Repent Ye, For The Kingdome Of Heaven Is At Hand: Henry Hammond’s Commentary And Sermon On Matthew 3:2

By Matthew Lanser

[Matthew Lanser is a Th.M. student in the history of Christianity at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Mich.]

Introduction

In the traditional scholarly portrayal, the seventeenth century was a dark period for biblical commentary, a time in which dogmatic concerns and quests for proof-texts trumped attention to the Scriptural texts themselves.[1] Those scholars who did look at seventeenth-century exegetes tended to downplay orthodox interpreters and give more space to heterodox authors such as Hugo Grotius and Richard Simon, who were portrayed as more neatly exemplifying preferred modern interpretive methods.[2] In a similar but more specific move, de Jonge and van Rooden indicated that the commentaries of the time focused either exclusively upon historical, philological, and textual concerns (thereby foreshadowing more modern approaches) or just upon dogmatic, ahistorical theological concerns.[3] A more recent movement, led especially by Muller, has strongly critiqued this older, dogmatic view. This newer scholarship has portrayed the seventeenth century as a time in which commentators were quite sensitive to historical and philological concerns and paid close attention to the texts in their interpretation of the Bible. This view also considerably nuanced the basic typology of philological and theological commentaries standing over against each other and suggested some continuity between the varied interpretive methods of the seventeenth century and those of older periods.[4] This rehabilitation of the interpretive efforts of the seventeenth century has led to more attention being paid to specific commentators of the time, especially those standing within the stream of Reformed orthodoxy.[5] However, given the quantity and quality of commentators of the seventeenth century, the field has much ground yet to be tilled. In particular, very little has been done to explore the work of Henry Hammond, who was both a significant biblical commentator and a well-respected Anglican churchman and preacher in the mid-seventeenth century. In light of this lacuna in scholarship of the era, this study will seek to contribute to the broader discussion of seventeenth-century interpretation by examining Hammond’s method and message in his commentary on Matt 3:2.

Additionally, this study will examine Hammond’s sermon on that text in order to illuminate his interpretive concerns and emphases. While a number of scholars have profitably employed this approach with regard to John Calvin’s commentaries and sermons, almost nothing has been done to compare explicitly seventeenth-century figures’ commentaries and sermons.[6]

In contrast, a great deal of attention has been paid to categorizing and explicating seventeenth-century English sermons. Mitchell’s proposal for a “metaphysical” type of preaching and Blench’s typology of ancient, modern, and new Reformed/plain sermon styles have provided the basic categories within which other scholars work or against which they react.[7] The general consensus over the last few decades has been that homiletics in seventeenth-century England moved from being more “grand” or “ornate” toward more “plain” style over time, with Anglican preachers tending more toward the former style and Puritan preachers tending more toward the latter, although most recent scholarship—especially Morrissey—has increasingly tended to blur the Anglican/Puritan stylistic lines and consider sermons less along party lines and more in terms of their individual features and goals.[8] Along these lines, Dahlman has recently examined a number of preaching manuals and sermons to argue that, over the course of the seventeenth century, the Anglican “High Churchmen” increasingly employed Puritan methods for preaching but redirected those methods to support a moralistic goal.[9] I propose to interact with this broad discussion by observing some ways in which Hammond’s sermon on Matt 3:2 either coheres with or challenges the proposals for sermon categories offered by the most significant scholarship to date, with the intention of providing a perspective from one particular preacher rather than offering authoritative generalizations for the whole field.

Over the years, a number of scholars have placed Hammond at a variety of points on the seventeenth-century Puritan-Anglican theological continuum,[10] but within the past couple of decades Lettinga and McGiffert have been the two scholars to make the most explicit, significant attempts to locate Hammond theologically. As he considers Hammond’s work, Lettinga finds a covenant theology that uses the Puritans’ theological language but radically redefines the meaning and sense of the covenant and its key implications, and so Lettinga ultimately portrays Hammond in terms of “Caroline Anglican moralism.”[11] One must note, however, that Lettinga intends to use the term “moralism” “descriptively” to highlight emphasis on human moral action rather than “pejoratively” to indicate a viewpoint that human works are sufficient for salvation.[12] On a different tack, McGiffert has presented his own model of a Hammond who had Puritan leanings early in his life but quickly moved to a more politically expedient and theologically explicit Arminian Anglicanism.[13] Generally, academics have considered Hammond principally on the basis of his catechism and tracts—McGiffert being something of an exception to this trend as he also considers some sermons—and so this article will seek to address this discussion specifically from the vantage point of Hammond’s commentary and sermons. While this approach will not suffice to make authoritative statements about the whole of Hammond’s work, it may serve to continue to move the discussion along the lines of Hammond as a moralistically focused Anglican who, while he may have some affinities with the Puritans, primarily presents a very different theological picture.

In sum then, this article will demonstrate that Henry Hammond’s commentary on Matt 3:2 follows certain medieval and humanist methods of biblical interpretation but does so in a way that both strongly challenges the depiction of the seventeenth century as merely an era of dogmatic proof-texting and nuances the proposed typology of seventeenth-century commentaries as having either exclusively philological or only theological interests. This article will further demonstrate that Hammond’s interpretive work in both his commentary and sermon on Matt 3:2 functions within the genres and interpretive milieus for biblical interpretation in his day to present a view of repentance and the kingdom of heaven that heavily emphasizes the importance of human response for salvation, even to the point of being moralistic.

II. Hammond’s Commentary On Matthew 3:2

1. The Method Of Hammond’s Paraphrases And Annotations

In keeping with its title of A Paraphrase, and Annotations upon All the Books of the New Testament: Briefly Explaining All the Difficult Places Thereof, the format of Hammond’s commentary is a running commentary or paraphrase upon the whole text of Scripture along with longer notes or annotations addressing and explaining issues in the text or its interpretation. In his paraphrase, Hammond offers short explanatory notes on each verse, sometimes cites connections with other scriptural texts, and occasionally offers some application of the text to contemporary life. With regard to the annotations, however, Hammond’s method involves engaging with the original languages of the Scriptures; ancient Jewish, Greek, and Roman customs; the ancient commentators on the text; and also the context of the verses and their place in comparison to other parts of Scripture.[14] Hammond also notes that he intends to refrain from both doctrinal and allegorical conclusions in favor of expressing the primary, literal, and plain sense of the text.[15] Thus, while Hammond’s paraphrase of each verse is usually a gloss of a sentence or two giving the sense of the verse, his annotations on difficult places in the text range in length from a few sentences to a number of pages and include grammatical/linguistic questions, issues of historical context as illumined by other texts from Scripture and from ancient authors, connections to other verses, and some interaction with other commentators.

Hammond’s paraphrases in particular, at least in their relative brevity, bear some resemblance to other annotations of his time, such as those of Giovanni Diodati, Edward Leigh, and the Annotations by both the Dutch and Westminster learned divines.[16] Still, while those commentaries have one basic narrative line in which they treat all of their concerns, Hammond’s clear twofold division of a short explication of the whole text and extended discussions of particular issues within the text ties him most closely to the form of his favored commentary, Hugo Grotius’s Annotationes.[17] More broadly, Hammond’s format puts him within the stream of the medieval format of gloss and scholia commentary in which the author presented a running commentary on each verse along with in-depth discussions of significant difficulties. Insofar as this is true, it supports Muller’s argument that later Protestant scholars built on the patterns and styles of medieval commentary.[18]

Of course, while Hammond buys into the format of the medieval commentary, he explicitly rejects both the medieval practice of fourfold exegesis and the seventeenth-century strategy—used in various ways by David Dickson and John Trapp—of employing allegory and typology to draw extensive doctrinal and applicatory points out of the text.[19] Clearly, Hammond’s commentary follows the line of literal-grammatical interpretation rather than allegorical-typological.[20] As he does this, Hammond evidences both a number of humanist concerns and an affinity with the approach of several other commentators of his time. In particular, Hammond demonstrates the significant humanist emphasis on philological skills along with a strong interest in the historical contexts of the scriptural texts that characterizes this line of commentary.[21] In his notes on the first two verses of Matt 3, for example, Hammond discusses the meanings of several Hebrew and Greek terms and engages with both the Talmud and Josephus to explain the historical context of the verses.[22] While Hammond does not generally have as massive an engagement with the Talmud and Judaica as the extraordinarily erudite John Lightfoot exemplified in his commentary around the same time, he does interact with those ancient sources significantly. In terms of his broader engagement with historical and philological issues, Hammond consistently deals with the texts at a high technical level, comparable to the other historical-grammatical commentaries of his day, such as those by the Dutch and Westminster commentators as well as Diodati, Leigh, and John Mayer.[23] In short, in keeping with the broader trend that Muller portrays in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while the format of Hammond’s commentary basically follows the medieval gloss/scholia model, his interpretive concerns and methods revolve around a historical, literary, and philological approach to the text.[24]

2. The Content Of The Commentary On Matthew 3:2: Repentance And The Kingdom

Although we will see later that he is not entirely without theological interest, the content of Hammond’s Annotations on Matt 3:2 clearly illustrates the primacy of textual concerns in his commentary. I have chosen to examine Hammond’s commentary on this particular verse for two main reasons. First, since Hammond has two notes—one short and one extended—in his annotations on Matt 3:2, examining that text can serve to provide a meaningful but also manageable window into his methods and concerns. Second, since a sermon of Hammond’s on Matt 3:2 has been preserved, it is possible to examine his interpretive activity in these verses in both the genre of commentary and of sermon, which can serve to elucidate the moves he makes.

In his paraphrase of Matt 3:2, Hammond emphasizes the judgment that will come upon those who have heard the call to repent but have not followed it. In his treatment of Matt 3:2 (“And saying, Repent ye, for the kingdome of heaven is at hand”), Hammond remarks that John the Baptist was telling people to change their lives to conform with the law that they had previously been given, because the time of the kingdom was coming when God would judge and punish the unrepentant and preserve only the penitent.[25] It is important to observe here that Hammond sees repentance as a changing of one’s actions, and that he presents the kingdom of heaven first in terms of punishment on the unrepentant. As we turn now to consider Hammond’s two notes on 3:2—note b on repentance and note c on the kingdom of heaven—we will again observe Hammond’s emphases on an active repentance and a coming judgment.

Hammond’s first annotation on Matt 3:2 is relatively short. In this note Hammond insists that repentance is not merely feeling sorry for one’s sin, but rather is “a change of mind . . . conversion . . . and reformation.”[26] The commentary goes on to insist that John is calling for “Repentance not only for but, from dead or sinfull works.”[27] In short, Hammond is very strong on the point that repentance involves external actions along with internal change, and while his view was certainly not unique in his time, it was very heavily on one side of the spectrum. In contrast, Diodati calls people simply to “Prepare yourselves with true grief and sorrow for your sins” so that they will be pardoned and expiated, while Trapp sees repentance as changing one’s mind. Furthermore, the Westminster Annotations emphasize repentance as a change of mind and heart—but one that people are unable to accomplish for themselves.[28] However, Dickson, Leigh, and Lightfoot all—like Hammond—see repentance as involving both internal and external change. Unlike Hammond, though, these other commentators all emphasize, with some variations in their formulae, that the time of works has passed and the time of Christ’s grace has come, and so for them repentance is more about turning toward the grace of God than about performing according to the law of God.[29] Thus, while Hammond does have some similarity to others of his time who see repentance as both internal and external, his view goes much farther in emphasizing the importance of repentance as an activity in which people turn from sin and reform their lives in keeping with God’s command. In other words, Hammond places much more stress than other commentators upon the necessity of people actively repenting rather than upon God graciously accepting and saving those who repent.

Similarly, in his second annotation on Matt 3:2c, Hammond deals with the question of what the kingdom of heaven means, and although Hammond’s interpretation is not unique in the context of other interpreters of his time, it is unusual in its heavy emphasis on God punishing the unrepentant. In contrast to Hammond’s view, Dickson, the Dutch Annotations, and Leigh all speak in various ways of the kingdom coming as the beginning of the new, gracious time of the church, while Diodati, Lightfoot, and Mayer join Hammond in focusing more upon the kingdom in terms of Christ’s reigning work—though Lightfoot does also explicitly include the preaching of the Word.[30] On this point, even in his vocabulary, Hammond echoes Diodati’s understanding that the Messiah was coming to re-establish the kingdom “to bring salvation to such as repent, and final ruine to obdurate rebels.”[31] However, Hammond emphasizes the rewarding and punishing work of the kingdom much more than Diodati or the other commentators; his commentary portrays the Messiah bringing a kingdom that reflects the state of heaven, where God’s reign consists in “assisting, defending, and rewarding all his faithful subjects, and in warning, punishing, and destroying his obdurate enemies.”[32] Hammond, then, sees the coming of the kingdom of heaven not only in terms of God’s word bringing some to faith but also in terms of “his iron rod executing vengeance on others, viz: the contumacious and obdurate.”[33]

Hammond continues on to insist that, when Matt 3:2 speaks of the coming kingdom of heaven, it is speaking basically about this second, punitive aspect of the kingdom of heaven as it was directed toward the Jewish nation, which was essentially destroyed after the death of Christ.[34] To prove this point, Hammond cross-references a host of other verses to support his view. For example, Hammond interprets the great and terrible day of Mal 4:5 to be about the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century. Moreover, while Isa 40’s statement that “Every valley shall be exalted and every hill brought low” was literally about the people returning from captivity and mystically about God removing obstacles on believers’ path to bliss (note that Hammond is aware of multi-level interpretations of the text, though he renounces their use), it is also directly applicable to the Roman armies destroying Jerusalem.[35] Here, Hammond cites Josephus’s statement that “the high and low places were made plain for the coming of the Roman army” as a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.[36] The note goes on to indicate that the kingdom of heaven should be seen in both its punitive and regal parts, but while the regal part “consists in protecting of subjects and rewarding them which doe well also,” this is “Most visible at the time of his punishments on the obstinate, his burning the chaffe with unquenchable fire.”[37]

Hammond’s interpretation of the kingdom of heaven as having to do specifically with the destruction of the Jewish people intersects to some extent with Lightfoot’s interpretation of these verses. In his Harmony, Lightfoot speaks of the kingdom as consisting in the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles for their conversion and the Jews for their repentance, though here he does not speak specifically of the punishment of the Jewish people.[38] However, in his Commentary, after he remarks that the kingdom began immediately upon the preaching of the gospel, Lightfoot distinguishes four parts or meanings to the kingdom of heaven. For Lightfoot, Christ’s kingdom comes when Jesus is revealed as the Messiah, when he is resurrected and shown to be the eternal King, when he exercises “his vengeance upon the Jewish nation, his most implacable enemies,” and when he brings Gentiles to follow him through the gospel.[39] Here, Lightfoot speaks explicitly of the coming of the kingdom occurring in part through punishment, and specifically through the punishment of the Jewish people. Unlike Hammond, though, Lightfoot thinks that Matt 3:2 specifically refers to the first meaning of the kingdom of heaven, the revelation of Jesus as the Messiah.[40] Thus, although Hammond and Lightfoot both speak of a punitive aspect to the kingdom of heaven, and even one aimed at the Jewish nation, Hammond emphasizes this aspect much more heavily than Lightfoot does with regard to Matt 3:2.

Additionally, while Lightfoot emphasizes the importance of preaching and states that the kingdom began to come when the gospel began to be preached, Hammond insists that the kingdom of heaven cannot be understood merely in terms of the preaching of the gospel; in Hammond’s view, the kingdom of Matt 3:2 did not come until the Jewish nation was punished, via the agency of the Roman armies.[41] He makes this point by referencing Matt 4:17 and saying that when Jesus began to preach, he still said—as John did in Matt 3:2—that the kingdom was approaching or near. Hammond takes a philological tack at this point to insist that, both grammatically and in terms of its use in other NT texts, the Greek ἤγγιχε, used also in the preterit tense in Matt 4:17, cannot mean that something is present but only that it is coming near, and so the kingdom must still have been coming rather than actually present at the time that Jesus was preaching the gospel.[42] Along with this severing the connection between the beginning of Jesus’ preaching and the beginning of the kingdom, Hammond draws the conclusion that the coming of the kingdom of heaven must be understood in terms of both the preaching of the gospel and the destruction of unbelievers, and he maintains that Christ came as King both to reward and to punish.[43] Once again, while Hammond does not offer an entirely novel interpretation, he is unique in placing so much emphasis upon the punishment of the Jewish nation—God’s people who do not repent and follow the Messiah.

Clearly, even if Hammond does prove to evidence theological intention in his commentary, he is not first of all forcing his favorite dogmas onto a text shorn of its particular historical and linguistic features. Here, contrary to the dogmatic claims of much previous scholarship, there is precious little evidence of “regarding the Bible as a sort of quartz-bed, in which was to be found the occasional gold of a proof-text.”[44] Rather, in his work on Matt 3:2, Hammond engages with a broad range of concerns and sources in order to explicate the meaning of this particular text. In his dealings with just this one verse, Hammond makes significant use of the original language of the text, to deepen his presentation throughout and in particular to make a philological argument that the kingdom of heaven is not identical with the preaching of the gospel.[45] He also engages with an ancient source—Josephus at this point, although in other places he also interacts with rabbinic sources—to support his interpretation, and he draws a plethora of connections between the text under consideration and other parts of Scripture.[46] Moreover, while a number of other commentators of his time would not have agreed with his churchly or theological allegiances, Hammond nevertheless appears to have engaged significantly with their interpretive work, as can be seen from how he mirrors Diodati’s vocabulary and emphasis on rewards and punishment and from how he both agrees with Lightfoot on the punishment of the Jews being part of the kingdom’s coming and disagrees with him on how much the kingdom can be said to consist in the preaching of the gospel.[47]

In short, Hammond’s commentary engages significantly with the historical, linguistic, and contextual issues of the Scriptures, and it does so in a way that is both accountable to and critical of previous commentators on his text. What Muller says of the work of a number of other commentators of the time also fits Hammond in that his efforts “defy the stereotype of a dogmatizing biblicism that looked away from the context and syntax of a passage toward its use, out of context, in the theological system.”[48] When we look at seventeenth-century interpretation of the Bible through the window of Hammond’s commentary, what we see is characterized by close attention to the text and significant involvement with historical and philological concerns.[49] However, while Hammond’s commentary does pay a great deal of attention to textual concerns, that is not to say that it is without theological interest, and so in the next section, I will examine Hammond’s sermon on Matt 3:2 to elucidate how his theological concerns intertwine with his interpretation of the text in his commentary.

III. Hammond’s Sermon On Matthew 3:2

1. Hammond’s Sermon On Matthew 3:2: Repent For The Kingdom Is Coming

Like his commentary, Hammond’s sermon on Matt 3:2 highlights that an active repentance is quite necessary and that God punishes even his people who do not repent appropriately. Hammond begins by remarking that this verse presents two difficulties—how to understand, first, the kingdom of heaven and, second, repentance—and also a point of “Practical Divinity” that results from understanding the meaning of the kingdom and repentance together.[50] First then, Hammond proposes that the kingdom of heaven has a “peculiar critical sense” in Matt 3:2, specifically in that it refers to the destruction of the Jews, which clearly showed Christ’s power over those who oppose him.[51] He offers a number of arguments for this sense, citing Matt 3 and Luke 21 as well as Joel 2:31 and Mal 4:5–6, referring to Hegesippus and Josephus, and finally insisting that this kingdom has two meanings: “the one as it signifies reigning, the other as executing judgement; the first ruling, the second coercing or punishing; the first the golden scepter, the second the iron rod.”[52] Just as in the commentary, Hammond’s sermon emphasizes the rewarding and punishing aspects of the kingdom, and he even goes on to make a similar case—once again referring to the Greek ἤγγιχε—that the preaching of the gospel does not equal the coming of the kingdom.[53] Following this, Hammond insists that the Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and English words for repentance all mean “the amending of our lives . . . repentance not for, but from, dead works, the giving over the sins of the former life.”[54] Here again, the sermon takes precisely the same line as the commentary to emphasize the necessarily active nature of repentance.[55]

At this point, Hammond moves in an exhortatory direction, and remarks that once people have understood the nature of the kingdom and of repentance, they must proceed to understand, first, that the news of the punishing kingdom of God should be used chiefly to bring people to repentance and, second, that no sort of repentance except true change is sufficient.[56] Hammond apparently identifies the judgment of God with a variety of “present Calamities” in his time and rejects a number of inferior “uses” which these difficulties may bring people.[57] First, he rejects a number of inherently bad uses—that perhaps because the times are hard, people ought to leave doing good for later, or ought to try to enjoy themselves and forget the judgments, or that they may as well multiply their sins if God is going to bring judgment in any case.[58] Hammond proceeds also to discount a number of somewhat good responses to hard times, such as developing contempt for the world, seeing death as a kindness, or simply practicing patience under God’s judgment.[59] As he wraps up this section, Hammond insists again that repentance is the only proper use of the “sad doctrine” of the punitive kingdom.[60]

Moreover, the sermon goes on to say, not all types of repentance are sufficient. Repentance, in fact, cannot consist only in sorrow for misery or sin, or merely in humility before God, or even in a sudden attempt at reformation, but rather repentance must consist of a sacrifice or tribute of the whole of our lives in active obedience to Christ.[61] As he proceeds toward the end of his sermon, Hammond pauses to note the difference between reversible and irreversible judgments of God, to comment that reversible judgments may eventually become irreversible, and to highlight that people do not know when the former will pass over into the latter. From this, Hammond draws the lesson that we should be glad that God is mercifully delaying because otherwise we might not have been able to repent and reform fully enough to stand before his judgment.[62] Hammond finally concludes by speaking again of the “sad threats of a direful Kingdom” and of the reality that only true repentance stands between us and judgment.[63]

2. Hammond’s Sermon On Matthew 3:2: Structure, Style, And Goal

Plainly, while Hammond makes similar interpretive moves in his sermon and his commentary, his homiletic approach is significantly different from the method of his commentary. In the sermon, Hammond begins by interpreting the text in detail, following the lines of his annotations both in terms of his conclusions and in terms of how he interacts with historical, linguistic, and textual concerns. However, unlike in his commentary, Hammond’s sermon builds on that exegetical foundation to develop an extended exhortatory call for his audience to respond to the punitive aspect of the kingdom’s coming with true, active repentance so as to avoid judgment. In terms of Blench’s seminal categories, although Hammond’s sermon could be seen in terms of the “ancient” model’s basic “explication and application” structure, it may more closely fit the “new Reformed method.”[64] As Blench points out, William Perkins’s The Arte of Prophesying lays out the definitive “New Reformed” sermon structure in four parts: the preacher must read the text, explain it in the light of other Scripture, find some points of doctrine contained within it, and then plainly apply those points to his audience.[65] Insofar as he addresses doctrinal points, Hammond tends to slide them either into his explanatory or applicatory sections, but while he may not perfectly exemplify the “Doctrines” and “Uses” scheme, he does explicitly move from explaining the key issues in his text (exegetically but also in a way that clearly indicates for certain doctrinal views) to applying his explanation (specifically employing the term “use” throughout this applicatory section).[66] As McGiffert concludes with regard to his examination of Hammond’s sermon on Matt 10:15, this sermon on Matt 3:2 appears to reflect a Perkinsian, “new Reformed method” structure.[67] At the same time, insofar as Hammond’s sermon does not line up precisely with Blench’s categories, it provides some support for Morrissey’s argument that the standard typology is too simplistic.[68] In turn, Morrissey’s argument for a fusion of ancient and modern, humanist and scholastic concerns to create a single “English Reformed Method” broadly centered around an explication/application (or doctrines/uses) schema does appear to describe the structure of Hammond’s sermon more accurately.[69] Thus, while Blench’s typology does provide some insight into the matter, Morrissey’s blending of the categories into a single, more fluid form better accounts for the structure of Hammond’s sermons, and so provides support, albeit from a very limited sample, for Morrissey’s nuancing of the seminal typology.

However, while the structure of Hammond’s sermon is fairly simple (in that he basically just addresses two main issues in Matt 3:2 and then applies them at length to his audience), the sermon’s style is relatively ornate. Mitchell long ago correctly observed that Hammond’s sermons do not fit the full-blown metaphysical style of the earlier English preachers.[70] Nonetheless, even a cursory reading of this sermon will indicate that it does not demonstrate a purely plain style either. Throughout his sermon Hammond frequently quotes Greek or Hebrew words or phrases, references a host of classical authors and stories, and presents biblical stories and images with some flourish.[71] Although the major movement of the piece is fairly easy to discern, the plethora of adornments along the way can make it difficult to follow Hammond’s flow. In other words, Hammond may follow a Perkinsian structure, but he certainly does not make the Perkinsian move to eschew rhetoric or eloquence in favor of a strictly plain style.[72] Rather, Hammond appears to develop a form of the “Christian grand style” that seeks both to fit the grandeur of the Bible and to arouse the emotions of the audience.[73] However, while Hammond develops a stereotypically Anglican grand style complete with classical references, rhetorical devices, and flourishes of language (both English and otherwise), his exhortation also has something of a Puritan feel as he speaks directly to his audience in a way that intends to lead them to repent and change their practices.[74] In sum, while Hammond’s style lies more on the ornate, typically Anglican end of the spectrum, his structure and to some extent his concerns place him more on the characteristically Puritan end of things. Of course, the content and goal of Hammond’s sermon, as well as of his commentary, place him on the opposite end of the theological spectrum from the Puritans.

This combination in Hammond’s sermon of Puritan sermonic structure with more moralistic theological concerns lends support to Dahlman’s recent argument that, over the course of the seventeenth century, Anglicans—or in Dahlman’s words, High Churchmen—generally appropriated Puritan homiletic structures but dropped the Puritan sermonic telos of the conversion of sinners in favor of an emphasis on human activity and even moralism.[75] Although Hammond was not among the preachers that Dahlman examined, his sermon on Matt 3:2 does appear to exemplify Dahlman’s proposed seventeenth-century trajectory of Anglicans appropriating some elements of Puritan sermon structure in order to support their own homiletic goals and theological concerns.[76] However, insofar as Hammond’s sermon exemplifies the broader Anglican trajectory that Dahlman proposes, it tends to undermine McGiffert’s argument that Hammond initially had some Puritan theological leanings and only later adopted more firmly Anglican positions. In his article McGiffert argues for an early dating for Hammond’s sermon on Matt 10:15 and then discerns a Puritan, and particularly Perkinsian, structure and set of assumptions in the sermon, although he does acknowledge that Hammond inserts a number of more Anglican, Arminian points.[77] Although McGiffert could still be correct in seeing some Puritan features in the sermon on Matt 10:15, the fact that Hammond’s sermon on Matt 3:2 exhibits a similarly Perkinsian structure along with clearly Anglican, moralistic theological concerns does rather weaken his overall case for a transformation in Hammond’s thought. Moreover, to the extent that the sermon fits with Dahlman’s broader thesis that the seventeenth-century Anglicans tended to adapt Puritan structures to reach their own theological goals—or in other words, to the extent that Puritan methods could be employed to support Anglican content—McGiffert’s take on Hammond’s thought becomes that much the weaker.

IV. Hammond’s Commentary And Sermon On Matthew 3:2

1. The Commentary And Sermon: Active Repentance And The Punitive Kingdom

Since the commentary and sermon were first published within a few years of each other—1649 for the sermon and 1653 for the commentary—it would be unwise to declare which ways the lines of influence ran between the two in Hammond’s interpretative efforts, but as an examination of their content clearly indicates, both Hammond’s commentary and his sermon develop an account of the kingdom of heaven and of repentance that heavily emphasizes the importance of human activity for salvation. The commentary leaves these points largely in the historical realm, but Hammond’s sermon brings them into the present day and challenges his audience to repent actively lest they experience the punitive side of God’s kingdom. In both his commentary and his sermon, Hammond speaks of the reigning and punishing aspects of the kingdom of heaven, but insists that in Matt 3:2 it is the iron rod of the kingdom that is especially in view.[78] While he does not explicitly draw this line, Hammond’s sermon seems to put his audience in the place of the Jewish people of Jesus’ time, with the concomitant threat that those of his audience who mirror the Jewish nation in its failure to repent adequately and actively will be terribly punished.[79] Clearly, in both his works Hammond insists on a worked-out repentance and on a punitive aspect to the coming kingdom, and while he structures his approach differently in the two genres, his interpretive moves in both commentary and sermon coalesce in such a way as to provide an exegetical foundation for his homiletic and theological concerns.

Insofar as the content of Hammond’s interpretive work in his commentary coheres with the theological and homiletic emphases in his sermon, Hammond’s commentary, while literary-historical in focus, also has a strong connection to his dogmatic concerns. Consequently, since Hammond’s commentary appears to have been both textually focused and theologically directed, it challenges any characterization of seventeenth-century commentaries as either entirely dogmatically bound or exclusively textually focused. In one such characterization, de Jonge’s examination of the interpretation of the NT specifically in seventeenth-century Leiden tends to dichotomize dogmatic and grammatical-historical forms of commentary and to see theologians as essentially “plundering the New Testament to prove a dogma.”[80] Van Rooden takes a similar line, delineating two genres of commentary in the period: first, dogmatic works written by theologians who (mis-)used texts to support their systems and, second, annotations often written by humanists to explore the texts in terms of their linguistic and historical nuances.[81] Curiously, van Rooden undercuts his own case somewhat when he admits that “Of course, annotationes commentary also had dogmatic implications” and points out that the theologian Beza wrote such a commentary to counter Erasmus’s work.[82] More constructively, Muller has offered a number of examples that highlight the “oversimplification” inherent in strictly dividing seventeenth-century commentary into the dogmatic and the philological.[83] The fact that Hammond’s commentary on Matt 3:2 evidences noteworthy historical, linguistic, and textual activity as well as real theological intent—which becomes especially clear in light of his sermon on that text—plainly undercuts de Jonge and van Rooden’s dichotomizing viewpoint. Moreover, Hammond’s works indicate, as Muller maintains, that a theologian could employ the annotations genre of commentary to generate significant dogmatic payoff.[84]

2. The Commentary And Sermon: Hammond As An Anglican Moralist

In particular, Hammond’s interpretive moves in his commentary and sermon put him in the position to make strong dogmatic claims regarding the importance of human activity to attain the rewards and avoid the punishments of the kingdom. While this focus fits with Dahlman’s broader findings with regard to seventeenth-century Anglican preachers, it also coheres closely with Lettinga’s description of Hammond as an Anglican moralist.85 When Lettinga examines Hammond’s catechism to characterize him as a “moralist,” he does not mean that Hammond believed that salvation purely by works was possible, but rather that he believed that humans’ obedient, repentant response played a real part in the process of salvation—and so felt it necessary to emphasize very strongly human moral action.[86] While Lettinga makes his argument based upon the content of the catechism, Hammond’s commentary and sermon on Matt 3:2 provide additional support for such a viewpoint.

In Lettinga’s argument, Hammond adopted the Puritan language of covenant but conflated the covenants of works and of grace and so argued that people’s salvation depended first upon God being gracious but then certainly also upon people actively fulfilling the conditions of the covenant, and as such, “Hammond’s contractual understanding of the Covenant of Grace turned puritan Covenant theology upside down.”[87] While Hammond does not really use covenant language in his treatment of Matt 3:2, his understanding of repentance in that verse clearly stresses the importance of people actively working to grasp hold of salvation. Moreover, Hammond’s emphasis on the rewarding and punishing aspects of God’s kingdom fits with a contractual understanding of salvation, in which God provides a way of salvation through Christ but people’s own actions—and specifically the nature of their repentance—determines whether they will experience the kingdom’s coming in terms of the golden scepter of reward or the iron rod of punishment.[88] In short, while Hammond’s commentary and sermon on Matt 3:2 do not make much explicit use of covenant language, they do highlight that believers must repent and perform certain works if they are to receive the benefits of the kingdom of God, and so these works support Lettinga’s understanding of Hammond as an Anglican moralist, very concerned about human effort in the process of salvation.

V. Conclusion

In both his commentary and sermon on Matt 3:2, Henry Hammond presents a view of repentance and of the kingdom of heaven that heavily emphasizes the importance of human activity for salvation. In the context of his contemporary commentators, Hammond was not unique in insisting that repentance would involve a change in people’s work or in seeing that the kingdom comes with a punitive side, but his heavy emphasis on those points supports Lettinga’s description of Hammond as an Anglican moralist with a strong interest in human activity and moral duty. Not surprisingly then, although Hammond’s sermon broadly follows a Puritan, Perkinsian structure, albeit with a grand, ornate style, he adapts that model to serve his theological concerns and to highlight the necessity of human moral activity in salvation. Thus, Hammond’s sermon on Matt 3:2 coheres nicely with Dahlman’s proposed trajectory of Anglican preachers adapting Puritan sermon structures to their preferred moralistic goals. On the other hand, since Hammond’s sermon on Matt 3:2 adapts a Puritan structure to Anglican goals and also agrees closely with the content of his commentary on that verse, it rather undermines McGiffert’s argument that a Perkinsian structure in Hammond’s sermon on Matt 10:15 indicates a significant shift in Hammond’s thought over the course of his life.

In another arena, while Hammond adopts in his own commentary the structure of the medieval gloss/scholia commentary, his interpretative work evidences both a strongly historical, literary, and philological approach to the text and also a dogmatic interest in its interpretation. Inasmuch as Hammond’s commentary does engage extensively with historical and philological concerns but also has a particular theological shading in its interpretation of an active repentance and a punitive kingdom of heaven, it strongly challenges de Jonge and van Rooden’s dichotomizing of seventeenth-century commentaries into exclusively philological or dogmatic categories and suggests a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between philological and theological concerns in seventeenth-century interpretation of the Bible. More broadly, Hammond’s robust engagement with a variety of historical, literary, and textual matters challenges any perception of seventeenth-century biblical commentary as merely dogmatically determined, ahistorical, and atextual. Along with challenging the older view, Hammond’s work supports the more recent view of the seventeenth century as a time in which commentators were quite sensitive to historical and philological concerns in their interpretative work. In sum then, Henry Hammond’s commentary on Matt 3:2 takes account of a variety of historical and literary considerations in developing an interpretation that coheres with his theological interests, especially as evidenced by his sermon on that verse, and so Hammond’s work argues for an understanding of seventeenth-century commentary as both historically and philologically involved and theologically directed. In particular, Hammond’s commentary and sermon on Matt 3:2 fill out a picture of him as an Anglican moralist, who made use of the available genres of his time to stress the importance of human activity in the process of salvation.

Notes

1. F. W. Farrar, The History of Interpretation (London: Macmillan, 1886), 359-68; George Holley Gilbert, Interpretation of the Bible: A Short History (New York: Macmillan, 1908), 224-59; and more recently, Henning Graf Reventlow, Renaissance, Reformation, Humanism (vol. 2 of History of Biblical Interpretation; trans. James O. Duke; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), 214-15.
2. Dean Freiday, The Bible, Its Criticism, Interpretation and Use in 16th and 17th Century England (Manasquan, N.J.: Catholic and Quaker Studies, 1979); Reventlow, Renaissance, Reformation, Humanism, 209-23; Howard M. Teeple, The Historical Approach to the Bible (Evanston, Ill.: Religious and Ethics Institute, 1982), 66-70.
3. H. J. de Jonge, “The Study of the New Testament,” in Leiden University in the Seventeenth Century: An Exchange of Learning (ed. T. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer and G. H. M. Poshumus Meyjes; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 65-109; Peter T. van Rooden, Theology, Biblical Scholarship, and Rabbinical Studies in the Seventeenth Century: Constantijn L’Empereur (1591-1648) Professor of Hebrew and Theology at Leiden (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989), 132-35.
4. Richard A. Muller, After Calvin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 173; Richard A. Muller, “Biblical Interpretation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Historical Handbook of Biblical Interpreters (ed. Donald McKim; 2d ed.; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2007), 27-28; Richard A. Muller, Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology (vol. 2 of Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 444-47.
5. See, e.g., Henry M. Knapp, “Understanding the Mind of God: John Owen and Seventeenth-Century Exegetical Methodology” (Ph.D. diss., Calvin Thelogical Seminary, 2002); Muller, After Calvin, 156-74; Richard A. Muller, “Joseph Hall as Rhetor, Theologian, and Exegete: His Contribution to the History of Interpretation,” in Solomon’s Divine Arts: Joseph Hall (ed. Gerald T. Sheppard; New York: Pilgrim, 1991), 11-37; Richard A. Muller, “William Perkins and the Protestant Exegetical Tradition: Interpretation, Style and Method in the Commentary on Hebrews 11,” in William Perkins, A Cloud of Faithful Witnesses: Commentary on Hebrews 11 (ed. Gerald T. Sheppard; New York: Pilgrim, 1991), 71-94.
6. For examples from Calvin studies, see Deborah Marcuse, “The Reformation of the Saints: Biblical Interpretation and Moral Regulation in John Calvin’s Commentary and Sermons on Genesis” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 2005); and David F. Wright, “Calvin’s Commentary and Sermons on Acts 1-7: A Comparison,” in John Calvin and the Interpretation of Scripture: Papers Presented at the 10th and 11th Colloquiums of the Calvin Studies Society at Columbia Theological Seminary (ed. Charles Raynal; Grand Rapids: Published for the Calvin Studies Society by CRC Product Service, 2006), 290-306. For one of a very few examples in regard to the seventeenth century, see Muller, “Joseph Hall,” 19-28.
7. J. W. Blench, Preaching in England in the Late Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: A Study of English Sermons, 1450–c. 1600 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1964); William Frasier Mitchell, English Pulpit Oratory From Andrewes to Tillotson (London: SPCK, 1932; repr., New York: Russell & Russell, 1962).
8. Mary Morrissey, Politics and the Paul’s Cross Sermons, 1558-1642 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Mary Morrissey, “Scripture, Style and Persuasion in Seventeenth Century English Theories of Preaching,” JEH 53 (2002): 686-706; Muller, “Joseph Hall,” 19-27; Muller, Holy Scripture, 505-7; Debora K. Shuger, Sacred Rhetoric: The Christian Grand Style in the English Renaissance (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988).
9. Jason E. Dahlman, “Opening a Box of Sweet Ointment: Homiletics within the Church of England, 1592-1678” (Ph.D. diss., Trinity International University, 2012).
10. Ian Green, The Christian’s ABC: Catechisms and Catechizing in England, c. 1530-1740 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 348; John W. Packer, The Transformation of Anglicanism, 1643-1660, with Special Reference to Henry Hammond (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1969); C. F. Allison, The Rise of Moralism: The Proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter (Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse Barlow, 1966), 96-102.
11. Neil Lettinga, “Covenant Theology Turned Upside Down: Henry Hammond and Caroline Anglican Moralism, 1643-1660,” Sixteenth Century Journal 24 (1993): 653-69.
12. Ibid., 653 n. 1.
13. Michael McGiffert, “Henry Hammond and Covenant Theology,” CH 74 (2005): 255-85.
14. Henry Hammond, “A Necessary Advertisement to the Reader,” in A Paraphrase, and Annotations upon All the Books of the New Testament: Briefly Explaining All the Difficult Places Thereof (London: Richard Royston, 1653), 3.
15. Ibid., 4.
16. Giovanni Diodati, Pious and Learned Annotations upon the Holy Bible: Plainly Expounding the Most Difficult Places Thereof (London: Nicolas Fussell, 1648), vol. 1; The Dutch Annotations Upon the Whole Bible (trans. Theodore Haak; London: John Rothwell et al., 1657), vol. 1; Thomas Gataker et al., Annotations upon all the Books of the Old and New Testament (London: John Legass and John Raworth, 1645); Edward Leigh, Annotations upon all the New Testament Philologicall and Theologicall (London: William Lee, 1650). The Gataker et al. annotations are generally referred to as the Westminster Annotations, and I will follow that usage in the text of this article.
17. Hugo Grotius, Annotationes in Vetus & Novum Testamentum (London: Jos. Smith et al., 1727); Hammond, “A Necessary Advertisement,” 4.
18. Muller, “Biblical Interpretation,” 27-28; Muller, “William Perkins,” 72-74.
19. Hammond, “A Necessary Advertisement,” 4; David Dickson, A Brief Exposition of the Evangel of Jesus Christ According to Matthew (Glasgow: George Anderson, 1647); John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon the Four Evangelists, and the Acts of the Apostles (London: John Bellamie, 1647).
20. Muller highlights and gives some examples of this distinction in After Calvin, 64, and in Holy Scriptures, 449. For an extended discussion of allegory and typology in the seventeenth century, with a focus on John Owen, see Knapp, “Understanding the Mind of God,” 262-334.
21. Muller, “Biblical Interpretation,” 23.
22. Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 14-17.
23. John Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, Matthew–1 Corinthians (4 vols.; Baker: Grand Rapids, 1979); John Mayer, A Commentarie upon the New Testament Representing the Divers Expositions Thereof, out of the Workes of the Most Learned, Both Ancient Fathers, and Moderne Writers (3 vols.; London: John Bellamie, 1631).
24. Muller, “Biblical Interpretation,” 27, 34.
25. Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 13.
26. Ibid., 15. The ellipses are where Hammond lists the Greek terms and some other verses where they appear.
27. Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 15; source’s italics.
28. Diodati, Pious and Learned Annotations, 5; Gataker et al., Annotations, fol. A.3 recto; Trapp, Commentary, 34-35.
29. Dickson, Brief Exposition, fol. B.4 recto; Leigh, Annotations, 6; Lightfoot, Commentary, 47-48; John Lightfoot, Harmony of the Four Evangelists, among Themselves and with the Old Testament (London: Andrew Cooke, 1644) 137-38.
30. Dickson, Brief Exposition, fol. B.4 recto; Diodati, Pious and Learned Annotations, 5; Dutch Annotations, fol. C.1 verso; Leigh, Annotations, 7; Lightfoot, Commentary, 49; Lightfoot, Harmony, 138-39; Mayer, Commentarie, 68.
31. Diodati, Pious and Learned Annotations, 5.
32. Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 15; source’s italics.
33. Ibid.; source’s italics.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., 15-16.
36. Ibid., 16; source’s italics.
37. Ibid.; source’s italics.
38. Lightfoot, Harmony, 139.
39. Lightfoot, Commentary, 49-50.
40. Ibid., 50.
41. See ibid., 49; Lightfoot, Harmony, 138-39.
42. Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 16.
43. Ibid., 16-17.
44. Farrar, History of Interpretation, 365. For similar perspectives, see also Gilbert, Interpretation of the Bible, 224-59; Reventlow, Renaissance, Reformation, Humanism, 214-15.
45. Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 16.
46. Ibid., 15-17.
47. Diodati, Pious and Learned Annotations, 5; Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 15-17; Lightfoot, Commentary, 49-50; Lightfoot, Harmony, 138-39.
48. Muller, After Calvin, 173.
49. For an examination that offers similar conclusions regarding another seventeenth-century exegete, see Knapp, “Understanding the Mind of God,” 384-91.
50. Henry Hammond, The Christian’s Obligations to Peace & Charity Delivered in an Advent Sermon at Carisbrooke Castle, Ann. 1647: and Now Published with XI Sermons More (London: R. Royston, 1664), 50c. This work was first published in 1649, but I have chosen to cite the 1664 version in part because the scan of the 1649 book available to me is essentially illegible at many points and in part because the pagination apparatus of the 1664 version allows for more precise citations.
51. Ibid., 50f.
52. Ibid., 50f-51e; source’s italics.
53. Ibid., 51e-52b; Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 15-16.
54. Hammond, The Christian’s Obligations, 52c-d; source’s italics.
55. Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 15.
56. Hammond, The Christian’s Obligations, 52e-53b.
57. Ibid., 53c.
58. Ibid., 53d-f.
59. Ibid., 53f-58a.
60. Ibid., 58c.
61. Ibid., 58c-59d.
62. Ibid., 59e-61f.
63. Ibid., 61d-f.
64. Blench, Preaching in England, 71-72, 101-2. See Muller, Holy Scriptures, 505-6, for a discussion of how these types relate to some other seventeenth-century exegetes.
65. Blench, Preaching in England, 101-2; William Perkins, The Arte of Prophesying, or a Treatise Concerning the Sacred and Onely True Manner and Methode of Preaching (trans. Thomas Tuke; London: E. E., 1607), 148.
66. Hammond, The Christian’s Obligations, 50c, 53c-59d.
67. McGiffert, “Henry Hammond,” 269-70.
68. Morrissey, Politics, 58-59.
69. Ibid., 51-60.
70. Mitchell, English Pulpit Oratory, 313.
71. Hammond, The Christian’s Obligations, 50c-62c.
72. Muller, “Joseph Hall,” 17; Shuger, Sacred Rhetoric, 69.
73. Shuger, Sacred Rhetoric, 109-10.
74. For an examination of how these matters play out in regard to another seventeenth-century preacher, see Muller, “Joseph Hall,” 25-28.
75. Dahlman, Opening a Box, 23-24, 347-48.
76. Ibid., 294-339.
77. McGiffert, “Henry Hammond,” 268-73.
78. Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 15; Hammond, The Christian’s Obligations, 50f-51e.
79. Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 15-16; Hammond, The Christian’s Obligations, 50f.
80. de Jonge, “Study of the New Testament,” 65-69.
81. van Rooden, Theology, Biblical Scholarship, and Rabbinical Studies, 132-35.
82. Ibid., 134.
83. Muller, Holy Scriptures, 444-47.
84. Ibid., 444.
85. Dahlman, Opening a Box, 294-339; Lettinga, “Covenant Theology,” 653-54.
86. Lettinga, “Covenant Theology,” 659-62; Henry Hammond, A Practical Catechisme (London: R. Royston, 1645).
87. Lettinga, “Covenant Theology,” 658.
88. Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations, 15; Hammond, The Christian’s Obligations, 50f-51e.