Review 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 ἀληθεύειν ἐν ἀγάπῃ. 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.