*SUMMARY AND IMPORTANT CONCEPTS*

Hooker: Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

-Richard Hooker was the first who wrote about theology and
philosophy in English. He was the priest of the Elizabethan
Church who supported the Church of England and Queen
Elizabeth against the rising accusation and opposition by
Catholics and Protestant Puritans. He supported a middle path
between non-conformist puritans and papal Catholicism and
paved the way for the establishment of the Anglican church. His
major literary work is of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity which
was published in eight parts. First, five books were published
before 1597 and the remaining three were published
posthumously after his death.
-In of the Ecclesiastical Polity, Hooker talks about how to find the
middle way between Catholicism and Protestantism. He defended
the Anglican church or church of England against accuses of
Roman Catholic church and the puritans both.
-Hooker set out to expound the Anglican philosophy of
government, in both civil and spiritual matters. The essence of
Anglicanism lay in the state establishment of the Church
of England under the supreme authority of the monarch. Hooker's
book, the most outstanding work of 16th-cent. political thought
written in English—not least because of its beautiful prose—is a
classic expression of conservatism, defending the Elizabethan
polity as a middle way both between puritanism and papism, and
between traditionalism and rationalism.
-Richard Hooker became the master or rector of the Temple in
London. The Temple was a prominent church that was Puritan
friendly because of the patronage of a prominent noble and a
diplomat. Prior to the coming of Hooker a simpler worship service
had been allowed and maintained by Walter Travers (1548-1635).
Travers’ ordination was through a continental presbyter, and he
refused to be ordained under Anglican orders. He was thus
disqualified by the Anglican hierarchy from becoming rector.
Travers was left on as a lecturer or reader.
-The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity was the fruit of the public
dispute between the Puritans and the Anglican over church polity,
the Book of Common of Prayer, and the entailed ceremonies. The
main focus of the first four books is epistemology, hermeneutics,
and inconsistencies in the Puritan/Presbyterian critique. The three
issues are intermixed and the editors have provided citations of
Hooker’s quotes and allusions from Travers and Thomas
Cartwright’s (1535-1603) defense of Presbyterian practice and
government; the critical apparatus from Keble’s Hooker’s Works is
also included.
-Hooker summarizes that A law therefore generally taken, is a
directive rule unto goodness of operation. The rule of voluntary
agents on earth is the sentence that Reason giveth concerning
the goodness of those things which they are to do. And the
sentences which Reason giveth are some more some less
general, before it come to define in particular actions what is good
-Hooker persisted that Elizabethan church is better than Roman
Catholic Church and the puritan churches. He upheld and
supported the three-fold authority of bible, hookers say that
Anglican tradition suggest the citizens should follow the church of
traditions with the monarch of England being the head of the
church, and if things still remain ambiguous, then one should
follow the human reason.
-He further suggests that the Ecclesiastical law needs to be in the
hands of the church through bishops with the English Monarch as
the supreme magistrate. Richard Hooker established the Anglican
tradition of having three-fold authority namely the scriptures,
tradition and reason. Scripture is the bible, Tradition is the Church
with the English monarch as the head and reason is the rational
faculty of humans. So the law not only influenced Anglican church
but also influenced the development of theology, political theory
and English prose.

- Hooker sees the main error of the Puritans as misunderstanding

the difference between divine law which applies to salvation and
the other laws that apply the ordering of the church in the most
convenient way. Natural, human, and rational law are subsumed
within divine law. “For as they rightly maintain God must be
glorified in all things, and that the actions of men cannot tend unto
his glory unless they be framed after his law; so it is their error to
think that only law which God hath appointed unto men in that
behalf is the sacred Scripture”

References:
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKf3L1QKVCI
-https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-
transcripts-and-maps/laws-ecclesiastical-polity#:~:text=Laws
%20of%20Ecclesiastical%20Polity%2C%20The%20(1594%2C
%201597%2C%201648,supreme%20authority%20of%20the
%20monarch.
-https://www.andoverbaptist.org/index.php/pastors-blog/
academic-book-reviews/218-richard-hooker-of-the-laws-of-
ecclesiastical-polity-books-i-to-iv
-https://www.britannica.com/topic/Of-the-Lawes-of-Ecclesiasticall-
Politie