Richard Hooker

"Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better."

"To fathers within their private families Nature hath given a supreme power; for which cause we see throughout the world even from the foundation thereof, all men have ever been taken as lords and lawful kings in their own houses. Howbeit over a whole grand multitude having no such dependency upon any one, and consisting of so many families as every politic society in the world doth, impossible it is that any should have complete lawful power, but by consent of men, or immediate appointment of God; because not having the natural superiority of fathers, their power must needs be either usurped, and then unlawful; or, if lawful, then either granted or consented unto by them over whom they exercise the same, or else given extraordinarily from God, unto whom all the world is subject."

"They saw that to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery."

"It is an axiom of Nature that natural desire cannot utterly be frustrate."

"[O]f Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power: both Angels and men and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy."

"That all things be done to the glory of God, the blessed Apostle (it is true) ex∣horteth. The glory of God is the admirable excellency of that Vertue Divine, which being made manifest, causeth Men and Angels to extol his greatness, and in regard thereof to fear him. By being glorified, it is not meant, that he doth receive any augmentation of glory at our hands; but his Name we glorifie, when we testifie our acknowledgement of his glory. Which albeit we most effectually do by the vertue of obedience; nevertheless it may be perhaps a Question, Whether S. Paul did mean that we sin as oft as ever we go about any thing, without an express intent and purpose to obey God therein. He saith of himself, I do in all things please all men, seeking not mine own commodity, but rather the good of many, that they may be saved. Shall it hereupon be thought, that St. Paul did not move either hand or foot, but with express intent even thereby to further the common salvation of men? We move, we sleep, we take the cup at the hand of our friend, a number of things we oftentimes do, only to satisfie some natural desire, without present, express and actual reference unto any Commandment of God. Unto his glory even these things are done which we naturally perform, and not only that which morally and spiritually we do. For by every effect proceeding from the most concealed instincts of Nature, his power is made manifest."

"Our naming of Jesus Christ the Lord is not enough to prove us Christians, unless we also embrace that Faith which Christ hath published unto the World."

"By the Church therefore in this question we under stand no other than only the visible Church. For preservation of Christianity there is not any thing more needful, than that such as are of the visible Church have mutual fellowship and society one with another. In which consideration, as the main body of the sea being one, yet within divers precincts hath divers names; so the Catholic Church is in like sort divided into a number of distinct Societies, every of which is termed a Church within itself."

"Because we maintain that in Scripture we are taught all things necessary unto salvation; hereupon very childishly it is by some demanded, what Scripture can teach us the sacred authority of the Scripture, upon the knowledge whereof our whole faith and salvation dependeth? As though there were any kind of science in the world which leadeth men into knowledge without presupposing a number of things already known. No science doth make known the first principles whereon it buildeth, but they are always either taken as plain and manifest in themselves, or as proved and granted already, some former knowledge having made them evident. Scripture teacheth all supernatural revealed truth, without the knowledge whereof salvation cannot be attained. The main principle whereupon our belief of all things therein contained dependeth, is, that the Scriptures are the oracles of God himself. This in itself we cannot say is evident. For then all men that hear it would acknowledge it in heart, as they do when they hear that "every whole is more than any part of that whole," because this in itself is evident. The other we know that all do not acknowledge when they hear it. There must be therefore some former knowledge presupposed which doth herein assure the hearts of all believers. Scripture teacheth us that saving truth which God hath discovered unto the world by revelation, and it presumeth us taught other wise that itself is divine and sacred."

"The safest, and unto God the most acceptable way of framing our lives is with all Humility, Lowliness, and Singleness of Heart, to study which way our willing Obedience, both unto God and Man, may be yielded, even to the utmost of that which is due."

"The nature of every Law must be judged of by the end for which it was made, and by the aptness of things therein prescribed unto the same end."

"Words must be taken according to the matter whereof they are uttered."

"We agree that pure and unstained religion ought to be the highest of all cares appertaining to public regiment: as well in regard of that aid and protection which they who faithfully serve God confess they receive at his merciful hands; as also for the force which religion hath to qualify all sorts of men, and to make them in public affairs the more serviceable, governors the apter to rule with conscience, inferiors for conscience sake the willinger to obey. It is no peculiar conceit, but a matter of sound consequence, that all duties are by so much the better performed, by how much the men are more religious from whose abilities the same proceed. For if the course of politic affairs cannot in any good sort go forward without fit instruments, and that which fitteth them be their virtues, let Polity acknowledge itself indebted to Religion; godliness being the chiefest top and wellspring of all true virtues, even as God is of all good things."

"So natural is the union of Religion with Justice, that we may boldly deem there is neither, where both are not. For how should they be unfeignedly just, whom religion doth not cause to be such; or they religious, which are not found such by the proof of their just actions?"

"The mind while we are in this present life, whether it contemplate, meditate, deliberate, or howsoever exercise itself, worketh nothing without continual recourse unto imagination, the only storehouse of wit and peculiar chair of memory."

"We hold; that seeing there is not any man of the Church of England but the same man is also a member of the commonwealth; nor any man a member of the commonwealth, which is not also of the Church of England; therefore as in a figure triangular the base doth differ from the sides thereof, and yet one and the selfsame line is both a base and also a side; a side simply, a base if it chance to be the bottom and underlie the rest: so, albeit properties and actions of one kind do cause the name of a commonwealth, qualities and functions of another sort the name of a Church to be given unto a multitude, yet one and the selfsame multitude may in such sort be both, and is so with us, that no person appertaining to the one can be denied to be also of the other."

"Without order there is no living in public society, what the because the want thereof is the mother of confusion, whereupon upon division of necessity followeth, and out of division, inevitable destruction. The Apostle therefore giving instruction to public societies, requireth that all things be orderly done. Order can have no place in things, unless it be settled amongst the persons that shall by office be conversant about them. And if things or persons be ordered, this doth imply that they are distinguished by degrees. For order is a gradual disposition."

"The whole world consisting of parts so many, so different, is by this only thing upheld; he which framed them hath set them in order. Yea, the very Deity itself both keepeth and requireth for ever this to be kept as a law, that wheresoever there is a coagmentation of many, the lowest be knit to the highest by that which being interjacent may cause each to cleave unto other, and so all to continue one."

"When therefore Christian kings are said to have spiritual dominion or supreme power in ecclesiastical affairs and causes, the meaning is, that within their own precincts and territories they have authority and power to command even in matters of Christian religion, and that there is no higher nor greater that can in those causes over-command them, where they are placed to reign as kings. But withal we must likewise note that their power is termed supremacy, as being the highest, not simply without exception of any thing."

"They [the Church of Rome] teach, as we do, that unto justice no man ever attained, but by the merits of Jesus Christ. They teach, as we do, that although Christ as God be the efficient, as man the meritorious, cause of our justice, yet in us also there is something required. God is the cause of our natural life; in him we live: but he quickeneth not the body without the soul in the body. Christ hath merited to make us just; but as a medicine which is made for health doth not heal by being made but by being applied, so by the merits of Christ there can be no justification without the application of his merits. Thus far we join hands with the Church of Rome."

"We ourselves do not teach Christ alone, excluding our own faith, unto justification, Christ alone, excluding our own works, unto sanctification, Christ alone, excluding the one or the other as unnecessary unto salvation. It is a childish cavil wherewith in the matter of justification our adversaries do so greatly please themselves, exclaiming that we tread all Christian virtues under our feet and require nothing in Christians but faith, because we teach that faith alone justifieth; whereas by this speech we never meant to exclude either hope and charity from being always joined as inseparable mates with faith in the man that is justified, or works from being added as necessary duties, required at the hands of every justified man, but to show that faith is the only hand which putteth on Christ unto justification, and Christ the only garment which, being so put on, covereth the shame of our defiled natures, hideth the imperfections of our works, preserveth us blameless in the sight of God, before whom otherwise the very weakness of our faith were cause sufficient to make us culpable, yea, to shut us out from the kingdom of heaven, where nothing that is not absolute can enter."

"Shall I think, because of this only error [in the doctrine of justification], that such a man [a Roman Catholic] toucheth not so much as the hem of Christ's garment? If he do, wherefore should not I have hope that virtue may proceed from Christ to save him? Because his error doth by consequent overthrow his faith shall I therefore cast him off as one who hath utterly cast of Christ, one who holdeth not so much as by a slender thread? No, I will not be afraid to say unto a cardinal or to a pope in this plight, Be of good comfort, we have to do with a merciful God, ready to make the best of that little which we hold well, and not with a captious sophister who gathereth the worst out of everything wherein we err."

"The mixture of those things by speech which are by nature divided is the mother of all error."

"Hooker, although he founded—perhaps because he founded—no especial school, has, perhaps more than any other single writer, given to our Anglican theology a tone a direction which it has never lost."

"To the Memory of RICHARD HOOKER, Prebendary of this Cathedral, And Author of the Book entitled Ecclesiastical Polity, who, exhibiting in his writings the profoundness of a Scholar, and in his life the holy simplicity of an Apostle, successfully vindicated the forms and ordinances of the Episcopal Church of this Nation, and her primitive usage of the sweetest Songs of Sion, Anthems and Antiphonal Harmonies, adapted to the words of the inspired Psalmist. He died, A.D. 1600. This tribute of respect and veneration for so great a name, is offered here, by W. L. Bowles, Canon Residentiary, 1836."

"I began my study with relation to our home matters with Hooker's Ecclesiasticall Policy [sic], which did so fixe me that I never departed from the principles laid down by him, nor was I a litle delighted with the modesty and charity that I observed in him which edified me as much as his book instructed me."

"She Lady Falkland] continued to read much, and when she was about twenty years old, through reading, she grew into much doubt of her religion. The first occasion of it was reading a Protestant book, much esteemed, called "Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity:" it seemed to have left her hanging in the air, for having brought her so far (which she thought did very reasonably), she saw not how nor at what she could stay till she returned to the church from whence they were come."

"The foundation document, in Anglican perception, had been provided by Richard Hooker... Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the first and greatest apologia for Anglicanism, was published in instalments (1594, 1597, 1648, 1662); the political Book VIII countered the hostile thesis that "unto no civil prince or governor there may be given such power of ecclesiastical dominion as by the laws of the land belongeth unto the supreme regent thereof". It proceeded from the assumption that "there is not any man of the Church of England but the same man is also a member of the commonwealth; nor any man a member of the commonwealth, which is not also of the Church of England" (ch. 1.2). This, indeed, constituted the political aspect of the Anglican via media... Political involvement in the life of the Church could not validly be described as Erastianism, it was argued. The monarch was anointed and clothed in priestly vestments at his coronation; Parliament was a lay synod. Both were part of the Church, not separate and secular agencies subordinating the Church to their control. But Hooker's doctrine contained a fatal flaw: it was ambiguous about the title of the "chief Governor" on whom the whole system depended, and even appeared to recognise conquest and de facto power. Providence, though heavily emphasised, might point in more than one direction."

"There is no learning that this man hath not searched into; nothing too hard for his understanding; this man indeed deserves the name of an author; his books will get reverence by age, for there is in them such seeds of eternity, that if the rest [of his writings] be like this, they shall last till the last fire shall consume all learning."

"[T]he Non-Conformists (heretofore call'd Puritans) or Calvinists are Sound in the Faith, and Orthodox in their Principles, and profess all Christian Truths necessary to Salvation. You never saw in England a Puritan, saith Dr. Crackantharp, that was an Heretick: There is no quarrel between us (Conformists) and the Puritans concerning Faith, or any Doctrines of Faith. Our Church and they contend about Rites and Discipline, but we consent and agree in Matters of Faith. The same we find attested by several other Learned Men of our Church, as Mr. Hooker in his Ecclesiastical Polity, Book 3d."

"[I]t must not be forgotten, that in the very midst of the Paroxisme betwixt Hooker and Travers, the latter stil bare (and none can challenge the other to the contrary) a reverend esteem of his adversary. And when an unworthy aspersion (some years after) was cast on Hooker, (if Christ was dasht, shall Christians escape clean in their journey to heaven) Mr Travers being asked of a private friend, what he thought of the truth of that accusation, In truth, (said he) I take Mr Hooker to be a holy man. A speech with coming from an adversary, sounds no less to the commendation of his charity who spake it, then to the praise of his piety of whom it was spoken."

"Into a new extreme; he bade them stay, And shew'd between each ditch the safest way. He did Democracy and misrule hate, And lov'd the Order both of Church and State."

"[I]n the spring and summer of 1828 I set to work on Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity and read it straight through. Intercourse with my saintly elder sister Anne had increased my mental interest in religion and she though generally of Evangelical sentiments had an opinion that the standard divines of the English Church were of great value. Hooker's exposition of the claims of the Church of England came to me as a mere abstraction: but I think that I found the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, theretofore abhorred, impossible to reject and the way was thus opened for further changes."

"Unlimited Non-resistance can no more be inferr'd from this Scheme, than from that, espoused and established by the Excellent and Judicious Mr. Hooker, which founds the Authority of Governours upon the Voluntary Compact of Men."

"To fortify your own principles, and to qualify yourselves to give the Laity the instruction they so much need in this important subject, of the deference due from the private Christian, in matters purely Spiritual, to the authority of the Church, and to a Ministry of Divine institution, I would advise, that you make the writings that remain of the Apostolical Fathers, more especially of St. Clement and St. Ignatius, your constant study. They may be redde either in the Original, or in Bishop Wake's translation. Much edification on the same subject is to be drawn from the Ecclesiastical Polity of the Learned Hooker; and from the writings of an eminent Divine of the Church of Ireland, in the last century, the celebrated Charles Leslie."

"Dr. Heylin's History of the Reformation and the preface of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Policy thoroughly convinced him that neither the Church of England, nor Calvin, or any of the Reformers, had power to do what they did, and he was confident, he sayd, that whosoever reads those two books with attention, and without prejudice, would be of the same opinion."

"Of their Nation, Hookers Ecclesiasticall historie...for church matters."

"[N]o man can set a better state of the question between Scripture and tradition, than Hooker doth. His words are these: "The Scripture is the ground of our belief; the authority of man (that is the name he gives to tradition) is the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture." ... [W]e resolve our faith into Scripture as the ground; and we will never deny that tradition is the key that lets us in."

"It is hard to overestimate the importance of Hooker. He was probably the greatest defender of the Prayer Book. The strength of his defense is to be found in his use of the philosophia perennis, and of the theology built upon it. He so employs this traditional thought that the Book of Common Prayer becomes meaningful and inherently significant."

"His truest successor in political thinking was Burke, and Burke believed in meeting the new political situation with the wisdom of the past, but he also believed that a new situation should be interpreted in terms of its own needs and characteristics... Burke's notion is that of the constant use of the past, but also the use of creative freedom to meet the fresh and novel demands of the present. This doctrine Burke draws from Hooker."

"In such a Christian society as Hooker conceived England to be, bishops and other clergy have distinct functions from those of civil officials... But they are both ministers of the same Christian society, the society which is both Church and state. Church and state are two functions of one Christian society. It is a Christian society because the whole society is dedicated to the Christian way of life as the common good. Hooker's fundamental conception is that the common good of the Christian state and that of the Christian Church are identical... If we should say to Hooker that secular life stands over against spiritual, his answer would be that either the common good of the nation is the Christian way of life or the nation is no longer Christian. Hooker believes that the redemption of public life is the highest work of Christianity. He does not wish to set Church and state apart; he wishes Christianity to be the common life of the nation. The life of the nation should be a single cultural life: the life of the Incarnation as the common good of the whole people. If this is true, there are not two societies, one Christian and the other secular."

"Hooker's ideal is the Respublica Christiana, the Christian state. In such a state, the head of the state is head of the Church. That is because there is one cultural life, one common good and one governmental mode of expressing that common good. This is the reason why Hooker accepts Constantine and Justinian as the typical Christian rulers, just as he accepts the Kings of Israel as the typical Jewish rulers. As the Kings of Israel headed the whole community as both Church and state, so Justinian was head of the whole society which was both Church and state. Hooker accepts Christianity as a religious culture, and at its best it is a social life transfigured by the Incarnation. Hooker is the heir of the ages, and uses not only Justianian of the East but St. Thomas of the West. If there is not a unity of culture the Church becomes a sacral society and the state becomes a secular society... Culture cannot be disintegrated without disaster. What is needed is a redeemed culture transfiguring both Church and state."

"Hooker would not have been, but for the existence of Catholics and Puritans, the defeat of the former and the rise of the latter."

"[H]e himself was by temperament inclined to deference, scrupulous in his regard for authority, an enthusiast for order. Moreover, he was a shy man, loving a quiet, retired life, and even then easily abashed: and it may well be that he thought of the great world and those who shone in it with a child-like sense of remoteness and alarm which he was not self-conscious enough to disguise."

"Mr. Chetwind fell commending of "Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity," as the best book, and the only one that made him a Christian, which puts me upon the buying of it, which I will do shortly."

"[H]e was a great admirer of Calvin, whose writings he regarded as one of the three pillars of the faith and worship of the reformed English Church, along with the Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer. All leaders of the Church, from John Jewel to John Whitgift, were in Calvin's debt, in Hooker's opinion. His quarrel was only with the Calvinist discipline and with the biblical extremism that some Puritans were trying to impose in England. The presbyterian polity might or might not be suitable for Geneva and other principalities, but here in England, Hooker believed, there was an existing ecclesiastical polity which conformed to the traditions and laws of his country."

"Hooker insisted that all legitimate political power comes originally from the community and may return to it again under certain dire circumstances. He speaks of a social compact whereby power was first transferred from the people to a government, perhaps a monarch. Such notions were later used to justify rebellion against kings. Is this where Hooker was headed—toward a modern theory of consent and revolution, à la John Locke and Thomas Jefferson? Certainly not! Hooker meant only that, as Aristotle said, we are all political animals by nature and cannot live in isolation outside society. Since selfishness puts us at war with one another in an ungoverned society, we form civil governments to maintain peace and provide the order necessary for our general tranquillity. Only in this general and theoretical sense did Hooker speak of popular sovereignty and social compact."

"Hooker made the point that Church and state together make a single society, a Christian commonwealth. This was the heart of Hooker's political philosophy and Saravia would have applauded it. Both men believed that there was no one in the Church of England who was not at the same time a citizen of the English commonwealth, or any member of the commonwealth who was not also a member of the Church of England. Citizens exercised their civic duties as members of the commonwealth and their religious duties as members of the Church. But in all things they were members of a single Christian commonwealth of England... In this realm of England...there was but one society: a true Christian commonwealth headed by only one ruler, a sovereign queen."

"In the long crowded roll of great English men of letters there is no figure of greater significance to the instructed mind than Hooker... His own life's work [The Ecclesiastical Polity] is a monument of pure and splendid prose style and lucid philosophical thought, based on unsurpassed scholarship in the vast field of his theme. The book itself is a milestone in the history of a great English institution [the Anglican Church] and of religious thought."

"Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity is more than a magnificent piece of prose writing, more than a full statement of the views of a philosopher defending the position of the church against its Puritan enemies. It is a document of Church history of the first importance, a manifesto to which the Church returns at every crisis to seek justification and vindication."