Henry Hammond - Works

Works

His writings, published in four folio volumes (1674–1684), consist mostly of controversial sermons and tracts; he produced more than 50 separate works. The Anglo-Catholic Library contains four volumes of his Miscellaneous Theological Works (1847–1850). The best of them are his Practical Catechism, first published in 1644; his Paraphrase and Annotations on the New Testament; and an incomplete work of a similar nature on the Old Testament. His Life by John Fell, prefixed to the collected Works, was reprinted in vol. iv. of Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography.

Hammond was a pioneer Anglican theologian, much influenced by Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes, but also by Arminianism in the form it took in Hugo Grotius, whom he defended in his writings. He was the first English scholar to compare manuscripts of the New Testament. He relied heavily on his readings in patristics, and with James Ussher and Isaak Voss argued in favour of the authenticity of the Ignatian Epistles, which could be read as supporting episcopacy. He was attacked by Salmasius and David Blondel, and defended himself. His defence and celebration of episcopacy as traditional was then followed by many English high church theologians: Miles Barne, Henry Dodwell, Fell, Peter Heylyn, Benjamin Lany, Thomas Long, Simon Lowth, John Pearson, Herbert Thorndike, and Francis Turner.

He read widely, and was a diligent scholar. He translated Blaise Pascal's Provincial Letters in 1657, under the title of Les Provinciales, or the Mystery of Jesuitisme, discovered in certain letters written upon occasion of the present differences at Sorbonne between the jansenists and the molinists, London, Royston, 1657).