Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 36:144 (Oct 1879)
Article: Notes On Grotius’s Defence
Author: Frank Hugh Foster

BSac 36:144 (Oct 1879) p. 616

Notes On Grotius’s Defence

Rev. Frank H. Foster

Chapter 1

Note A, P. 106

Origin of this Treatise. — The doctrine of the atonement was not a principal issue in the discussions of the Reformation period. The real centre of this movement was in the doctrine of justification by faith alone, in contrast with the Mediaeval doctrine of justification by works. The atonement received some attention as affording the objective basis of justification, and with more or less completeness the Reformers formed and taught a theory of the method of its operation. Still the atonement was not in any proper sense a principal issue of the times. We find in the writings of the Reformers a great deal said about the church and the sacraments, about predestination and grace, and they pursue the discussion of justification with Antinomians and others. But what discussion of the atonement there is, is called out by the inclinations of individual minds, rather than by the exigencies of the great controversy with Rome. Even the Council of Trent, although it alludes to the subject in its comments upon the Apostles’ Creed, does not define the doctrine of the atonement as a distinct topic.

Accordingly, Grotius’s treatise springs only indirectly from the general current of the times. It is strictly a reply to the treatise of Socinus. It has no connection with other previous writers, whether Protestant or Catholic, but with Socinus alone.

The Socinian views were first held by Laelius Socinus, but were adopted and promulgated with great zeal and success by his nephew Faustus. When rightly estimated the Socinian views appear to us in two aspects, partly as a natural recoil from the extreme views of some Protestant theologians, and partly as a rejection of the supernatural element in theology. We can but sympathize with a man who rejects views about sin and justice which outrage those funda-

BSac 36:144 (Oct 1879) p. 617

mental and constitutional beliefs upon which are founded our moral and intellectual life. But on the other hand, we cannot avoid the impression that Socinus in rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity and an expiatory atonement, showed himself to be without deep religious feeling and moral earnestness. Grotius seems to have perceived this double character of the Socinian theology, and on the one part undoubtedly sympathized with many of the objections raised against the ordinary method of presenting the atonement. But, on the other, he felt a deep religious repugnance to the system as a whole, as appears from the almost impassioned manner in which he closes this treatise. It may be that he was influenced by the charge of Socinianism which was made against the Arminians ...