ABSTRACT
Hooker's great work, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, was conceived as an extended attack on the position of the Calvinistic Puritans of his day. The heart of their innovation lay in a thoroughgoing disparagement of the validity of human reason even in the spheres which Calvin had recognized as proper to it, together with the assertion of the exclusive authority and total adequacy of Holy Scripture as the guide in all things. The Church is the guardian of God's Word, and it is the duty of the ministers to preach it. The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity is a long work in eight books covering an immense field. The first five books were published during Hooker's lifetime, but the remaining three had to wait for publication until the middle of the next century. Man, like all other created things, necessarily seeks his perfection. All men pursue goodness since evil cannot be desired as such.
