting an eye upon that volume, as he calls it, wherein they are called to an ac- count. And if he suppose he can make a just defence for the several places so wrested and perverted without once consulting them, I know not how by me he might possibly be engaged into such an inquiry; and therefore I shall not name them again, having done somewhat more than name them already.
But he hath two suppletory considerations that will render any such inquiry or inspection needless. Of these the first is, — -
G36 A EEVIEW OF THE ANNOTATIONS OF HUGO GROTIUS.
" That the word of God being all and every part of it of equal truth, that doctrine which is founded on five places of divine writ must by all Christians be acknowledged to be as irrefragably con- firmed as a hundred express places would be conceived to con- firm if"
Ans. It is confessed that not only five, but any one express text of Scripture, is sufficient for the confirmation of any divine truth ; but that five places have been produced out of the Annotations by the apologist, for the confirmation of the great truth pleaded about, is but pretended, — indeed there is no such thing. The charge on Grotius was, that he had depraved all but one. If that be no crime, the defence was at hand ; if it be, though that one should be acknow- ledged to be clear to that purpose, here is no defence against that which was charged, but a strife about that which was not. Let the places be consulted : if the assertion prove true by an induction of instances, the crime is to be confessed, or else the charge denied to contain a crime. But, secondly, he says, —
" That this charge, upon inquiry, will be found in some degree, if not equally, chargeable on the leamedest and most valuable of the first reformers, particularly upon Mr Calvin himself, who hath been as bitterly and unjustly accused and reviled upon this account (wit- ness the book intitled 'Calvino Turcismus') as ever Erasmus was by Bellarmine and Beza, or as probably Grotius may be."
Though this, at the best, be but a diversion of the charge, and no defence, yet, not containing that truth which is needful to counte- nance it for the end for which it is proposed, I could not pass it by. It is denied (which in this case, until farther proof, must suffice) that any of the learnedst of the first reformers, and particularly Mr Calvin, are equally chargeable, or in any degree of proportion, with Grotius, as to the crime insisted on. Calvin being the man instanced in, I desire the apologist to prove that he hath, in all his commentaries on the Scripture, corrupted the sense of any text of the Old Testa- ment or New giving express testimony to the deity of Christ, and commonly pleaded to that end and purpose; although I deny not but that he differs from the common judgment of most in the inter- pretation of some few prophetical passages judged by them to relate to Chrisi I know what Genebrard and some others of that faction raved against him; but it was chiefly from some expressions in his Institutes about the Trinity (wherein yet he is acquitted by the most learned of themselves), and not from his expositions of Scrip- ture, from which they raised their clamours. For the book called " Calvino Turcismus," written by Reynolds and Giffard, the apolo- gist has forgotten the design of it. Calvin is no more concerned in it than others of the first reformers; nor is it from any doctrine about the deity of Christ in particular, but from the whole of the reformed