No More Learning

Meantime, there had been a renewed outburst of anti-Martinist
pamphlets, this time in prose. The first of the new series, A
Countercuffe given to Martin Junior, published under the
pseudonym of Pasquill, on or about 8 August, was a direct
answer to Theses Martinianae and, at the same time, served as
a kind of introductory epistle to the tracts that followed, being
but four pages in length. Pasquill announces that he is preparing
two books for publication, The Owles Almanack and The Lives of
the Saints. The latter is to consist of scandalous tales relating to
prominent puritans, to collect which the author has 'posted very
diligently all over the Realme. Whether he ever thus turned
the tables upon Martin, we do not know; but one promise made in
this tract was certainly fulfilled. Before the conclusion, Martin
Junior is warned to expect shortly a commentary upon his
epilogue, with epitaphs for his father's hearse. This refers to
Martins Months Minde, and it is worth noticing that the writer
claims no responsibility for it as he does for the other two.
Martins Months Minde, by far the cleverest and most amusing
of the anti-Martinist tracts, in all probability saw light soon after
A Countercuffe. Its title refers to the old practice of holding a
commemoration service, known as a 'month's mind,' four weeks
after a funeral. The fresh vein of humour opened by Martin in
Theses Martinianae is here further worked out by a writer of
the opposite side. After discussing the various rumours to account
for old Martin's disappearance, the tract proceeds to give 'a true
account' of his death, describing his treatment by the physicians,
his dying speech to his sons, the terrible diseases that led to his
death, his will and, lastly, the revelations of a post-mortem ex-
amination of his corpse. The whole is rounded off by a number of
epitaphs in English and Latin by his friends and acquaintances.
All this is retailed with much humour and a little coarseness, and
is prefaced by two dedicatory epistles, the first of which is ad-
dressed to Pasquine of England and signed Marphoreus”.
The tracts just mentioned do not refer to the capture of
Martin's press or to the printing of The Protestation, and it is
probable, therefore, that they preceded both these events. Pappe
with a Hatchet and The Returne of Pasquill, the two that follow,
1 For the probable origin of these pen-names see Bond's Lyly, vol. 1, p. 55.


## p. 395 (#417) ############################################

6
The Pamphlets of the Harveys 395
were almost finished before The Protestation came into circulation,
each containing, in a postscript, a brief reference to its appearance.
An approximate date is fixed for all three tracts by the postscript
of The Returne, dated “20 Octobris,' in which the author states that
olde Martins Protestation' came into his hands 'yesternight late. '
Of the two anti-Martinist tracts, Pappe with a Hatchet was,
probably, the earlier, since an answer to it by Gabriel Harvey,
which we shall notice later, was concluded before 5 November.
This worthless production is the only hitherto undisputed contribu-
tion by John Lyly to the controversy. It essays to imitate the style
which Martin had adopted; but the frequent ejaculations with
which it is besprinkled do nothing to relieve the tediousness of the
whole. For the rest, it is a compound of sheer nonsense and frank
obscenity and must have disgusted more with the cause it upheld
than it ever converted from Martinism. The Returne of Pasquill
was superior in every way to Lyly's work, but, even so, it cannot
rank very high. Pasquill, returning from abroad, meets Marphoreus
on the Royal Exchange, and they discuss the inexhaustible topic
of Martinism together. A description of a puritan service at
Ashford, Kent, leads us to suppose that the author of A Counter-
cuffe may, indeed, have carried out his intention of posting over
England for news of the Martinists, and we have further references
to the two books containing his experiences already promised.
The tract concludes with a brief reply to The Protestation,
containing, it is interesting to observe, a eulogy on Bancroft.
Two new writers now joined their voices to the general
wrangle, Gabriel Harvey and his brother Richard, and their entry
was the beginning of yet another controversy, to which the poet
Greene contributed just before his death, and which was eventually
fought out over his dead body by Nashe and Gabriel Harvey. A
detailed description of this dispute would carry us too far from the
present subject', and we must here confine our attention to its open-
ing stage, which alone concerns the matter in hand. In order, we
may conjecture, to add a little flavour to the somewhat thankless task
Bancroft had imposed upon him, Lyly, in his Pappe, had deliber-
ately challenged Harvey to enter the Marprelate lists. Harvey at
once took up the gauntlet in his Advertisement to Papp-Hatchet;
but the writing of it seems to have cooled his anger, for it was not
published until 1593, when, in other ways, he had involved himself
in a quarrel with the literary free-lances of London. His pamphlet,
a
when it appeared, was found to be more of a personal attack than
1 Sce bibliograpby.


## p. 396 (#418) ############################################

396
The Marprelate Controversy
a contribution to the general controversy, concerning which it
assumes an air of academic impartiality, dealing out blows to both
parties in that 'crab-tree cudgell style' which we associate with its
author, and displaying as ostentatiously as may be his learning and
wide knowledge of theology. His brother Richard, it may be at
his suggestion, now followed suit, though scarcely with the same
impartial spirit, in A Theologicall Discourse of the Lamb of God
and his enemies, wherein the 'new Barbarisme' of Martin is
shown to be nothing but an old heresy refurbished.
The Theologicall Discourse is mainly interesting for its 'Epistle
to the Reader,' which contained a passage apparently vilifying the
littérateurs of the day under the name of the 'make plajes and make
bates' of London. This roused Greene, in his Quip for an Upstart
Courtier (1592), to retaliate by some comments upon the Harvey
family in general. The poet soon afterwards died; but Gabriel
Harvey's pride had been seriously wounded and he would not
allow the matter to rest there. His reply, heaping contempt and
imputations upon the memory of the dead man, was answered by
Nashe, and the dispute continued with unabated vigour for some
five years, when, at last, a stop was put to it by the authorities.
That Richard Harvey, whose words had led to this fiery quarrel,
should be the same man who had just published Plaine Percevall
the Peace-maker of England, is somewhat hard to credit, but so
we are definitely assured by Nashe! . After Martins Months
Minde, this is the most readable of the answers to Martin. Its
style is original, shows faint traces of Euphuism, and is embroidered
with homely proverbs and parenthetical anecdotes in the manner
of Sam Weller. Plaine Percevall himself figures as a countryman
of commonsense, an unsophisticated 'man in the street,' who,
amazed at this surpernaturall art of wrangling,' bids all 'be
husht and quiet a Godsname. '
The entry of the Harveys is an indication of the wide-
spread interest taken in the controversy, and certain tracts noted
in the Stationers' register, together with the list of 'hageling and
profane' pamphleteers given in Martin Junior, shows us that
there were many other writers, not necessarily supporting either
side, who felt compelled to record their opinions upon the vexed
topic of the day. The tracts of two only have survived, and both
voice the same desire for peace and quiet that Plaine Percevall
1 McKerrow's Nashe, vol. I, p. 270.
? If we may judge from the pessimistic tone of The Tears of the Muscs, this raging cou-
troversy seems to have exercised the most depressing effect upon the mind of Spenser.


## p. 397 (#419) ############################################

Martin's Literary Influence
397
be
es
her
had expressed. Their titles are A Myrror for Martinists by
one T. T. and A Friendly Admonition to Martin Marprelate
by Leonard Wright; they were entered at Stationers' Hall on
22 December 1589 and 19 January 1590 respectively.
The last shot fired on the Marprelate battlefield was An
Almond for a Parrat which, begun as a reply to The Protestation,
was delayed for some reason and did not appear until the following
spring? . Its literary merits are small, but it is much more closely
reasoned and well-informed than any other anti-Martinist pro-
duction, and its author seems to have been at pains to collect
much information about Penry, whom he declares to be ‘Martin,'
Udall, Wiggington and other famous puritans. Though An Almond
for a Parrat is a companion to Pappe with a Hatchet, written
in the same ejaculatory, swashbuckling style and replete with
similar ribald stories, nevertheless, the attribution of it to Lyly
does not find favour.
The honour of this battle of the books belongs, so far as
literature is concerned, to Martin. The Marprelate tracts are part
of English literature, the answers to them little more than
materials for literary history. None of the pamphlets written to
order on behalf of the bishops were entered at Stationers' Hall-a
fact which seems to imply that, while Whitgift and Aylmer
sanctioned them privately, they were ashamed to authorise them
publicly. Martins Months Minde and Plaine Percevall are
amusing; but the rest are very unprofitable to be read and most
unworthy to be regarded, if we may parody a familiar Euphuism.
The fact that Lyly and Nashe were responsible, in part, for their
production, and the numerous references throwing light upon the
whole controversy which they contain have alone rescued them
from the oblivion into which they would otherwise have fallen.
It is idle to suggest that they did anything to stop Martin's
mouth: his silence was the work of the pursuivants. Doubt-
less, the growth and final triumph of the cause he advocated
did much to secure immortality for the puritan pamphleteer.
The opening years of the Long parliament saw
a revival
of Martinism. Hay any worke was reprinted in 1641 and
A Dialogue in 1643, while, in 1645, four tracts appeared by a
writer calling himself 'Yongue Martin Marpriest. ' Qualities
of style and not peculiarities of doctrine singled out these from
M.
E*
her
ramente
bro
See the concluding words of the epistle dedicatory (McKerrow's Nashe, vol. III,
p. 343) and Penry's reference to it in his Briej Discovery, 1590, sig. A 4 recto.
" See note at end of bibliography.


## p. 398 (#420) ############################################

398
The Marprelate Controversy
among the countless other puritan tracts that the age produced
for the admiration of posterity. Martin's freakish and audacious
personality and his unusual vein of satire were something new
and not easily forgotten. He was the most famous prose satirist
of the Elizabethan period and may rightly be considered as the
humble forerunner of that much greater satirist whose Tale of a
Tub was a brilliant attack upon all forms of religious controversy.
Martin's style exercised an immediate and appreciable influence
upon his contemporaries—a point that has hitherto scarcely been
noticed—for Nashe, at this period, was a young writer whose style
was hardly formed; and, though he afterwards proudly boasted
that the vaine which I have is of my owne begetting and cals no
man father in England but myself", yet it is impossible not to see
that the most modern and most racy prose writer of the Eliza-
bethan age owed a considerable debt to 'olde Martin Makebate,
in contest with whom he won his spurs. The famous Epistolae
Obscurorum Virorum were some seventy years earlier than the
Marprelate tracts and rank much higher as literature. It is not,
however, fair to compare the deliberate creation of some of the
protagonists of German humanism with hasty and ill-digested
attacks upon episcopacy, struck off from a travelling printing press.
Much the same may be said of the Satyre Ménippée, which is fre-
quently quoted as a parallel to its English contemporary. It was a
curious coincidence that remarkable satires should appear in
England and France almost simultaneously, but there was no con-
nection and very little similarity between the two. The Satyre
Ménippée was political in intention, the Marprelate tracts religious.
The group of politiques who were responsible for the French satire
represented the commonsense of France tired of the tyranny or
the League and the long unrest of past years. Their work was an
epitaph on an already fallen foe, and the laugh it elicited was one
of relief and of hope. To Martin, on the other hand, it was given
to be one of the first to blow the trumpet against the episcopal
Jericho which, when at last it fell, involved the monarchy in its
ruins. Few, even of those of his own party, sympathised with
him or understood him, but, when the hour of victory came, some
were found to remember his service in the cause.
1 McKerrow's Nashe, vol. 5 p. 319.


## p. 399 (#421) ############################################

CHAPTER XVIII
OF THE LAWS OF ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY
THE London of the early days of Elizabeth has been described
as a city of ruins. On every side lay the wreck of some religious
house which had perished in the days of the dissolution, and had
not been supplanted by new edifices. This description of the
capital may not inaptly be applied in a wider sense to the con-
dition of England. For more than a generation, the work of
destruction in every department of social and political life had
been in progress; and, in religion, which then completely over-
shadowed all other human interests, the old order had collapsed,
and the signs of its fall were on every side. The work before the
statesmen and divines of the age was emphatically one of recon-
struction, which had to be done in the midst of much turmoil and
distraction, with foes on every side ready to criticise, to deride
and, if possible, to destroy, whatever was being erected. Perhaps
the most striking and courageous act of the government of
Elizabeth was to face the religious problem, a task on which,
though complete success was impossible and serious failure would
have been disastrous, the fate of the country largely depended.
The destruction of the scholastic system of theology, built up
during the middle ages, left the nations of Europe without a theory
either of government or religion; and the first results of the
reformation had been a series of disastrous experiments in both
spheres. Anabaptism and socinianism alike showed the need for
protestantism to formulate and define its teaching; and the result
was the rise of a new scholasticism. But for this, the entire
reformation must have failed in face of the Catholic revival, which
was rapidly gaining ground throughout Europe ; and it is due to the
genius of Calvin that a strong barrier to its progress was erected.
Calvin showed at Geneva that he possessed in an eminent degree
the power of ruling men and of supplying the moral support
for which they craved. He defined the limits of theological


## p. 400 (#422) ############################################

400
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
speculation; by his action in the matter of Servetus, he proclaimed
to the world that he had no sympathy with any attempt to tamper
with the fundamentals of Christianity; whilst his Institutes, as was
truly said, took the place of the Sentences of Peter Lombard as the
groundwork of protestant theology.
But the Genevan church showed itself every whit as masterful
and dogmatic as its Roman rival, and its actions were equally
justified by an appeal to Divine authority. If the papal dogma
rested on the rock of church tradition as defined by the successors
of St Peter, that of Geneva was based on the impregnable rock of
Holy Scripture as interpreted by John Calvin. Both churches
were agreed in demanding unquestioning obedience and in regard-
ing the civil power as simply an instrument to carry out their
decrees. In both, St Augustine's ideal Civitas Dei was to be
made as real a factor in human politics as circumstances would
permit. The nations had practically to choose between two theo-
cracies : the one, venerable with the unbroken tradition of ages;
the other, full of the vigour of youth, the inspiration of genius
and the confidence that the future of humanity lay in its hands.
Elizabeth and her advisers deliberately refused to put England
under either.
What England needed most at the accession of Elizabeth was
time. The nation was as yet unprepared to make its final decision
in the matter of religion; it was exhausted by internal dissensions
and a ruinous foreign policy ; revolution and reckless experiments
had rendered the church almost impotent. Lutheran protestantism,
Genevan protestantism, Zwinglianism and the Catholic reaction
had all been welcomed and found wanting; and the queen was
resolved to have no more experiments. Rome meant Spain and
the inquisition ; Geneva, the repetition of the miseries and dis-
orders of the reign of Edward VI; and the country was in equal
dread of both. Moreover, it was not by any means certain that
the divisions of the western church were yet permanent, or the
breach between Rome and the northern nations irreparable. The
council of Trent had not concluded its sessions and there was
still a hope, albeit a faint one, that the Roman church would so
reform itself that reunion might be possible. The country had not
yet made up its mind between the old religion and the new; and
which side it would adopt time and circumstances alone could show.
Accordingly, with the general approval of the nation, Elizabeth
temporised; and the arrangement she made in ecclesiastical
matters was essentially of the nature of a compromise. The


## p. 401 (#423) ############################################

The Elizabethan Settlement
401
queen and her advisers had the wisdom to recognise the vital
necessity of peace both at home and abroad, to give England time
to recover from the disasters of the last two reigns. To have pre-
cipitated matters would have meant either a foreign or a domestic
war-perhaps both. If peace were to be preserved, it was essential
to persuade Catholic and protestant alike that nothing final had
been done; to allow Philip and Spain to look for the speedy
reconciliation of England to the church without unduly damping
the expectations of the reformers, on whose support Elizabeth
mainly relied. The result was the settlement of 1559, by which
the prayer book and the communion service were restored and
episcopacy and such ancient ceremonies as were not absolutely
incompatible with the new theology retained. No one believed,
perhaps, that the religious policy of Elizabeth possessed any more
elements of permanency than those of her predecessors; and the
nation acquiesced in what had been done in confident expectation
of further developments.
Regarded from the purely political aspect, no legislation could
have been more beneficial in its effects than that of the first
parliament of Elizabeth. It saved England from the tyranny of a
Spanish inquisition and from the horrors of the French wars
of religion. It gave the country nearly ten years' respite from
dangerous religious controversy and enabled it to enter upon a
new era of progress in almost every department of life. Seldom,
if ever, has a religious policy animated by aims so secular as those
of the government of Elizabeth proved so complete a success.
But it could not do more than mitigate the evils it sought to
avoid. It could save England from civil strife, but not from
religious dissension. It was not to be expected that fervent
enthusiasts on either side would be satisfied with what, after all,
was little better than a compromise prompted by the wisdom of
statesmen rather than by the spirituality of earnest seekers after
the kingdom of God. Events, moreover, moved rapidly during
the first years of Elizabeth. It soon became evident that the
breach with Rome was final. The attitude of Paul IV towards
the overtures made by Elizabeth, the rebellion of the northern
earls, the excommunication of the queen by Pius V and the Ridolfi
conspiracy showed that all attempts on the part of the queen's
government to leave a door open for reconciliation had hitherto
failed, as they were destined to do, despite the attempts to
bring about an amicable understanding with Rome which were
continued to the last days of the queen's reign. Abroad, the
26
E. L. III.
CH. XVIII.


## p. 402 (#424) ############################################

402
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
a
counter-reformation had begun and soon the massacre of St Bar-
tholomew was to reveal the lengths to which the papal party was
prepared to go. Protestantism had entered upon a struggle for
existence with powerful and able opponents, united to crush it.
and guided with consummate strategy. Against its enemy, the
reformation had forces courageous and resolute enough, but
divided into almost hostile camps. Was, asked many an ardent
reformer in England, his country to stand aside during the great
contest, content with a lukewarm adherence to the new doctrines,
intended to conciliate protestant and papist alike, and capable of
satisfying neither ? Such was the state of affairs when, in 1572,
Mr Strickland, an aged gentleman, introduced a bill for the
further reformation of the church. The queen promptly silenced
interference in church matters in the House of Commons; but,
henceforth, it became evident that a strong puritan party was
coming forward with a well thought out scheme of church govern-
ment in opposition to the Elizabethan settlement.
The life of Calvin reads like one of the romances of ecclesiastical
history. Arriving at Geneva in 1536, in the twenty-fifth year
of his age, the young French priest found the little state just
emerging from the throes of a successful revolution. The Genevans
adapted their constitution, consisting of an ecclesiastical superior, a
lay vicegerent and the commonalty, to the new conditions by making
a board of elders exercise the authority formerly in the hands of
their bishop. The genius and firmness of Calvin caused a great
moral, as well as social, revolution. Expelled by the citizens, who
were exasperated by his severity, he returned in 1541 to carry on
his work with renewed success. Holding at bay the papacy and
the powerful house of Savoy, he raised Geneva to the position of
the capital city of the reformed religion. Its university poured
forth preachers of the new doctrines, men of learning animated
with fiery zeal and undaunted by the fear of martyrdom. The
city became the home of persecuted protestants from all parts
of Europe. Calvin's writings formed the text book of reformed
theology. Nowhere did the English exiles receive a more hospit-
able reception than at Geneva, and it is little to be wondered
that John Calvin was regarded by them with enthusiastic admira-
tion. To these, the godly, orderly and strictly governed Swiss
community was all that a church should be and furnished an ideal
which they longed passionately to realise in their own country.
It is difficult for men in our day, with their preconceived notion of
Calvinism, as represented by its theology, to understand the
a


## p. 403 (#425) ############################################

The Life Work of Calvin 403
extraordinary fascination which the church of Geneva exercised
on the minds of those who had made the city their place of refuge
in the days of persecution, as well as upon those to whom the order,
piety and devotion of the Genevese were known only by hearsay.
Hooker fully recognises this. To him, Calvin, the founder of
the discipline of the church of Geneva, is 'incomparably the wisest
man that ever the French church did enjoy, since the hour it
enjoyed him. ' There is, however, a touch of malice in his next
sentences, characteristic alike of the author and of the profound
scholar's attitude towards the learning of the man of affairs: 'His
bringing up was in the study of the civil law. Divine knowledge
he gathered, not by hearing or reading so much, as by teaching
others. ' Hooker, however, in his preface to Ecclesiastical Polity,
does ample justice to the attractiveness of the Calvinian system,
which the puritan party advocated in their Admonition to Parlia-
ment. When this was first published (1572), the Elizabethan church
system had had thirteen years of trial and had not yet proved
a conspicuous success. At least, it had not united Englishmen in
a single church. The Roman Catholics had left off attendance at
the parish churches ; the Independents had set up congregations ;
and the puritan faction, which had, from the first, regarded the esta-
blished church polity as a temporary expedient, felt justified both
in expressing its grievances and in suggesting a remedy. The
painphlet in which this was done, supposed to be the work of two
ministers, John Field and Thomas Wilcox, styled the Admonition
to Parliament, is a document of singular ability, both in lucidity
of statement and in vigour of language. It sets forth what is called
'a true platforme of a church reformed,' in order that all might
behold the great unlikeness betwixt it and this our English
“
Church. '
The Admonition is brief, well arranged and extremely trench-
ant. After declaring that the notes of a true church are ‘preaching
the word purely, ministering of the sacraments sincerely, and
ecclesiastical discipline which consisteth in admonition and correc-,
tion of faults severlie' it treats of these three points in detail. As
regards the ministry of the word, the writers are of opinion that the
old clergy, 'King Henries priests, king Edward's priests (omitted
2nd ed. ), Queen Maries priests . . . (yf Gods worde were precisely
followed) should . . . be utterly removed. ' Parliament is exhorted to
remove Advowsong, Patronages, Impropriations, and bishoppes' authoritie,
claiming to themselves therby right to ordaine ministers, and to bring in that
old and true election, which was accustomed to be made by the congregation.
a
26-2


## p. 404 (#426) ############################################

404
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
a
6
6
"You must,' it goes on to say, 'displace those ignorant and unable ministers
already placed, and, in their rowmes, appoint such as both can, and will, by
God's assistance, feed the flock. . . . Remove homilies, articles, injunctions, a
prescript order of service made out of the masse booke. Take away the Lord.
ship, the loytering, the pompe, the idlenes, and livings of Bishops, but yet
employ them to such ends as they were in the old churche apointed for. Let
a lawful and a godly Seignorie look that they preache, not quarterly or
monthly, but continually: not for filthy lucre's sake but of a ready mynde. '
The paragraph regarding the sacraments contrasts the practice
of the primitive church with that of the time. Of the Lord's
Supper it says :
They took it with conscience, we with custume. They shut out men by
reason of their sinne. . . we thruste them in their sinne to the Lord's
supper.
They ministered the Sacrament plainely. We pompously with singing,
pypying, surplesse and cope wearyng.
The petition was that all irregular baptisms by deacons or
midwives should be 'sharplie punished,' that communicants should
be examined by elders, 'that the statute against waffer cakes
may more prevaile then an Injunction,' that kneeling on reception
of the sacrament should be abolished.
But the most important
demand was that, in true conformity with the Calvinian system,
Excommunication be restored to his old former force,' and 'that
papists or other, neither constrainedly nor customably, communi-
cate in the misteries of salvation. '
Discipline, rigorous and impartial, was the chief aim of the
petitioners. The bishops and all their officials must be removed
and complete equality of ministers be established. The whole
regiment of the church is to be placed in the hands of ministers,
seniors and deacons. These are to punish the graver sins, blas-
phemy, usury (2nd ed. 'drunkennesse'), adultery, whoredom, by a
severe sentence of excommunication, uncommutable by any money
payment. In a vigorous apostrophe, parliament is exhorted to
imitate the example of the Scottish and French churches and
thoroughly to root out popery.
'Is,' ask the petitioners, “a reformation good for France? and can it be
evyl for England ? Is discipline meete for Scotland ? and is it unprofitable
for this Realme ? Surely God hath set these examples before your eyes to
encourage you to go forward to a thorow and speedy reformation. Ye may
not do as heretofore you have done, patch and piece, nay, rather, goe back-
ward, and never labour or contend to perfection. But altogether remove whole
Antichrist, both head, bodie and branch, and perfectly plant that puritie of
the word, that simplicitie of the sacraments, that severitie of discipline, which
Christ hath commanded and commended to his church. '
It has been necessary to dwell at some length on the subject
of the Admonition, not only because it is an excellent specimen of


## p. 405 (#427) ############################################

The Puritan Position
405
the eloquence and vigour of prose composition during the early
days of Elizabeth, but, also, because it practically states the whole
case for the demands of the puritans during the period; and it is
practically against these that Hooker is contending throughout his
controversies with Cartwright and Travers. There is, it must with
justice be admitted, much to be said for the puritan demands for
church reform. The abuses of the church courts, owing to the
multiplicity of jurisdictions, were great ; the new clergy, who had
been ordained by the Elizabethan bishops, left much to be desired
in both conduct and capacity ; nor have the denunciations of the
puritans regarding the expense of the cathedral establishments,
the system of patronage and the like lacked the justification of
subsequent experience. But had parliament been allowed to legis-
late as the puritans desired, the result would have been to set up
an ecclesiastical tyranny which, inevitably, would have succeeded in
damping the rising spirit of England, and, almost certainly, would
have provoked a civil war. The puritans, like some other poli-
ticians of our own time, were aiming at an ideal state of society
and were ready to allow the country to run any risk to secure its
establishment. Experience has shown that such an attempt always
demands the sacrifice of personal liberty, and to this, Englishmen,
especially under Elizabeth, were thoroughly averse. With the
possibilities of life ever growing wider, with a country developing
at a rate hitherto unprecedented, with a constantly expanding
horizon of life and thought, England, then, despite her religious
zeal, thoroughly humanistic, was not going to submit to a system
which had only succeeded in a petty municipality like that of
Geneva, and which was being experimentally adopted, with doubtful
benefit to the country, by a nation so barbarous as the Scots were
considered to be in the sixteenth century. Elizabeth understood
her people far better than did parliament when she resolutely
opposed the discussion of the grievances of the puritans.
Richard Hooker entered the lists almost a generation after the
early puritans; and he did so, not so much as a churchman
pleading the cause of ecclesiastical authority, as a representa-
tive of humanistic Christianity and of the love of intellectual
freedom.
The facts of his life can be briefly related from Izaak Walton's
biography—a curious mixture of artless simplicity and consum-
mate art, making the virtues of its subject the more conspicuous
by darkening the background of family life and surroundings.
Born in 1553, at Heavitree, Exeter, Richard Hooker came of


## p. 406 (#428) ############################################

406 Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
good, though not noble or wealthy, stock, for his uncle John Hooker
was a man of some note and chamberlain of Chichester. By the
influence of this relative, he obtained the patronage of another
Devonian, John Jewel, bishop of Salisbury, and was enabled to
enter Corpus Christi College, Oxford, becoming a fellow of the
society in 1577. Sandys, then bishop of London, made Hooker
tutor to his son Edwin, and he also had charge of George Cranmer,
great nephew of the celebrated archbishop. In 1581, when ap-
pointed to preach at Paul's Cross, Hooker, according to his
biographer, made the fatal mistake of marrying his landlady's
daughter.
666
8
"There is,”' to quote Walton's quaint words, ““ a wheel within a wheel”; a
secret sacred wheel of Providence (most visible in marriages), guided by His
hand that “allows not the race to the swift” norbread to the wise," nor good
wives to good men: and He that can bring good out of evil (for mortals are
blind to this reason) only knows why this blessing was denied to patient Job,
to meek Moses, and to our as meek and patient Mr Hooker. '
In justice to Mrs Hooker, it may be remarked that she and her
family seem to have belonged to the puritan party and, conse-
quently, were extremely obnoxious to the high church friends
of her husband, who seems always to have treated her with respect
and to have named her executrix in his will. In 1584, Hooker
was presented to Drayton Beauchamp in Bucks. , then in the
diocese of Lincoln, and, in 1585, after some dispute, he was
given the mastership of the Temple, where he had his famous
controversy with Walter Travers, the reader, 'a disciplinarian in
his judgment and practice,' who had received only presbyterian
ordination at Antwerp. It was at the Temple that Hooker began to
plan his great work; and, wearied by his contentions with Travers,
whom he admired as a man whilst differing from him as a divine, he
petitioned archbishop Whitgift to relieve him of the mastership
in order that he might study to complete 'a Treatise in which I
intend a justification of the Laws of our Ecclesiastical polity. '
Accordingly, in 1591, Whitgift preferred him to the rectory of
Boscombe, six miles from Salisbury; and, in 1595, queen Elizabeth
gave him the living of Bishopsbourne, three miles from Canterbury.
The first four books of the Polity were completed at Boscombe
and printed in 1594; the fifth appeared in 1597. His health began
to fail in the year 1600, in consequence of a cold contracted on a
journey by water from London to Gravesend ; his will bears date
26 October 1600, and he probably died in the same year. The sixth
and eighth books did not appear till 1648 and 1651, and the


## p. 407 (#429) ############################################

The Preface
407
seventh was first printed in Gauden's edition of Hooker's works
in 1662.
The preface, which, in itself, is as long as the shorter books of
the treatise, is of great importance as a survey of the whole field of
discussion. Hooker begins by declaring to the puritans
I must plainly confess unto yon, that before I examined your sundry
declarations in that behalf, it could not settle in my head to think but that un-
doubtedly such numbers of otherwise right well affected and most religiously
inclined minds had some marvellous reasonable inducements, which led them
with so great earnestness that way.
>
But careful study, as he affirms, only convinced him that the
change which churchmen are required to accept “is only by error
and misconceit named the ordinance of Jesus Christ, no one proof
as yet brought forth whereby it may clearly appear to be so in
very deed. ' That he approached the discussion, not in the spirit
of a partisan, but with a strong desire to deal with fairness and
moderation and to think well of his opponents, is seen in the justice
he does alike to the greatness of Calvin and to the attractiveness
of his system.
After having spoken of Calvin in the most complimentary terms,
Hooker instantly puts his finger on the weak point of the Swiss
reformation, the extreme dogmatism with which each independent
church ordained its government 'in so commanding a form,' that it
was to be received 'as everlastingly required by the law of that
Lord of lords, against whose statutes there is no commandment to
be taken. ' This assertion of final infallibility on the part of the
'
newly constituted churches made all mutual accommodation im-
possible, and sapped the strength of the continental reformation at
the close of the sixteenth century. Hooker, thoroughly English
in temperament and, in some respects, far in advance of his age,
accepts no system of government, either in church or state, as
unalterable and is prepared to discuss all forms on their merits.
His contention is always for liberty. With much skill, and not
a little quiet satire, he traces the popularity of the Calvinian
discipline in England to a craving to exercise the right of
private judgment, to the democratic spirit of the age and to the
influence of women, as well as to reliance upon Scripture and
the high spiritual pretensions claimed by its advocates. He
discusses the inconsistency of the attempt to restore the exact
condition of the apostolic age, and insinuates the impossibility
of proving the existence of the so-called 'discipline' of those days.
Of this very thing ye fail even touching that which ye make most


## p. 408 (#430) ############################################

408 Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
6
account of, as being matter of substance in discipline, I mean the
power of your lay elders, and the difference of your doctors from
the pastors in all churches. ' As regards the existing law of England,
Hooker points out that it must be obeyed without disputation; for,
though a law may be changed, it is, he tells the puritans, “the deed
of the whole body politic, whereof if ye judge yourselves to be any
part, then is the law your deed also'; and, on this account, he
deems public discussion inadvisable under the circumstances of
their age. After stating the subject of each book of his proposed
work, he goes on to point out the dangers of the puritan movement.
In the first place, he sees that it must necessarily cause a serious
schism, and, indeed, though the puritans lamented the secession of
the Barrowists, these only followed out logically the teaching of the
disciplinarians' who, by their own admission, were continuing
members of a church which they were continually denouncing
as 'anti-christian. As for the 'discipline’ itself, Hooker believed
that it could not be established without civil disturbance, as the
nobility would never submit to the local tyranny of small parochial
courts of spiritual jurisdiction, none of which acknowledged any
superior judge on earth. Discipline at the universities would,
necessarily, be at an end if puritan equality of ministers were to be
established, and the secular courts would be completely superseded
by the powers claimed by the new discipline. ' Hooker, naturally,
alludes to the dangers disclosed by the spread of anabaptism and
concludes with an eloquent appeal to his opponents to consider
their position :
The best and safest way for you therefore, my dear brethren, is, to call your
deeds past to a new reckoning, to re-examine the case ye have taken in hand,
and to try it even point by point, argument by argument, with all the diligent
exactness ye can; to lay aside the gall of that bitterness wherein your minds
have hitherto over abounded, and with meekness to search the truth. Think
ye are men, deem it not impossible for you to err; sift unpartially your own
hearts, whether it be force of reason or vehemency of affection, which hath
bred and still doth feed these opinions in you. If truth do anywhere manifest
itself, seek not to smother it with glosing delusions, acknowledge the greatness
thereof, and think it your best victory when the same doth prevail over you.
6
This dignity of language, combined with singular moderation, is
characteristic of Hooker, whose guiding principle in controversy
may be summed up in his own words, “There will come a time
when three words uttered with charity and meekness shall receive
a far more blessed reward than three thousand volumes written
with disdainful sharpness of wit. '
The first book, in some ways, is the most important of the


## p. 409 (#431) ############################################

of Law
Varieties
409
whole work, because in it we see Hooker at his best in dealing
broadly with principles. Before proceeding to discuss any matters
of detail, he sets himself, with the aid of the philosophers of
Greece, the Fathers and the medieval schoolmen and canonists,
to consider the ground and origin of all law, the nature of that
order which presides over the universe, over the external cosmos
and human society, and to determine the principle which renders
certain laws of permanent, and others of temporary, obligation.
The first book, accordingly, is philosophical rather than theo-
logical: it presents a magnificent conception of the world as
existing under a reign of law-law not arbitrary but an expres-
sion of the divine reason.
The literary power of Hooker is admirably displayed in his
eloquent treatment of the subject of the angels, which played a far
more important part in theological speculation then than it does in
our time. It is related that, when on his death-bed, Hooker was
asked by his friend Saravia the subject of his meditations, and
replied: 'that he was meditating the number and nature of angels,
and their blessed obedience and order, without which peace could not
be in heaven; and oh that it might be so on earth. ' After speaking
of the natural laws, which, so to speak, work automatically, he says:
God which moveth mere natural agents as an efficient only, doth otherwise
move intellectual creatures, and especially his holy angels: for, beholding the
face of God, in aclmiration of so great excellency they all adore him; and
being wrapt with the love of his beauty, they cleave inseparably for ever unto
him. Desire to resemble him in goodness maketh them unweariable and even
unsatiable in their longing to do by all means all manner of good unto all the
creatures of God, but especially unto the children of men: in the countenance
of whose nature, looking downward, they behold themselves beneath them-
selves; even as upward, in God, beneath whom themselves are, they see that
character which is nowhere but in themselves and us resembled. Thus far
even the paynims have approached; thus far they have seen into the doings
of the angels of God: Orpheus confessing that the fiery throne of God is
attended on by those most industrious angels, careful how all things are
performed among men'; and the mirror of human wisdom plainly teaching
that God moveth angels, even as that thing doth stir man's heart, which is
thereunto presented amiable.
Here we have an excellent example of Hooker's literary style:
language suitable to the subject, the very construction of the some-
what involved sentences enhancing its dignity, evidences of wide,
even if somewhat uncritical, reading as shown by the quotation
from the Orphic hymn preserved in the Stromateis of Clement
of Alexandria, and poetic feeling perhaps echoing the words of
Spenser's almost contemporary Faerie Queene. The high place
assigned to reason in this book strikes almost the keynote of the


## p. 410 (#432) ############################################

410 Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
>
6
ance.
entire work, since the consensus of human opinion is, to Hooker, an
evidence of revelation. The general and perpetual voice of men
is as the sentence of God himself. Yet, true to his principles, he
declines to bind himself to any single theory of government by
drawing a sharp distinction between the law of nature common
to all men and 'laws positive' which do not bind mankind
universally. Reason depends on freedom of the will, and nature,
whilst prescribing government as necessary to all societies, ‘leaveth
the choice as a thing arbitrary. ' It is this broad generalisation,
this determination to lay down the principles on which he proposes
to treat the subject, which renders the first book of great import-
We are tempted to forget that the author is engaged in one
of the fiercest controversies of a controversial age when we peruse
a book in which the philosophy is detached from the immediate
present. Like other great Elizabethans, Hooker had the power
of writing for all time. He enters the lists of controversy resolved
to contend not with the weapons of dexterous argument but
with those of a more solid character, drawn from the arsenal of
philosophy. 'Is there,' he asks at the conclusion of the book,
'anything which can either be thoroughly understood or soundly
judged of, till the very first causes and principles from whence
it springeth be made manifest ? '
In the second book, Hooker is still preparing the way for
his argument with his opponents and, though dealing with one
of their main axioms, he does not so much join issue with them as
deal with general principles. The puritans maintained that Holy
Scripture must be the sole guide of every action of a Christian's life.
Hooker has little difficulty in showing that the passages of Scripture
quoted are irrelevant, and that the opinions of the Fathers cited in
support of the thesis are not really applicable to it. The chief
interest of this short book, however, lies in the way in which it
reverts to those divisions of law made in the first, and shows that,
though revealed Scripture is an infallible guide, it is not the only
one by which our actions must be determined. There is the same
underlying appeal to commonsense that we find in the first book, the
same dislike of mere hard logical theory as opposed to practice and
experience, which makes Hooker a pre-eminently English theo-
logian. It is worth observing how he sums up the results of
accepting the puritan position:
But admit this, and mark, I beseech you, what would follow. God in
delivering Scripture to his Church should clean have abrogated amongst them
the law of nature; which is an infallible kpowledge imprinted in the minds of


## p. 411 (#433) ############################################

Hooker on the Side of Progress
411
all the children of men, whereby both general principles for directing of human
actions are comprehended, and conclusions derived from them; upon which
conclusions groweth in particularity the choice of good and evil in the daily
affairs of this life. Admit this, and what shall the Scripture be but a snare
and a torment to weak consciences, filling them with infinite perplexities,
scrupulosities, doubts insoluble, and extreme despairs. . . . For in every action
of common life to find out some sentence clearly and infallibly setting before
our eyes what we ought to do (seem we in Scripture never so expert) would
trouble us more than we are aware. In weak and tender minds we little
know what misery this strict opinion would breed, besides the stops it would
make in the whole course of all men's lives and actions.
a
It is this large view of matters, this broad and tolerant
sympathy, which gives Hooker a unique place among theological
writers.
When we reach the third book, dealing with the question
whether a definite form of church polity is prescribed in Scripture,
it may be well to bear in mind that the title of Hooker's work
is not The Laws of but Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,
it being no design of his to lay down definite laws of church
government but, rather, to discuss the principles whereon they are
based. Strong churchman as he was, Hooker's aim was not to set
up the laws of the church to which he belonged as a third code
claiming the same infallibility as that which the advocates of the
Roman and puritan ecclesiastical systems claimed. He was, as his
whole argument shows, fighting the battle of toleration and progress,
to which the assertion of infallibility must oppose an unsurmount-
able barrier. Circumstances tended, in after days, to cause posterity,
rightly or wrongly, to identify puritanism with civil and religious
liberty; but the demand for the establishment of a discipline, rigidly
defined and sanctioned by the unerring voice of Scripture, must, if
granted, have meant ecclesiastical tyranny and stagnation.
The error of the puritans was, as Hooker points out, the same
as that of the African church in the time of St Cyprian and the con-
troversy on rebaptism, and was due to the failure to distinguish the
visible from the mystical church. Even heretics are acknowledged to
be 'though a maimed part, yet a part of the visible church. For,
if an infidel should pursue to death an heretic professing Christianity, only
for Christian profession's sake, could we deny unto him the honour of
martyrdom? Yet this honour all men know to be proper unto the Church.
Heretics therefore are not utterly cut off from the visible Church of Christ.
This generous sentiment was completely at variance with the tenets
of Calvinism, which held that Romanism was a worse sin than
idolatry, and Hooker considers Calvin's answer to Farel, regarding
the baptism of the children of papists, 'crazed, because, in it, he


## p. 412 (#434) ############################################

412
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
says, “It is an absurd thing for us to baptise them which cannot be
reckoned members of our body. ” This large conception of the
church as opposed to the narrower view of the puritans pervades
the whole argument.
The principal contention in this third book is, naturally, that
Scripture only lays down what is absolutely necessary for doctrine
and practice, and that this does not include the externals of church
worship or government. An ecclesiastical polity is as necessary to
all societies of Christian men as a language, but it no more follows
that all should adopt the same form of government in church
matters than that they should use the same tongue. Episcopal
government seems, however, to be more in consonance with
Scripture than any other, though Hooker does not consider that a
church ceases to be truly one because it lacks this advantage.
'In which respect for mine own part,' he remarks, although I see that
certain reformed churches, the Scottish especially and French, have not
that which best agreeth with the sacred Scripture, I mean the government
that is by Bishops, inasmuch as both those churches are fallen under a
different kind of regiment; which to remedy it is for the one altogether too
late, and too soon for the other during their present affliction and trouble:
this their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in such case than
exagitate, considering that men oftentimes without any fault of their own
may be driven to want that kind of polity or regiment which is best, and to
content themselves with that, which either the irremediable error of former
times, or the necessity of the present, hath cast upon them. '
In his fourth book, Hooker undertakes to defend the church
of England against the charge of Romanism because certain
ceremonies were retained which the other reformed churches had
rejected. And here it may not be irrelevant to remark that the
question of toleration never entered into the dispute. The object
of the Elizabethan settlement was to establish a church on the
broad basis of comprehension; that of the puritans to set up
a procrustean institution and to force every Englishman to conform
to it in all particulars. The point at issue between Anglican and
puritan in the days of Elizabeth was which of two ideals of a
national church should prevail. This was recognised generally in
the country, and puritanism, discredited by the violent language of
the Marprelate libels, was, when Hooker, in 1594, issued his fourth
book, manifestly on the wane, while Anglicanism, after an un-
promising beginning, was daily gaining strength, so that he was
able to say:
That which especially concerneth ourselves, in the present matter we treat
of, is the state of reformed religion, a thing at her [Elizabeth's] coming to
the crown even raised as it were by a miracle from the dead; a thing which


## p. 413 (#435) ############################################

The Fourth and Fifth Books
413
we so little hoped to see, that even they which beheld it done, scarcely believed
their own senses at the first beholding. Yet being then brought to pass, thus
many years it hath continued, standing by no other worldly mean but that
one only hand which erected it; that hand which as no kind of imminent
danger could cause at the first to withhold itself, so neither have the practice
of so many so bloody following since been ever able to make weary. . . .
Which grace and favour of divine assistance having not in one thing or two
shewed itself, nor for some few days or years appeared. . . what can we less
thereupon conclude, than that God would at leastwise by tract of time teach
the world, that the thing which he blesseth, defendeth, keepeth so strangely,
cannot choose but be of him. Wherefore, if any refuse to believe us disputing
for the verity of religion established, let them believe God himself thus
miraculously working for it, and wish life even for ever and ever unto that
glorious and sacred instrument whereby he worketh.
When we reach the fifth book, which, in itself, is almost as
extensive as the rest of the work, we find ourselves at the very
heart of the controversy and discover that the same master hand
has the same capacity for dealing with detail as it exhibited in
regard to general principles. It would be impossible to show here at
length how Hooker defends the prayer book against the criticisms of
Cartwright and Travers; and we must be content with a cursory
examination of the chapters wherein Hooker rises to the highest
point of excellence as a theologian, namely those dealing with the
sacraments. With questions purely ritual in character, Hooker is
not a little impatient; the controversies of his own day about ‘rites
and ceremonies of church action' appear, as he remarks in the
dedication of this book to Whitgift, 'such silly things, that very
easiness doth make them hard to be disputed of in serious manner. '
But, in treating of sacramental grace, he feels himself to be engaged
in a congenial occupation, and he lavishes on it all the treasures
of his wide reading and erudition combined with skill and judgment.
He takes us back to the great controversies of antiquity and, with
masterly skill, unfolds the doctrine of the Divinity of the Word
and the relation of the Divine and human natures in Christ. From
the Person he goes on to speak of the Presence of Christ, and
from Presence to the participation we have of Him. Thoroughly
acquainted as he is with all the theories of sacramental grace
prevalent in his day, especially in regard to the Eucharist, he
recognises that here, if anywhere, all parties are fundamentally
agreed, now that the theories of Zwingli and Oecolampadius were
rejected 'concerning that alone is material, namely the real
participation of Christ and of life in his body and blood by means
of this sacrament. 'I wish,' he adds, later, that men would more
give themselves to meditate what we have by the sacrament and
less to dispute of the manner how. '
6
6
6


## p. 414 (#436) ############################################

414 Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
Hooker went further on the path of conciliation than any other
divine in seeing that a recognition of the fact of the presence of the
Saviour, however defined, was the essential point to which all others
were really subsidiary. A passage of remarkable beauty in the
67th chapter he brings to the following conclusion:
What these elements are in themselves it skilleth not, it is enough that to
me which take them they are the body and blood of Christ, his promise in
witness hereof sufficeth, his word he knoweth which way to accomplish; why
should any cogitation possess the mind of a faithful communicant but this,
O my God thou art true, O my soul thou art happy!
The fifth book was, as we have seen, the last to be published in
Hooker's lifetime; and the remaining three can only be mentioned
in brief. The sixth deals with the question of church discipline
and contains a valuable survey of the system of penance, not only
of that in the early church, but, also, of that in vogue among the
Jews. Hooker also discusses the Roman view of the subject as put
forward by cardinal Bellarmine. The seventh book answers the
puritan objections to episcopal government, and is remarkable for
the temperate way in which each is stated and discussed as well as
for the erudition displayed. While he professes his belief in the
.
apostolical origin of episcopacy, Hooker does not consider the
institution absolutely indispensable, though, when he speaks of
cathedral establishments, his knowledge of history enables him to
see in them the outlines of the primitive churches, and he gives
way to a moment of enthusiasm foreign to his usual habit:
For most certain truth it is that cathedral churches and the bishops of
them are as glasses wherein the face and very countenance of apostolical
antiquity remaineth even as yet to be seen. . . . For defence and maintenance
of them we are most earnestly bound to strive, even as the Jews were for
their temple . . . the overthrow and ruin of the one if ever the sacrilegious
avarice of Atheists should prevail so far, which God of his infinite mercy
forbid, ought no otherwise to more us than the people of God were moved . . .
when they uttered from the bottom of their grieved spirits those voices of
doleful supplication Exsurge Domine et miserearis Sion, Servi tui diligunt
lapides ejus, pulveris ejus miseret eos.
Hooker, it may be remarked, insists on the necessity of episcopal
ordination except when the exigence of necessity doth constrain
to leave the usual ways of the church, which otherwise we would
willingly keep. '
The eighth book treats of the power of supreme juris-
diction and the relation of the civil magistrate to the church.
To Hooker, a Christian church and state are identical; but an
English monarch's power is strictly limited by law. The axioms
>


## p. 415 (#437) ############################################

Hooker's Place in the Reformation 415
of our regal government,' he says, 'are these, les facit regem . . .
and rex nihil potest nisi quod jure potest. ' In all the king's
.
proceedings 'law is itself the rule. '
Such, then, is the main outline of a great work which had
an abiding influence on English history. It showed the strength
of the argument in favour of the Elizabethan settlement of religion,
and the real weakness, despite the moral fervour which it evoked,
of the puritan position. But, though Hooker's work had no small
influence on the subsequent development of the Anglican ideal, his
position was not that of the Laudian, much less of the tractarian,
school of clergy. He had the advantage of living at the time when
the first bitterness of the conflict between puritanism and Anglican-
ism had spent itself and before the struggle had entered upon its
second phase. He lived too early to witness the final breach
between Anglicanism and continental protestantism, and too late
to experience the predominance of the latter in the time of the
Zurich letters. The result is that his views are broad, sympathetic
and tolerant. His singularly calm and dispassionate intellect
enables him to rise superior to the prejudices of his age and, like
St Paul, he makes the problems of the hour turn on everlasting
principles. The remark of Clement VIII on hearing the first book
translated at sight into Latin by Stapleton, related by Walton,
is as creditable to the judgment of the pontiff as to the poor
obscure English priest who had writ. . . such books. '
6
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 be like this, they shall last till the last fire shall consume
all learning.
Of Hooker's style, perhaps the most remarkable feature is the
singular calmness and dignity with which he deals with the burning
questions of his time. It was an age of literary scurrility, employed
on both sides without either scruple or blame and thoroughly
appreciated even by the learned public. This is conspicuously
absent from Hooker's published work, and rarely indeed does he
allow, his real humour and power of retort to display itself.
Fortunately, however, his notes to the Christian Letter, pre-
served in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, reveal the
man in his private study, and show how extraordinary a self-
restraint he must have exercised in curbing his natural powers of
sarcasm. On a remark upon the 'moral virtues' by the puritans
in the letter, Hooker's note is:


## p. 416 (#438) ############################################

416
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
>
'A doctrine which would well have pleased Caligula, Nero, and other such
monsters to heare. Had thapostles taught this it might have advanced them
happily to honour. ' Again he asks ‘Have you been tampering so long with
Pastors, Doctors, Elders, Deacons; that the first principles of your religion
are new to learn? '
Hooker speaks of his age as a learned one, but his knowledge
of books must have been pre-eminent at any time. Of the thousand
and ninety-two pounds which he left at his death, we are not
surprised to hear that 'a great part of it was in books. ' It was
not merely that Hooker was well read in the Scriptures and the
Fathers: it is the range of his learning that is remarkable. In
the first book, which is not primarily theological, but deals, as we
have seen, with the general principles of law, we have quotations
from Mercurius Trismegistus, Stobaeus, Aquinas, Theophrastus,
Aristotle, Clement of Alexandria, Ramus, Sallust, Vergil, Plato,
Nicholas of Cusa, Telesius, Augustine, Cicero, Tertullian, Josephus,
Lactantius, Duns Scotus, Gratian, the Carmina of Orpheus,
Eusebius of Emesa and several other authors. His knowledge
of Hebrew is shown in the fourth book, where he rebuts the
charge that the ceremonies of the church were Judaic, whilst his
extensive acquaintance with patristic literature is most evident
in the fifth and sixth books. How keenly he was alive to the
importance, not of the popular controversies of the day but of
those which, if they attracted less attention, revealed dangerous
tendencies, is seen in his dealing with the ubiquitarian doctrine of
some Lutherans, who taught that the human body of Christ
by reason of its union with his Godhead, was everywhere present,
and that, as the body of the Son of God, it had the property
of ubiquity: an error which would have deprived it of the true
and essential character of a human body. This opinion is discussed
in the great section of the fifth book L-LVII which speaks of the
sacraments.
His Ecclesiastical Polity is remarkable as being one of the few
theological or philosophical works which have taken a high place
in the literature of the language in which they were written, and
also for its far-reaching importance. Like Plato, St Augustine,
Pascal and Berkeley, Hooker combines the often discordant
elements of a deep thinker and a consummate literary artist. But,
in one respect, he rose above them all: by his power of elevating a
dispute of a purely temporary interest into a discussion of the great
principles on which all human society must be based Hooker
has been compared to 'a Knight of Romance among catiff
brawlers,' and, if this description be unjust to his contemporary
:


## p. 417 (#439) ############################################

Its Place in Literature
417
6
opponents and supporters, it indicates the immensity of the
gap which parted him from them. As surely as Bacon pointed
out the right method of investigation in natural philosophy, did
Hooker prepare the way for the future by indicating the true
lines on which theology ought to develop. He not only called
into being the language of Anglican theology; he laid down
the lines on which it should proceed. His style has won the
commendation of so great a master of English prose as Swift, and
of a historian like Hallam. He can be fluent, easy and straight-
forward at times, but is equally capable of rising to a majesty
of eloquence or a severity of diction according to the requirements
of his subject. His singular sensitiveness to the rhythm and
musical expression of his sentences has been remarked ; and,
even where he appears to be most obscure or involved, close
attention will reveal a purpose alike in his choice of words and
in the arrangement of the clauses of his sentences.