"In these few statements is contained the entire theory of Hugo Grotius. What is essential to it lies in this main proposition : God neither would nor could forgive the sins of men without the setting up of a pe- nal example. This is done b}' the death of Christ. Hence the death of Christ is the necessarj' condition of the forgiveness of sin, and what it always actu- ally presupposes. The theorj-, therefore, hangs upon the idea of a penal example and of its presupposed necessity, and the question for us now to consider is how, by means of that idea, it stands related, on the one hand, to the theor}"^ of the Church which it would defend, and, on the other, to the Socinian theory which it vduld confute.
"As to its relation to the satisfaction-theory held bj' the Church, it will be seen at once that it asserts the necessity of the death of Christ in order to the for- giveness of sin, in a sense wholly different from that which the Church intends. If the death of Christ is necessary only as a penal example, then its necessity is grounded, not in the very nature of God himself, not in the idea of absolute justice, by which sin, guilt, and punishment are inseparably bound together, but merely in that outward relation which God holds to men as a ruler. The real object of consideration is not past sin, but future. The guilt of past sin may be removed immediatelj-, for God has the absolute right to remit punishment ; and a penal example is necessa- ry only fur the purpose of maintaining the honor of tb-^ law, and guarding against sin in time to come. The connection, therefore, between sin and punishment is not an inherent, internal connection, founded in the very nature of sin ; the design of punishment is mere- ly to prevent sin ; or, in other words, it is connected with sin onl}- in consequence of a positive law ema- nating from God as the supreme Ruler. Hence the final ground npon which Grotius goes back to prove the necessity of instituting a penal example is merely the penal sanction contained in Gen. ii, 17. The ad- vocates of the satisfaction-theory-, indeed, go back to the same sentence, but onh' to remark in it a necessa- ry outflowing of the divine justice. Grotius, on the contrary, takes the absolute idea of divine justice en- tirely away; for if he affirms, in opposition to Socinus, tliat justice is an attribute which belongs of itself to the very nature of God, but at the same time asserts that the actual exercise of the attribute depends on the -will of God, it is preciselj' the same as the asser- tion of Socinus himself, that penal justice is the effect of the divine will ; and if he further saj's that God does what he does not without a cause, still the ulti- mate ground is not God's absolute nature, but his ab- solute will, which is in itself e(iually competent to punisli or not to punish.
" Here, then, is an important distinction between the theory of Grotius and that of tlic Cliurch. The main
point in the Church's theory of satisfaction is that, if Christ had not made a strict and perfect satisfaction for men, they could not have been released from sin. Socinus objected to this that satisfaction and forgive- ness were contradictory ideas. This assertion Grotius, as the defender of the Church's doctrine of satisfaction, could not admit. He therefore replied that satisfaction and forgiveness were not strictly simultaneous; that, according to the conditions established b^- God, the latter then first follows the former when a man Ijv faith in Christ turns to God and praj's him for the forgive- ness of his sins. This distinction must certainly l)e made if the objection of Socinus is to he successful]}- met, and the two ideas are to be permitted to stand side by side. But Grotius could not stop here. If it is only a penal example tliat is furnished bj- the death of Christ, then the idea of satisfaction, strictly speak- ing, has no further relevancy. As, however, Grotius wished to retain this idea, he brought to his assistance a peculiar distinction which is made in law between the two ideas denoted respectively by the terms solutio and satisfactio. If, said Grotius, the verj- thing which is owed be paid either by the debtor himself, or, which is in this case the same thing, by another in the debtor's name, then the discharge of the debt takes place bv that verj' act ; but it is to be called a discharge, not a remission (remissio). Not so, however, when some- thing else is paid than the specific thing which was due. In this case there must be added, on the part of the creditor or ruler, an act of remission ns a personal act ; and it is this kind of paj-ment, that may be either accepted or refused b}- the creditor, which is pro])crly called, in the technical language of the law, satisfac* tion. "While, therefore, it was the original design of Grotius, in all this, merely to prove, in opposition to Socinus, that the idea of satisfaction did not exclude that of remission, what he really did was to substitute in place of the common idea of satisfaction a totally different one; for the common idea of satisfaction re?ls essentially on the supposition that Christ has rendered preciselj- the same thing which men themselves were to have rendered. If, now, such a payment (solutio) be, as Grotius asserts, no remission (remissio), Imt only a discharge (liberatio), then it must be conceded to So- cinus, which was the thing contested by Grotius, that the ideas of satisfaction and remission mutuallj- con- tradict and exclude each other, or, in other words, that the satisfaction which was made b}- Christ does not deserve the name of satisi^iction in the sense which the common theorj- of the Church connected with that ex- pression. But if Christ has not made satisfaction in this sense, if he has not truly and perfectl}- rendered for men what they were to have rendered for them- selves, then the idea of satisfaction can be applied oid}- so far as he has given to God something, whatever that something maj^ be, in place of that which was to have been rendered by men themselves in their relation to God. This, then, is the precise meaning of the theory of Grotius, and the difference between it and the satis- faction-theory of the Church. The idea of satisfaction is let down from its full and real import to the idea of a mere rendering of something ; Christ has made sat- isfaction so far as he has fulfilled a condition, of what- ever kind "it maj- be, upon whicii God has suspended the forgiveness of the sins of men — so far as he has given to God a something with reference to tiiat end. This something is tliat penal example without the set- ting forth of which God could not have forgiven the sins of men."