An Historical and Theological Study of Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity

193 Pages·1963·7.17 MB·English

by  John S. Marshall

HOOKER AND THE
ANGLICAN TRADITION
AN HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL STUDY OF
HOOKER’S ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY
JOHN S. MARSHALL
Professor of Philosophy
The University of the South
ADAM & CHARLES BLACK
LONDON
FIRST PUBLISHED I963
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
SEWANEE, TENNESSEE
A. AND C. BLACK LIMITED
4, 5 AND 6 SOHO SQUARE LONDON W. I
© 1963 JOHN SEDBERRY MARSHALL
The preparation of the manuscript of this book was aided by funds
from the Faculty Research Grants of The University of the South
Gratitude is due to the Rev. Powel M. Dawley of the General
Theological Seminary for his learned counsel
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMEIUCA
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PREFACE
It IS hard to overestimate the importance of Hooker. He was
probably the greatest defender of the Prayer Book. The strength
of his defense is to be found in his use of the fhilosophia perennis^
and of the theology built upon it. He so employs this traditional
thought that the Book of Common Prayer becomes meaningful
and inherently significant. We too are living in an age when
the philosophia perennis is again triumphant, and it is important
that the greatest English-speaking exponent of this philosophy
should be known and appreciated by us.
Professor Sisson says:
In the long and crowded roll of great English men of letters
there is no figure of greater significance to the instructed
mind than Hooker. ... His own life’s work [ The Ecclesi¬
astical Polity] is a monument of pure and splendid prose
style and lucid philosophical thought, based on unsurpassed
scholarship m the vast field of his theme. The book itself is
a milestone in the history of a great English institution [the
Anglican Church] and of religious thought.""
Because he was seen by his own age as the defender of the
Establishment, Churchmen did not recognize Hooker’s creative
genius. The Puritans knew the importance of his thought, and
the direction of his thinking, but they did not count him great.
His friends thought of him as significant, but did not fully realize
the importance of his achievement. They could not discern what
a constructive synthesis of thought he had created, and how much
his thinking would influence the future.
In his own age. Hooker was considered the defender of the
Elizabethan Establishment. Puritanism was powerful, and it
threatened the general character of the Church and the way of life
defended by the Church. Granted, much of the older catholic
’Sisson, C. J., The Judicious Marriage of Mr. Hooker, p. ix.
vi PREFACE
order has disappeared, but the Puritans wished to destroy what
remained. The episcopacy, the sacraments and the liturgical ser¬
vice were threatened, and in many parishes had been so weakened
that they were in fact ineffectual. There was chaos in the Church,
and this chaos was both produced by the Puritans and then used
by them to carry out a reform movement which would ultimately
destroy Anglicanism. Hooker was to his contemporaries a de¬
fender of the order and discipline, the sacraments and the liturgy,
of the Elizabethan Church. That his defense indicated a direction
of possible development was not then seen. Hooker’s philosophy
and theology had a positive character which was rooted in the
history of the Church but was not the usual system of thought
of the Elizabethan age.
Reynolds of Corpus Christi and Whitgift remained loyal to
Hooker, although he was developing a theology different from
their own. As the great champion of the Prayer Book they ac¬
cepted himj and for that reason they honored him and remained
true to him. But Hooker was not only defending the Prayer
Book and the monarchy, he was also developing a massive
theological system, based on contemporary Roman thinkers of
the highest constructive importance.
Because Hooker used contemporary Thomists for his thought,
we must not commit the error of making Hooker a mere medi-
aevalist in the sense that Bilson and Andrews were patristic. He
was Janus-faced. His eyes were turned not only on the past but
on the present and the future. His truest successor in political
thinking was Burke, and Burke believed in meeting the new
political situations with the wisdom of the past, but he also be¬
lieved that a new situation should be interpreted in terms of its
own needs and characteristics. Parkin, in his recent book. The
Moral Basis of Burke^s Political Thought^ reveals Burke as the
follower of Hooker rather than of Locke. Burke’s notion is that
of the constant use of the past, but also the use of creative freedom
PREFACE vii
to meet the fresh and novel demands of the present. This doc¬
trine Burke draws from Hooker.
Hooker was thus more judicious than were his followers. He
was wise where they were unwise. It now is clear that his defense
of the Constitutional Monarchy is a case in point. The more
primitive notion of the Divine Right of Kings adopted by the
High-Churchmen almost destroyed Anglicanism. Despite Old
Testament and Byzantine precedents, this was an unwise Anglican
doctrine. Undoubtedly, the Byzantine Church had accepted this
notion and developed the Roman law to conform to it. For that
reason, the Stuarts defended it and the Anglican bishops did the
same. But Hooker was not a mere defender of the first centuries
of the Christian Church j he believed in the growing insight of
wisdom. Byzantine Roman law he did use, but he was not a
slave to it. Wisdom is justified by all her children. Hooker
did not deify the early Church j he was not a mere defender of
the ancient past. Hence, he accepted constitutional monarchy, as
did the greatest English lawyers from Bracton to Sir Edward
Coke.
Hooker did influence his generation. He did influence the
Church in the seventeenth century. He did influence the Trac-
tarians. However, his disciples have not usually had the modera¬
tion which was so characteristic of him. He had a greatness lack¬
ing in his theological and ecclesiastical followers. He used a
richer philosophy than they didj he followed greater lawyers. He
was great with the greatness of a Shakespeare, and requires large¬
ness of view and firmness of foundation in his followers.
John S. Marshall
1963
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CONTENTS
Preface -
PART ONE
CONSERVATIVE AND RADICAL REFORM
I Erasmus and the Henrician Reformation ----- i
II The Bible and Radical Reform - jj
III The Admonition Controversy - -- -- -- -- i8
IV Whitgift Cartwright and the Admonitions - - - - 26
V Hooker and the Admonition Controversy ----- 35
PART TWO
EXEGESIS AND THEOLOGY
VI Hooker as an Exegete - -- -- -- -- -- 4^
VH Hooker and the Thomists
- -- -- -- -- -
VHI Hooker as the Author of a Summa 6S
- -- -- --
PART THREE
GOD NATURE ANGELS AND MEN
IX Hooker’s Philosophy of the Appropriate ----- 77
X God Nature and Angels - -- -- -- -- --85
XI Man - - - -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ^3
XH Man and Society - 102
PART FOUR
INCARNATION SACRAMENTS AND MINISTRY
XIH The Natural AND THE Supernatural - - - - - - - m
XIV The Incarnation - -- -- -- -- -- -- 122
XV The Mediator - -- -- -- -- -- -- - 129
XVI The Sacraments of his Grace - -- -- -- -- 137
XVII The Ministry of the Sacraments - -- -- -- - 146
X TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART FIVE
CHURCH AND STATE
XVIII
The Church as a Sacramental Fellowship - - - - 155
XIX
Respublica Christiana - -- -- -- -- -- 162
CONCLUSION
The Judicious Hooker - -- -- -- -- -- 171
Bibliography - - - -- -- -- -- -- - 177