Prefatory note.

Henry Hammond, the chaplain of Charles I., and the sub-dean of Christ Church, Oxford, from which office he was expelled by the Parliamentary visitors in 1648, was a divine of eminent learning, and, besides other works, was the author of “Annotations on Scripture,” which still deserve to be consulted, although disfigured by his habit of explaining much in the New Testament by reference to the Gnostic heresy. He was the opponent of Owen on several questions, relating to the nature of church-government, the authority of the Ignatian Epistles, and the orthodoxy of Hugo Grotius.

In 1617 Grotius published a refutation of the errors of Faustus Socinus, entitled, “A Defence of the Catholic Faith concerning the Satisfaction of Christ.” Though opposed to the Socinians, the work was not deemed in perfect harmony with orthodox sentiment. Ravensperger in consequence assailed him, in a work entitled, “Judicium de Libro Grotii,” etc. G. J. Vossius came to his defence in the following year. On the part of the Socinians, Crellius replied to Grotius. A complimentary letter from the latter to his opponent confirmed the suspicions entertained of his own orthodoxy. Crellius was answered by Essenius, Velthuysenius, and Stillingfleet.

Owen, in the preface to his treatise on the “Perseverance of the Saints,” had alluded to Dr Hammond as indebted to Grotius “for more than one rare notion” in his expositions of Scripture. An elaborate reply to the whole argument of Dr Owen against the Ignatian Epistles, contained in the same preface, appeared in 1655 from the pen of Hammond, and under the title, “An Answer to the Animadversions on the Dissertations concerning the Epistles of Ignatius.” In the course of it, a digression was introduced vindicating Grotius from charges which Owen certainly had not mooted, but in which, to a certain extent, he could not refrain from concurring. These charges were, that towards the close of his life the learned Dutchman had veered towards Socinianism, and had become favourable to the interests of the church of Rome. In regard to the charge of Socinian leanings, it was founded partly on his letter to Crellius, partly on certain expressions which fell from him on his death-bed, and partly on his Scholia on the Bible. Two volumes of these Scholia appeared in 1641 and 1644, before the death of Grotius; and two, one including the Acts and the Epistles of Paul and James, and the other including the six Catholic Epistles and the Revelation, were published posthumously in 1646 and 1650. These Scholia contain expositions of Scripture which differ considerably from what Grotius had given in his work “De Satisfactione Christi.” Hammond argues that his letter to Crellius was but an interchange of civilities, in which he was not called to discuss the points of controversy between them; gives a different version of his death-bed utterances; and maintains that the posthumous Scholia, because contrary to the opinions which he avowed in his lifetime, were notes taken by Grotius in the course of his reading, and by no means to be regarded as expressing his own views. Owen, in his “Vindiciæ Evangelicæ,” proceeded to trace the perfect correspondence between Grotius and the Socinians, in their exegesis of those passages in Scripture which relate to the person of Christ. Hammond issued his “Second Defence of Grotius.” Owen answered him in the following treatise; and was answered by his indefatigable adversary in “A Continuation of the Defence of Grotius.” If the position of Owen had been that Grotius was in reality a Socinian, he would have been worsted in this collision with Hammond; but he guards himself against being supposed to assume it, making express admission that Grotius allowed one text to be proof of the Saviour’s Godhead. That Grotius played into the hands of the enemy, by the surrender of almost every other scriptural fortress in defence of this cardinal doctrine, and spoke of it in terms which betokened no very cordial appreciation of its importance, is what Owen asserted, and what cannot be disproved, except by the most worthless special pleading. Hammond could only make out his case for Grotius by denying all authority to his posthumous Annotations, “which,” says he, “I deem not competent measures to judge him by.” — Ed.