ABSTRACT
Richard Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity contains a remarkable, and seemingly very modern, view of how the Bible should be used. He began work on the Laws in 1591, of which preface and first four books were published in 1593 and book five in 1597. This chapter discusses the purpose of Scripture, and whether matters of discipline are different from matters of faith and salvation. Hooker argues that there is such a distinction and makes a further distinction between what is commanded in the word and what is grounded upon the word. One of the most important compendia on the Christian life was completed by Richard Baxter in 1664-65 and published in 1673. The Christians were bound by biblical laws that prohibited charging of interest was a lively matter of debate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The problem enabled Baxter to state again the way in which he considered the Old Testament to be binding upon Christians.
