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Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul ciichA. 11 est filmA A partir de Tangle supArieur gsuche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants iilustrent la mAthode. by errata led to snt jne pelure, apon A 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 6 6 /. RICHARD HOOKER A SKETCH OK HIS LIFK, WRITINGS AND TIMES BY THE REV. JAMES S. STONE, B.D. Rector of St. Philip's Church, Toronto SDoroitto HUNTER, ROSE & CO., 25 WELLINGTON STREET 1882 4 / • 1 \h \ ^4. / \h RICHARD HOOKER A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, WRITINGS AND TIMES BT THE \ EEV. JAMES S. STOJTE, B.D. Eector of St. Philip'a Church, Toronto II HUNTER, ROSE & CO., 25 WELLINGTON STREET 1882 SI \ PKEFACE. 'Vs.*V-^v/\ ■^^ -^v'N/X/t The following essay is an enlargement of a paper read by me at a meeting held during the present month,in St. James' School-house, under the auspices of the Toronto Protestant Episcopal Divinity School. Imperfect as it may be, I am not without hope that it may be found interesting, if not instructive. At any rate, it can scarcely fail to attract those who read it to the writings of ont of the princes of theologians. I have not thought it necessary, ex- cept m the case of some direct quotations, to give notes and references. Should my sketch in its present form receive from the public at large any- thing approaching the appreciation tendered it when first read, I shall endeavour at some future time to make it a more complete and thorough exposition of the writings, views and surroundings of Hooker. Toronto, January 19th, 1882. \ EICHARD HOOKER Our subject carries us back three hundred years, to the time of that great and renowned sovereign, Elizabeth of England. And grand and glorious times they were, as all must confess. Not only was the Queen herself one of the most accomplished and successful of rulers, learned, wise, determined, versed in statecraft and imbued with but one desire, and that the welfare and glory of the nation over which she ruled, but the age produced a galaxy of eminent men that have rarely if ever been equalled either for bravery and endurance, or for creative genius, massive learning and originality of thought and ex- pression. Those were the days when around the sovereign, guiding her action and furthering her policy, were such men as Cecil, WaLsingham, Sir Nicholas Bacon and Sir Christopher Hatton, bril- liant every one of them for loyalty and political skill. Those were the days when such men as Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins and Raleigh were laying the foundations of England's maritime supremacy, mmmmm IIICHARD HOOKER. carrying licr flag around the world, searcldng out the hidden wonders of the seas of the icy north and the sunny south, and maintaining their country's honour against even the mighty fleets of Spain. Then HolHnslied and Stow compiled their famous chronicles and antiquities, and Hackluyt told the story of the voyages and adventures of the English. Then Sydney wrote his inimitable love-sonnets, his Astro[)hel and Stella, and Spenser gave the world his noble and wonderful poem, the Faery Queene, which for allegor}'', truthfulness, richness of expres- sion, and vigour and beauty of invagination stands among the first works of genius. Then dramatic art received its character and polish from Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, Ford, Shirley, Marlowe and Ben Jonson ; whilst towering high above them all, above not only the poets of his own time, but the Dantes and Homers of the pa^t ages, was that greatest and grandest of all men, William Shakespeare, whose unapproachable genius cast the brightest lustre upon the times in which he lived, and gave to liim and his beloved England an immortal- ity of glory and renown. Surely that was a match- less era ! RICHARD HOOKER. 7 Nor were there wanting men of learning and ability to mould the theological thought and ec- clesiastical polity of the Church. Full of a new life and revelling in the first sweets of truest freedom, the divines of that day stand high amid the host of scholars that England has produced. I need but mention Parker, Whitgift, Field, Sandys, Bancroft and the great Jewel, whose "Apology" and "Defence of the Apology" can never be forgotten, to prove this statement ; while greater than the best of them, a very noonday sun outshining every star in the broad heavens, is the revered subject of my present paper, the erudite, judicious, temperate and holy KiCHARD Hooker. The Church of England has no greater name than his, no divine to whom she lis- tens with such reverence, no one writer that receives so unanimously the respect of every school of thought within her borders. I may not perhaps place him beside Shakespeare and Bacon, but cer- tainly next to them he stands the first of all the masters of that age of master-minds. His influence upon the religious thought of England has been and still is immense. The Church is permeated through and through with the thoughts of that mighty in- 8 RICHARD HOOKER. / tellect, and it is only when we read his pages that we discover the source from whence her gi-eatness and her glory flow. Hooker was bom at Heavitree, a suburb of the ancient City of Exeter, in the County of Devon, in the year 15-^3. In that year the youthful and gifted king, Edward the Sixth, passed away, and with the accession of his sister Mary the dark cloud of op pression and persecution settled down upon the Protestant religion. Of the terrors of that reign of blood the future champion of England's Church was unconscious. He was but a lisping child when Cranmer and Ridley and Latimer and Bradford and Taylor and that nob' ^ army of martyrs were sealing their life's work at the stake. When he was able to think and act Mary had gone to give an account of her stewardship, and Elizabeth, the favourite of England and the star of hope to Protestant Europe, reigned in her stead ; and by the time he began to take his part in life our motherland had bccouic '. first of the Protestant nations and her liionarc)' the true defender of the faith ; in which |>;ov^ ^josition may it be her good fortune ever to remain ! I RICHARD HOOKER. 9 His parents, humble though they were in respect both of riches and of birth, were yet able to send him to the Grammar School in Exeter, where by his earnestness, gravity, quick apprehension, modesty and industry he soon won the affections of his wor- thy schoolmaster. To his great talents were added piety, and conscientiousness, and faith, so that when men saw him even as a boy ihey began to regard him as one richly endowed by God for some extra- ordinary purpose. It was this which brought him under the notice of Bishop Jewel of Salisbury, who after an interview with the lad was so pleased with him that he undeiLook the future supervision and expense of his studies, and when he was but fifteen years old sent him to Corpus Christi College, Ox- ford. There continued success attended him. He became a favourite with the president of his college and a marked man in the University. The Bishop of London committed his son to his tuition, and in due course of time he not only proceeded to his degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts, but was elected a fellow of his college, and even desired to read the University lectures in Hebrew. Before this how- ever, when he was about the age of eighteen, he ex- W ': * mmm ., UlftJI "WW I III I RICHARD HOOKER. n perienced that change of heart, that new birth, with- out which no man can see God. A lonof illness and a mother's prayers were the means that brought about this blessed result, and from that time Hooker was in the highest sense of the term a converted man. Thus wore combined in him great learning, remarkable talents, natural graces, and greater than all, and sanctifying all, the regeneration of the Holy Ghost. He became not only a true scholar, but also a true Christian. He looked back all his life with joy to that birthday of his soul, and thought of his mother with an affection like unto that of Augus- tine's for Monica. At last, fully equipped in every way for the sacred ministry, he re;^eived deacons and priests' orders, and about the year 1580 was ap- pointed to preach at St. Paul's Cross in London. This may be called the beginning of his public life. England was at tliat time divided into three dis- tinct religious parties, viz. : the Po|)ish, the Anglican and the Puritan. The Popish party, as its name indicates, still clung to the old system which Eliza- beth and England had decreed unscriptural and un- lawful ; the Anglican embraced those who adliered RICHARD HOOKER. 11 to the reformation of the old Church of England without destroying its historical continuity, or nar- rowing too much its doctrines and articles, or de- pirting unnecessarily from antiquity and catholic custom ; the Puritan consisted of those who objected to this somewhat middle position of the Church. They wished to abolish not merely vestments and stained glass windows, and organs, but the Prayer- book and the whole system of Episcopacy. They thought the English Reformation exceedingly de- fective, and determined to remedy it by bringing it if possible into exact conformity with the churches of Switzerland and Germany. To the Queen, the Puritans were as obnoxious as the Papists. She saw no reason why all her subjects could not wor- ship in the one Church and use the one liturgy. She had made the Church as comprehensive as pos- sible, and the great mass of the people were content. Nor did the Puritans wish to leave the Church ; they detested sectarianism as bitterly as did the Angli- cans, and all they sought was to change the Church so as to suit their own peculiar views. The favourers therefore of the conservative and comprehensive system of the Church of England had to face oppo- •i I t l\ 12 RICHARD HOOKER. / nents on either side, the V^itter Romanist and the radical Puritan, with this difference, the former was outside the Church and the latter was within. Be- fore Hooker came on the scene the Romish contro- versy had almost passed away, owing partly to the influence of such writings as Jewel's, and still more so to the iron hand of the vigorous and determined Queen ; but Puritanism was making itself felt more and more everyday. Imprisonment did not daunt its advocates. Persecution only served to inflame their zeal and give them life. Wherever and whenever they could, not in conventicles or places of their own, but in the pulpits of the State Church, they advanced their doctrines, denounced the bishops, censured the Prayerbook and ridiculed vestments, chanting, and ceremonies, and sought to overthrow the whole Anglican polity. The burn- ing question of the age soon became, Shall the Church become Presbyterian and the State Demo- cratic ? Shall her catholicity, historical succession, and incomparable liturgy be superseded by the barren worship, narrow doctrines and rigid, un- yielding discipline of Puritanism ? Shall the ad- vantages of antiquit}'' and episcopal orders be given I I ■W" RICHARD HOOKER. 13 up to Rome? Shall the Church of Augustine, Birinus, Lanfranc and Anselra perish, and a new one take its place ? The question was not settled in Elizabeth's day, nor for many a long day after. But Hooker gave his emphatic No, and ranged him- self on the Anglican side. He devoted his life and talents to the vindication of the Church he loved so dearly against the attacks of the Puritans. They were his lifelong foes. I do not say he hated them, for he was too great and good and generous to hate, but he followed them from argument to argument, and point to point with his irresistible logic, and made the Church of England impregnable forever. And this he did without ever going to the other extreme and imperilling his Protestantism. He gave Rome as hard blows as any he gave the Puri- tans ; and thus, like a wise navigator, he steered his craft down the river's middle-stream, avoidin£ the mud and dangers on either shore, and remembering this that truth rarely lies in extremes, and that the clearest life and richest graces will the sooner carry us to the ocean of the Divine purity and love. It was while Hooker was preacher at St. Paul's Cross he made the great mistake of his life ; he got \\\ I 1 f 14 RICHARD HOOKER. 1 I married. It may be all very well for ordinary mortals to do that, but how few men of genius have been fortunate in their wives ! Socrates, Job, Dante, Dryden, Milton, Wesley, Sterne, Churchill, Byron, Coleridge, Bacon, Coke, Addison, La Fontaine and Lessing are but a few among the many who mar- ried and were forever — or at least as long as their wives lived — unhappy. It seems as though great talents and domestic ff licity do not go together. Certainly poor Hooker got married, and then trouble came. Accommodation was provided for the clergy- man appointed to preach at St. Paul's Cross at a house close by, kept by a certain Mrs. Churchm9,n — a suggrestive name but sadly misleading in this case. Tie first time Hooker went to London to preach his annual sermon, the wretched old horse he rode went so leisurely along through the down- pouring rain that he reached the end of his journey wet, weary and weather-beaten. A couple of days in bed and the careful nursing of Mrs. Churchman brought him round all right ; and then when that kind woman, seizing the opportunity, told him that he was a man of a tender consti- tution and needed a wife to nurse him and take RICHARD HOOKER. 15 ordinary ius have ), Dante, Byron, ine and 10 mar- is their 1 great gether. brouble clergy- is at a chman in this Ion to horse ^own- f his iouple Mrs. then mity, )nsti- take care of him, the learned and simple-minded man commissioned her to select him one, assuring her that he would abide by her choice. The landlady made the selection ar d ffave him her own daughter Joan, — a damsel void of either beauty or portion, a vixen and a scold, utterly unfit both by disposition and education for a man such as Hooker, and worse than all else with a strong twist to Puritanism. How- ever Hooker married her, and, as Walton says, ever after he had just cause to say with the prophet, " Woe is me, that I am constrained to have my habi- tation in the tents of Kedar ! " The immediate result of his marriaf!:e was the loss of his colleofe fellowship, but in 1584 he was presented to a small country parish in Buckinghamshire. Here poverty and domestic tyranny and, doubtless, repentance awaited him. When on one occasion two of his old pupils visited him they found him in the field read- ing the Odes of Horace, and looking after his little flock of sheep, and when he was released from this duty and had returned to the house with his guests, " Richard was called to rock th> cradle." The young men saw his great distress, and one of them, being the son of the Archbishop of York urged his father i\ f* 16 RICHARD HOOKKR. v to see if some better provision could not be made for him. The important position of Master of the Temple falling vacant in 1585, Hooker received the appointment for life. The Mastership of the Temple was in those days, as it is in our own, one of the most important offices that any divine could hold in London, next perhaps to the episcopal throne itself, or the deanery of Westminster. The Church was built by the rich and powerful Knights Templars, but all their estates were confiscated, and the lawyers now walk about the grounds, and occupy the buildings which once belonged to those old warriors. Hooker found, how- ever, on entering upon his duties that Travers, the afternoon lecturer, was a Puritan, and ere long the morning sermon preached Canterbury and the after- noon Geneva. Both men were very positive in their convictions, and controversy soon broke out between them. Travers charged Hooker with teaching some fifteen erroneous or faulty doctrines ; against which Hooker vigorously defended himself. Long and bitterly did the unseemly conflict go on ; the lec- turer making his charges at one service, and the master answering them at another, and this be it be made ir of the jived the ose days, it offices perhaps mery of the rich r estates k about ch once id, how- -^ers, the ong the e after- in their •etween g some which ig and ihe lec- nd the s be it I tllCHAKD HOOKER. 17 remembered in the same pulpit. At last the matter was referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Travers was dismissed from office. But Travers was an eloquent preacher, and Hooker dry and uninter- esting, and the lawyers were not pleased. Hooker therefore resigned, and took charge of a parish in the distant diocese of Salisbury, and there in the leisure and retirement of his country home he began his immortal work " Of tlie Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity." It is upon this work that the fame of Hooker rests. Here we may best discern his greai genius and learning. Here we see how truly he n:!ay be placed among the most eminent theologians of the Christian Church. For pointed wit and polemic dexterity he may be compared with Tertullian ; for keen penetration and glowing imagination with Origen ; as an expositor of sacred Scripture, and for a pure and devoted life, with Chrysostom ; as pos- sessing a deep spirituality and a wondrous insight into his own heart, and into the ways and mysteries of God, with Augustine. In common with the best divines of the English Church, he was versed in 2 18 RICHARD HOOKER. i' Scriptural and classical lore ; ranking high for his attainments in the Latin, Greek and Hebrew lan- guages, and also for his intimate acquaintance with the writings of the Fathers and the Schoolmen. With a devout reverence for the past, and the spirit to discern the immense value of patristic literature, his pages reproduce the best thoughts of the early and mediaeval church, and remind us of a department of study sadly neglected in these latter days. Who would compare the best of modern meditative books with the inimitable Confessions of St. Augustine ? Therefore, Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Polity " is tem- pered with that high conservatism which would seek to preserve the better features of the bygone ages, and with them beautify and adorn, perhaps restrain and correct, the progressive and ever- varying present. The work immediately secured the popularity of its writer. At home and abroad men recognised his skill and ability. Some English Romanists trans- lated the lirst book into Latin for Pope Clement the Eighth, who, when he had read it, exclaimed, " There is no learning that this man hath not searcht into ; nothing too hard for his understanding : this man indeed deserves the name of an author ; his books niCHARD HOOKER. 19 will get reverence by age, for there is in them such seeds of eternity that, if the rest be like this, they shall last till the last fire shall consume all learning." It is not often a Roman Pontiff thus commends a Protestant book, but it was worthy of it, for as King James the First — himself, in spite of his pedantry, no mean theologian — says, ** Doubtless there is in every page of Mr. Hooker's book the picture of a divine soul, such pictures of Truth and Reason, and drawn in so sacred colours that they shall never fade, but give an immortal memory to the author." I do not say that the reader who has taken up his position upon modern party lines will agree with everything that Hooker wrote or said. There is no book, save one, that is perfect ; there is no man, save One, who never did or said anything wrong. As Evangelical Churchmen, we should scarcely agree with Hooker in his defence of pluralities and non- residence, in his arguments for princely prelates who should be rather lordly ministers of state than lowly representatives of the Lord Jesus, in his somewhat light estimation of the value of preaching. I am not sure that all would regard his interpretation of John iii. 5 as correct ; nor do I think many would v\ 20 RtCHARD aOOKER. / appreciate his rather qualified admission of the sal- vation of unbaptized infants. He uses express! ")ns and advances opinions which would perhaps preju- dice some against him. In the present sense of the terms, he is neither a High Churchman nor a Low Churchman. He would fit into none of our party niches ; for the age of Queen Elizabeth and the age of Queen V^ictoria differ in nothing more than in this, the relative position and tenets of religious parties. But one thing is clear and certain, Richard Hooker was a plain, positive, outspoken Protestant. He disliked Puritanism, but Popery he detested. There was no desire on his part to bridge over the chasm which the Reformation had cree'ed between the lovers of Scriptural truth and the worshippers of the harlot of Rome. In this, he and Cartwright and Travers were one. The soil of England was yet wet with the blood of the martyrs ; the candle which by the grace of God had been lighted at the funereal pyre of the sainted Latimer, was yet burn- ing in ?;il its new-born splendour. The man who in those days would have said smooth things of Rome, or talked of reunion, would have been de- nounced as a traitor to his sovereign, his church and lilCHARD HOOKER. 21 his God. Therefore, thi'oughout Hooker's writings the sturdiest, noblest Protestantism manifests itself, not perhaps in the rough, blunt manner of the Re- formers — for Hooker was nothing if not conservative — but for all that speaking out unmistakably, man- fully and vigorously, denouncing error of all kinds, and especially the error that had so long held the nations in bondage. Take, for instance, Hooker's view of the Chuich. Romanists define the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to be an organized, visible society, composed of those who profess the true religion, and are sub- ject to lawful pastors, especially to the only vicar of Christ on earth, the Roman pontiff; Ritualists difter from this only in substituting for the Pope bishops which have true succession. Such a definition ignores the distinction of the Church invisible and the Church visible. It makes the essence or beinff of the Church to consist in its organization or out- ward form. It applies to this body those everlast- ing promises of love, mercy and blessedness which belong only to the mystical body of Christ.* It * Hooker's Eccles. Polity, iii. 1, 3. 22 RICHARD HOOKER. f i / I't !'fi makes baptism, and not faith, the means of justifi- cation, and as Haddon unblushingly says, " It means, in few words, without bif]hops no presbyters, with- out bishops and presbyters no legitimate certainty of sacraments, without sacraments no certain union with the mystical body of Christ, viz., with His Church, without this no certain union with Christ, and without that union no salvation." * By this theory all the true and holy of those bodies of Chris- tians which have not the episcopal order and suc- cession are coolly and mercilessly consigned to the uncovenanted mercies of God, if not to everlasting damnation. It is refreshing to turn from this ghastly conception of truth to our great master of theology. Hooker, we find, draws the true distinction be- tv^een the Church invisible and the Church visible : the former containing those only who are known to God, and to whom He has shewn His endless love and saving mercy ; the latter containing those who profess before men that they believe in and love the Lord Jesus. The one embraces those who are truly regenerate, the other a mixed multitude of good and *Hacldon'8 "Apostolical Succession in the Church of Englai^d," 1>. 14. RICHARD HOOKER. 23 bad. " For lack of diligent observing the difference, first between the Church of God mystical and visible, then between the visible sound and corrupted, vsome- times more, sometimes less, the oversights are neither few nor light that have been committed."* All bodies of men who profess faith in Christ are visible churches, and though apparently divided are not really so ; for " 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 one of which is termed a church within itself. ""f* If anyone ask, whether they have episcopal organization or no, Hooker answers, "That matters of discipline are different from matters of faith and salvation ; "I and again, " So far forth as the Church is the mystical body of Christ and his invisible spouse, it needeth no external polity."§ He denies that the Scriptures teach any form of church government.|| If anyone * Eccles. Polity iii. 1, 9. t E. P. iii. 1, 14. t E. P. iii. 3, 1. §E. P. iii. 11, 14. II And yet fault has been found with Professor Hatch's learned and tidinirable work on " The Organization of the Early Christian Churches," because he avoided bringing the Scriptures into his argu- ment* irs^wt^irrrrr-." 24 KICHARD HOOKER. / If lii 1 ask whether bishops are absolutely necessary to the being of the Church, Hooker answers, " Bishops, albeit they may avouch with conformity of truth that their authority hath descended even from the very apostles themselves, yet the absolute and ever- lasting continuance of it they cannot say that any commandment of the Lord doth enjoin ; and there- fore must acknowledge that the Church hath power by universal consent upon urgent cause to take it away, if thereunto she be constrained through the proud, tyrannical and unreformable dealings of her bishops."* If anyone ask are ministers essentially necessary to the administration of sacraments, Hooker denounces " the fumbling shifts to enclose the minister's vocation within the compass of some essential part of the sacrament. "-f* There can be no doubt, therefore, of Hooker's view of the Church, ponceived either as a visible or as an invisible body. Or take his vi'^w of the crucial question of justi- fication. How is a sinner justified in the sight of God, i.e.y held to be not guilty, and therefore free from the law ? Is it by faith or works ? Rome * E. P. vii. 5, 8. tE. r. V. 62, 14. RICHARD HOOKER. 25 says by works ; bapfcism therefore justifies, and pen- ances, pilgrimages, masses and good deeds generally. Bishop Mcllvaine has proven that such is also the doctrine of the so-called Catholic party in the Church of England. Such justification is the infusion of righteousness ; it means that the man actually is that which he is imputed or reckoned to be ; it is equivalent to sanctification : it has degrees. Pro- testantism declares that we are justified by faith in the Lord Jesus, and that it is His and not our righteousness which saves. If a man be forgiven a crime by the sovereign power, he is no longer es- teemed guilty; but he is not actually' innocent, though he be reckoned so to be. We are in point of fact sinners, but for Christ's sake, we having by faith thrown ourselves upon Him, God regards us as just men and free from condemnation. We have the pardon sealed, not by works which we have done, but by the blood of Christ. The two views are diametrically opposed to each other. "The Church of Rome," says Hooker, " in teaching justifi- cation by inherent grace, doth pervert the truth of Christ ; " * and again, " If they work more and more, * Sermon ii. 6, V I I' M ^i 2G KICHARD HOOKER. I m. I \ ) t ' grace doth more and more increase, and they are more and more justified. To such as have diminished it by venial sins, it is applied by holy water, Ave Marias, crossings, papal salutations, and such like, which serve for reparations of grace decayed ? "* So he declares, " The righteousness wherein we must be found, if we will be justified, is not our own ; therefore we cannot be justified by any inherent quality;" and, after enforcing that point, he elo- quently adds, " Let it be counted folly, or phrensy, or fury, or whatsoever. It is our wisdom and our comfort ; we care for no knowledge in the world but this, that man hath sinned, and God hath suffered ; that God hath made Himself the sin of men, and that men are made the righteousness of God."-f' We hear much in these days of the value and virtue of priestly absolution. Romanists believe, and Ritualists profess to believe, that the minister has power to forgive sins, that is to say, not merely to assure the repentant sinner of God's most gracious and merciful pardon, but to really take away sin. \ Thus absolution has a power and grace in itself to * Sermon ii. 5. f Sermon ii. 6. E. P. vi. 6, 4. RICHARD HOOKER. 27 and they are e diminished water, Ave d such like, yed?"* So '" we must )t our own ; »y inherent "<^> he elo- ^rphrensy, 'm and our world but ^ suifered ; men, and 3d."f ^alue and 5 believe, minister >t merely gracious 'ay sin. + itself to make a man free from sin irrespective of the state of the soul. They claim that God has ordained His priests for this very purpose ; has in fact tied Him- self to their sentence. " For why ? If there were any other way of reconciliation, the very promise of Christ should be false, in saying, * Whatsoever ye bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven ; and whose sins soever ye retain, are retained.' " But Hooker in words of remorseless logic and burning sarcasm re- plies : " Except therefore the priest be willing, God hath by promise so hampered himself, that it is not now in His own power to pardon any man. Let him which hath offended crave as the publican did : * Lord, be thou merciful to me a sinner' ; let him, as David, make a thousand times his supplication, ' Have mercy upon me, God, according to thy loving-kindness ; according to the multitude of thy compassions put away mine iniquities' ; all this doth not help, till such time as the pleasure of the priest be known ; till he have signed us a pardon, and given us our qvietus est, God himself hath no answer to make but such as that of his angel unto Lot, * I can do nothing.' " * In like manner we hear much of ! ■ *E. P., vi. 6. 1. ; 28 RICHARD HOOKER. I 9 Ir ill /. i the real objective presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. We are told that in and under the forms of bread and wine are actually and literally the body and blood of the Redeemer. Hooker's sentence is " The real presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthy re- ceiver of the sacrament." * If it be said that the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation be unphilo- sophical and absurd, and that the better way is to believe Christ present in the elements without defin- ing how, Hook ^.r replies that they who defend the opinion that Christ's body and blood are externally seated in the verv consecrated emblems themselves, " are driven either to consuhstantiate and incorporate Christ with elements sacramental, or to transubstan- tiate and change their substance into his." "^ That is the logical and consistent end of the doctrine. So if any allege that there is an inherent grace in the sacraments, Hooker answers " They really exhibit, but for aught we can gather out of that which is written of them, they are not really nor do really contain in themselves that grace which with them E, P. V. 67, 6. t E. P. V. 67, ?. .?: Jesus Christ |)er. We are [ad and wine blood of the 'eal presence is not to be worthy re- id that the ^e unphiJo- • way is to 'hout defin- defend the externaljy hemselves, ^corporate nsubstan- 't That >nne. So ce in the exhibit, vhich is really 'h them RICHARD HOOKER. 29 or by them it please th God to bestow" ; * or, if any say that notwithstanding the lack of fitness on the part of the recipients of the sacrament there is a blessing conveyed, he affirms in words worthy of being engraved in letters of gold, " All receive not the grace of God which receive the sacraments of his grace."-|* I have referred to these points at somewhat greater length than the plan of my essay perhaps warrants, because they are not only of importance as indicating Hooker's position in regard to the dif- ferences between Protestantism and Romanism, but because they also shew how far Hooker agrees with what are denominated, and sometimes scornfully so, as Evangelical principles. At the same time it must be distinctly borne in mind that Hooker did not go to the extreme to which perhaps some have dared, and look upon the Church, the ministry and the sacraments as of little or no consequence ; or that he regarded good works as useless or displeasing to God. From such views he as instinctively shrank as I think I may venture to affirm the great mass of Protestant Churchmen do at the p^-esent day. AH * E. P. V. 67, 6. t E. P. V. 57, 4. f II ■; ' f^ ri I 30 'ICHARD HOOItER. through his writings the most cautious conserva- tism is manifested, amounting sometimes to almost nervous timidity. One has a suspicion that he would even defend praci'ces and opinions which he must have known were illogical, if not wrong, simply through fear lest something worse should take their place. This is, however, only in reference to Puritanism ; in reference to Rome he ever un- flinchingly condemns her errors and maintains the righteous character of the Church of England. Judged perhaps by the present age, there is much that seems strange and contradictory in the writings and life of Hooker ; but, judged by his own times and the mode of thought current then, he is perfectly consistent. Things which now might be considered alien to the spirit of gospel-religion, might not have been so regarded in those days. Protestantism has been progressive. Hooker undoubtedly believed in baptismal regeneration ; though how he got over the fact that there are multitudes of baptized per- sons who show no signs of a holy life and real change of heart, I know not. He countenanced and prac- tised private confession to the minister — a custom which lingered in the Church down to the time of m in I A J vn'ii 'T-.;?'ryMWBT:tfg*'saatfc»i RICHARD HOOKER. ^ US conserva- les to almosfc on that he ns which he not wrong, orse should in reference e ever un- intains the •land. 'fe is much »e writino-s own times s perfectly considered fc not have ntism has elieved in got over ized per- J-l change ttd prac- ^ custom time of Bishop Burnet. He defended and inculcated fast- ing, as in later times did John Wesley and the early Methodists. The observance of saints' days was heartily commended ; " well to celebrate these religious and sacred days is to spend the flower of our time happily." * He loved splendid churches and ornate and lengthy services ; he took off his hat and bowed his knees at the name of Jesus, particularly when it occurred in the Gospel ; he held to the indelibility of Orders. Such things as these he dia not consider in any sense contrary to true Protestantism, and whatever one's own per- sonal feelings in regard to them may be, one cannot but admire the man who could on the one hand affirm that " if anything in the Church's govern- ment, surely the first institution of bishops was from heaven, was even of God, the Holy Ghost was the author of it," and on the other hand acknowledge the great learning and perfection of Calvin's writ- ings, and even admit that " there may be sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination made without a bishop." f E. r. V. 71, 11. + E. P. vii. 14, 11. 32 RICHARD HOOKER. I Sut apart from all controversy, who cannot ap- preciate such wondrously beautiful sentiments as the following, expressed as they are in all the grace of rhetoric and wealth of feeling ? " Of Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world." * " Nature is no sufficient teacher what we should do that we may attain unto life everlasting. The unsufficiency of the light of Nature is by the light of Scripture so fully and so perfectly herein supplied, that further light than this hath added there doth not need unto that end."*!- " A duti- ful and religious way for us were to admire the wisdom of God, which shineth in the beautiful variety of all things, but most in the manifold and yet harmonious dissimilitude of those ways, whereby his Church upon earth is guided from age to age, throughout all generations of men." :j: " What is the assembling of the Church to learn, but the receiving of angels descended from above ? What to pray, but the sending of angels up- ward V § " To make a wicked and a sinful man *E. P.i. 16, 8. § E. P. V. 23, 1. t E. P. ii. 8, 3. J E. P. iii. 11, 8. RICHARD HOOKER, 33 most holy through his Lelieving, is more than to create a world of nothing. * * * Q that God would open the ark of mercy, wherein this doctrine lieth, and set it wide before the eyes of poor afflicted consciences, which fly up and down upon the water of their afflictions, and can see nothing but only the gulf and deluge of their sins, wherein there is no place for them to rest their feet." * These passages selected almost at random will perhaps give somo idea of the literary and spiritual treasures which are contained in this great divine. Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Polity" is divided up into eight books, the first five of which alone are unmu- tilated. The other three were published after his death, and bear the marks of change and interpola- tion. The first book is one of the best treatises on the nature and origin of law ever written ; the fifth book, treating of the details and ministers of public worship, is used in most dioceses and theological seminaries as a text book. Singularly enough the books with the odd numbers are the best. His only other writings extant are seven sermons. The best edition is that of Keble's, in three volumes, which * Sermon, vi, 28. 3 /* ! / 34 RICHARD HOOKER. contains the literary remains of the great Hooker, his life, by Isaac Walton, and a preface by the Editor ; the text carefully corrected and illustrated by ample notes and quotations. Hooker remained in the Diocese of Salisbury till 1 595, when he was presented by the Queen to the parish of Bishopsboume in the County of K^nt, some three miles from Canterbury. Here he completed his " Ecclesiastical Polity ; " here with that sweet, peaceful lustre peculiar to himself he shone as the loving pastor and loyal priest ; here he was when the Master called him to his well-won and eternal rest. May we not picture him as he lived and worked among his people ? The materials are amply sufficient for such a sketch. 8 Kent, though far more important then than now, was not in the time of Queen Elizabeth what it had been in the days preceding the' Reformation. Then it was second only as a manufacturing centre to Nor- folk and Suffolk ; while it excelled all England in the value of its relics and historical associations. The altar of Our Lady at Walsingham or the Holy '/ RICHARD HOOKER. 35 Rood at Bromholra, was nothing beside the shrine of that " most holy saint and martyr," St. Thomas of Canterbury.* As a business speculation, Beckot was a decided success. The wealth of the realm was poured into the church and county that possessed his blessed bones. Thousands of pilgrims worshipped on bended knee before his sepulchre. For three or four hundred years the most popular thing in England was the tramp to Can- terbury. It was this which helped to make Kent one of the richest counties in the country. Bishops- bourne no doubt had its proportional share in the local prosperity. It was situated near the famous road leading from Canterbury to Dover, and as its name indicates upon the banks of a little bourne ci' stream. Here there was a manor belonging to che Archbishop of Canterbury, which according to Domesday book brought in an income of £30 ; and two hundred and fifty years later £42 per annum. After the Reformation Kent began to decay. The people which had been most servile to Rome and * So a prominent ritualist calls him in the "Antiquary,"' vol. iii. p. 47 ; a " turbulent incendiary justly punished for his madness or presumption," is the alternative proposed by J. A. Froude, Nine- teenth Century, 1877. ; 3G IlICHAKD HOOKER. fi / # 1' most devoted to St. ThoTnas a'Becket, became the first and warmest adherents of Protestantism. In no county in England did the people adopt the " new teaching " more readily ; in no county in Eng- land were church estates more freely confiscated. Bishopsbourne was already in the gift of the crown ; a parish small in population,batrich in revenue. It has not changed, nor is it likely to change in these latter days. There is a feeling thatt steals over one when visiting this part of England that the glory has departed, and that the days of old will never v'v)me again. Everything is still and secluded. i)over is no longer one of the principal ports of the kirgdom, nor the road through Canterbury the great highway to London. The Archbishop rules from Lambeth, and not from the primatial city ; while manufactures and trade have fled to far off York- shire, Lancashire and Stafford. In that little village then, in a district so replete with reminiscences of by-gone times, so full of si us of present and growing stagnation and decay, Hooker spent the last five years oi his life. The decay around him, lu vN^ever, touched man and his works only. Nature with her loving, bountiful hand sought 't RICHARD HOOKER. 37 to make amends for such defects ; not perhaps so fully as elsewhere, for Kent is not the finest of the forty counties, but still with the same sweet skill and gentle grace that have made England so Eden- like and beautiful. Surely nowhere else do the roses grow as red, or the grass as green. Surely no- where else do the birds sing as cheerily or the streams flow in such glad, careless glee. All must admire, even if they cannot as heartily appreciate as a native Englishman, so noble a reproduction of the ideal Paradise. It is true human life in the country may to many seem sluggish and dull, but it is rarely irk.jome or uninteresting. The quaint, old-fashioned ways and sayings of the peasantry, their dogged perseverance, their spirit of independence, their sense of justice, their strange inconsistencies and endless variety of character, disposition, conception and aim, supply one with material for a life's study. They are poor, but they are honest ; they work hard, but they are happy; they know little of the world, but they are firm in their belief in God and future punishment. As it is now so it was in Hooker's day. He seems to have loved and understood his country parish- / III CO RICHARD HOOKER. / iH |, hm Mi..Uk\ #! 1 > f ioners. Like most English clergymen he joined with them in their mirth, as well as in their sorrow. Grave divine and holy man as he was he was no Puritan. So far as he could he threw himself into the social pleasures of the people. He witnessed their games and pastimes, their wassailings and ■wakes, their church and bridal ales. He saw their merry-makings and rejoicings at the great festive seasons — the cutting of the cake on Twelfth-night, the rough pageantry of Plough Monday, the burning of the holly-boy and ivy-girl at Shrovetide, the bringing home the May and the crowning of the Queen on Mayday, the kindling of the bonfires and the dances on Midsummer eve, and above all the blazing of the Yule log, the acting of the mummers, and the feasting and drinking of merry Christmas. The latter with its chimes and waits and carol- singing, its WTeathings of ivy, holly and bay in church and cotta<:!fe, its unreserved minfflinof of rich and poor, of peer and peasant, apart from its religious associations, must have been to him, as it was to his contemporaries, the queen of holidays. I do not know that in the summer Sunday afternoons he sat with his book and beer by his side watching the I -«9' I . /V RICHARD HOOKER. 39 e joined with heir sorrow. s he was no himself into e witnessed 'filings and 3 saw their -eat festive elfth-night, he burning betide, the ng- of the )nfires and ^e all the summers, Christmas, nd carol- 1 bay in r of rich religious as to his do not s he sat 'ing the morris-daneings, quintals, cudgel-plays, foot-ball and cricket on the village-green ; but such was a very common thing among the clergy of that day. WUton gives us a glimpse of his behaviour when the people beat the bounds of the parish. These having been ascertained by the rector, church- wardens and older parishioners, were severally pointed out to the village boys, and impressed upon their memories by such means as throwing one of them into the water, giving another a sound thrash- ing, or bumping a third against a wall, tree, post, or any other hard substance near at hand. The amuse- ment of the spectators may be better imagined than described. Hooker always accompanied such per- ambulations, as they were called, and on such occa- sions " he would usually express more pleasant dis- course than at other times, and would then always drop some loving and facetious observations to be remembered against the next year, especially by the boys and young people." Who shall say that he was not all the better for such relaxation ? Do we not indeed owe the very best of our English theo- logy to an age when the clergy joined heartily in the pleasures of the people ? Not that Hooker w s mCHAllD HOOKER. a man such as dear, old frolicsome Herrick. No one ever saw and appreciated the home-life, the pastimes, the deep-soul passions and the natural surroundings of the country people, before or since, better than did England's sweetest lyric-poet. I rather imagine Hooker to have been more after the heart of the old-fashioned angler who wrote his biography. Happy and wholesouled, one who was moved at the song of the birds and the pleasantries of humanity ; but quietly so. There was a spice of good humour about him and a good deal of sym- pathy, but he would be the most likely person I know of to follow the advice of that excellent lady, Dame Juliana Berners, and say his prayers or engage in meditation while waiting for the fish to bite. It is in his church, therefore, that we see Hooker most at home. There in an ecclesiastical rather than a worldly or natural background he shews to most advantage. Let us enter the sacred edifice. How like, and yet in many details how unlike our modern village temples ! There is the same general outline of nave and chancel and aisle, the same sweeping arch, noble pillar and floriated window but there are none of the pictures, images, devices RICHARD HOOKER. 41 'v^ r and altars of the mediaeval age, and none of the com- forts and conveniences of the nineteenth centuiy. There are no pews, a few hard, oak benches suffice for seats, and therefore that modern disgrace and abomination, pew-rent, is unknown. In the sum- mer-time the floor is strewn with sweet-smelling rushes, in the winter with straw. The communion- table is not a fixture against the eastern wall, but stands down in the body of the church, so that when the Sacrament is consecrated the minister can stand behind it facing the people, just as the Bishop of Rome does at the present day,* and as is still the custom in the out-of-the-way churches in Dalmatia-i* In the Prayer-book used in those days it goes by the significant name of " God's board." The men wear their hats in church, a some places still bring their hawks and hounds to the services, and whis- per to each other about the crops and the weather. There is a sprinkling of Puritans in Bishopsbourno, marked by their seriousness of dress and visage, and they are the only ones or nearly so who pay mucli * See Dean Stanley's " Christian Institutions," p. 186. t Freeman's ** Sketches from the Subject and Neighbouring Lands of Venice," p. 105. \ 42 RICHARD HOOKER. attention to the reading of the prayers. They dis- like the liturgy, and so though on different grounds, do the Romanists who are present. Both attend be- cause the law aofainst dissenters is severe and is rigidly enforced by the church- wardens and magis- trates. Both will meet secretly in their respective conventicles when the state-service is over.* There is little or no unity among the worshippers, little good-will and concord. The service is long and tedious, just the same familiar and heaven-boirn prayers and psalms as we have now, but for the most part rendered so officially and unsympatheti- cally, as to leave the hearts of the listeners un- touched. A curate, assisted by the parish-clerk, of- ficiates ; the former wearing the surplice, that " rag of popery," as the Puritans called it. No other vestments are used in any part of the service ; the queen's advertisements of 1565 having abolished all other " ornaments of the ministers " which were in use in Edward's time.j There are no hymns such as we have now, but psalms are sung and the organ music is tolerable. In some churches other instru- * This is admirably and conclusively shewn by Professor Butler, of Pliiladelphia, in his work on the Prayer-book. RICHARD HOOKER. m raents are used, just as in later tiincs the choirs in country-places sang to the accompaniment of the flute, clarionet, cornet and violin. There is only one sermon on Sunday in Hooker's parish, and that is preached in the morning by himself. In the after- noon his assistant catechises the youth of the parish. The greater number of churches in the kingdom have but one sermon a quarter, but as that would be an exhaustive treatise, lasting in the delivery an hour and a half or two hours, the people are pro- bably well satisfied. We feel thankful we did not live then. They were sleepy days, and to a very great extent the Church has herself to thank for the misfortunes which afterwards befell her. Hooker, hov/ever, was a diligent preacher, though he thought that a sermon should not exceed one hour in length. In the pulpit he was neither as- suming nor attractive. His discourses were instruc- tive and plain, but uninteresting. He was a little thin man, short-sighted, and with stooping shoul- ders and'a blotched face. On whatever point he fixed his eyes when he began his sermon there they re_ mained till he reached the end. Pie made no ges- tures, used no thunder tones, sought not his own Erata-i>a,asm«sK