ABSTRACT
Born in 1554 and oxford educated, Richard Hooker enjoyed the patronage of John Jewel, the most prominent of the first generation of defenders of the Elizabethan Church. In 1585, Hooker was appointed Master of the Temple in which post he shared a pulpit with Walter Travers, an ally of Cartwright and proponent of Presbyterianism. Following a public clash with Hooker, Travers was suspended from his post by Whitgift in 1586. In 1591, Hooker resigned the Mastership to focus on his writing and became Subdean of Salisbury and Prebendary of Nethavon, livings joined to that of Boscombe where he was instituted as Rector. In 1595, he became Rector of Bishopsbourne where he and his family lived until his death in 1600. Hooker’s Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie was projected as a defence in eight books of the Elizabethan Church against Puritan detractors. The preface and first four books were published in 1593 in coordination with efforts to promote legislation targeting Protestant non-conformity in Parliament;1 the fifth book was published in 1597. While it appears that the final three books were substantially finished before Hooker’s death, the completed forms are not known to have survived. Incomplete drafts of these books were published after Hooker’s death, the sixth and eighth books in 1648, and the seventh in 1662.2
The influence of Hooker’s Lawes on the shape of the religious tradition that has come to be known as Anglicanism,3 controversy regarding the
nature and consistency of Hooker’s views on a number of issues, and disagreement regarding how his theology relates to sixteenth-century Protestant thought (particularly the Reformed tradition)4 have led to vigorous debate issuing in many studies. This introduction will focus on providing a brief overview of recent studies assessing three aspects of Hooker’s thought germane to the topic of the relationship between the interpretation of scripture and obedience to the leaders of the English Church: (1) Hooker’s understanding of the royal ecclesiastical supremacy; (2) issues related to the grasp of Christian truth by the individual, including Hooker’s hermeneutics and understanding of assurance, and (3) Hooker’s understanding of the relationship between the visible and invisible Church.
