The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VI. Hammond-First English Proponent of Preterism

HENRY HAMMOND (16051660), called the “Father of Eng lish Biblical Criticism,” was born in Chertsey and educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. Ordained in 1629, he was given a living at Penshurst, Kent, and was a frequent preacher at Paul’s Cross. In 1643 he was made archdeacon of Chichestcr and member of the Westminster Assembly, but never sat with them. And in 1645 he was made canon of Christ Church and was one of the royal chaplains. PFF2 524.1

Hammond was author of fifty-eight works, ⁶⁷ his Paraphrase and Annotations (1653) being the best known. In this he followed Grotius closely in his Preterist views, though without naming him. Le Clerc, who translated Hammond’s Paraphrase into Latin in 1698, indicated that the name was omitted that it might have a more ready hearing. He was apparently the first English cleric to abandon the Protestant Historical School for the Jesuit counterview. Employing the Preterist key in explaining the Apocalypse, he stressed the expression, “Things which must shortly come to pass.” PFF2 525.1

A brief fivefold summary will suffice to cover Hammond’s main positions. (1) The first beast of Revelation is, by him, restricted to pagan Rome, the seven heads to seven Roman emperors—and the ten horns are ten kings as well. ⁶⁸ (2) The two-horned beast, of the same chapter, is applied to the heathen priests, and the persecution as resulting from the edicts against the early Christians. ⁶⁹ (3) Revelation 17 is likewise limited to the vile iniquities and cruel persecutions of imperial Rome, and by the seven heads, or kings, are specified Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian (then reigning), and Titus (then yet to come). ⁷⁰ (4) Revelation 18, similarly considered, is a portrayal of the desolation of heathen Rome by the barbarians, under Alaric and others. ⁷¹ (5) Revelation 20 is expounded by Hammond as portraying the thousand years of tranquillity and freedom from persecution, after the conversion of Constantine, with the resurrection as the flourishing condition of the church under the Messias. The loosing of Satan is set forth as the time of the Mohammedan incursions, Mohammedanism being also called Gog and Magog, and the compassing of the city is the siege of Constantinople, in 1453. ⁷² Such are the astonishing declartions of Hammond, the first English Protestant Preterist. PFF2 525.2