The Work
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity is an eight-book defense of the Elizabethan religious settlement, published in parts: Books 1-4 appeared in 1594 (with a preface attacking the Puritans), Book 5 in 1597, and Books 6-8 posthumously (1648-1662, long after Hooker's death in 1600). The work is enormous - roughly 600,000 words in its complete form - and ranges from foundational philosophy of law (Book 1) through ecclesiology (Books 3-5) to the theology of ministry, episcopacy, and royal supremacy (Books 6-8). The first edition was printed by John Windet and has been reprinted continuously since. The standard modern edition is the Folger Library edition, edited by W. Speed Hill (1977-1998).
The work was commissioned as a formal answer to the Puritan Admonition to Parliament (1572), which demanded the abolition of bishops, liturgy, and other 'popish remnants' in the Church of England. Hooker's defense is not merely polemical but architecturally philosophical: he begins with a comprehensive theory of law in general before proceeding to argue for the specific laws of the English church.
Biblical Engagement
Romans 2:14-15 - 'For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts' - is foundational to Hooker's entire philosophical program. Against Puritan biblicism (the claim that Scripture is the sole rule for every aspect of life and church order), Hooker argues that God has inscribed moral law in human reason, accessible to Gentiles without Scripture. This natural law tradition, going back through Aquinas to Aristotle, means that human reason can discern principles of good governance that need not be explicitly prescribed in the Bible.
John 1:9 - 'That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world' - grounds the natural law argument christologically. The Logos of John 1 is not only the incarnate Christ but the divine reason through which all creation is ordered and through which human reason participates in divine wisdom. Human reason, properly exercised, is a mode of participation in the divine Logos. This Johannine theology of reason is Hooker's rejoinder to the Puritan claim that human reason is wholly corrupted by sin and therefore unreliable.
Acts 15:28 - the Jerusalem Council's formula: 'It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us' - is central to Hooker's argument that the church has authority to make rules for its own governance that are not explicitly prescribed in Scripture, provided they do not contradict Scripture. The Jerusalem Council introduced practices (such as the requirement that Gentile Christians abstain from blood) that are not commanded in the Mosaic Law, demonstrating that the Spirit-guided church has legislative authority.
2 Timothy 3:16 - 'All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness' - is the locus of Hooker's engagement with sola scriptura. He does not dispute Scripture's inspiration or authority; he disputes the Puritan application of it. Scripture is profitable for all things necessary to salvation, but the governance of particular churches in particular times and places requires the additional resources of reason and tradition.
Author and Context
Richard Hooker (c. 1554-1600) was born in Heavitree, Devon, and educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he became a fellow and took holy orders. His patron was John Jewel, the Bishop of Salisbury and author of the Apology for the Church of England, who recognized his exceptional abilities and provided him with support. In 1584 he became Master of the Temple - one of the most prestigious preaching appointments in England - where his Puritan deputy Walter Travers publicly contradicted him from the pulpit, dramatizing the conflict that Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity was written to resolve. In 1591 he retired from London to the rural parish of Boscombe (and later Bishopsbourne, Kent) to complete the work.
The Elizabethan settlement that Hooker defended was the political compromise worked out between 1558 and 1563 establishing England's church as Protestant in doctrine (following the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1563) while maintaining episcopal government and significant liturgical continuity with the medieval church. The Puritans wanted a more thoroughgoing reformation - abolishing episcopacy, replacing the Prayer Book with the Geneva liturgy, stripping churches of 'popish' ceremonies. Hooker's defense of the settlement against these demands created the intellectual foundations of Anglicanism as a distinct tradition.
Key Arguments
Book 1 is philosophically the most important: it establishes Hooker's four-fold typology of law - eternal law (God's own rational ordering of things), natural law (the participation of created rational beings in eternal law, accessible through reason), divine law (Scripture, revealed for matters beyond reason's reach), and human law (the positive legislation of particular communities). This hierarchical typology allows Hooker to argue that church practices not explicitly commanded in Scripture may nonetheless be lawful if they accord with natural law and serve the good of the community.
Book 5, the largest single book (over half the total length), is a systematic defense of the Book of Common Prayer, defending each element of the liturgy against Puritan objections - prayers, scripture readings, the creeds, the sacraments, baptism, the Lord's Supper, marriage, burial, ordination - drawing on patristic tradition, natural reason, and Scripture.
Reception and Influence
The immediate reception was mixed: Puritans were unconvinced, and Books 6-8 were disputed in their posthumous form. But the long-term influence was enormous. John Locke's political philosophy draws directly on Hooker's concept of natural law and consent. Edmund Burke's conservatism inherits Hooker's defense of tradition as a repository of accumulated practical wisdom. The common law tradition, with its balance of natural reason, precedent, and statute, reflects the same three-legged structure as Hooker's theology. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury in the twentieth century, called Hooker 'the greatest Anglican divine.'
Legacy
Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity established Anglican theology's characteristic via media between the authoritarian certainty of Rome and the rigid biblicism of Geneva. The 'three-legged stool' of Scripture, tradition, and reason - not explicit in Hooker but derived from him by subsequent Anglican theologians - has shaped Anglican method in every generation. Its influence on political philosophy (Locke, Burke), jurisprudence (the natural law tradition), and ecumenical theology (the Anglican contribution to modern ecumenism) makes it one of the most consequential theological works in English.
Reading Alongside Scripture
Readers should study Romans 1:18-2:16 (natural revelation and natural law), John 1:1-18 (the Logos as the foundation of created rationality), Acts 15 (the Jerusalem Council's model of church governance), 2 Timothy 3:14-17 (the scope and sufficiency of Scripture), and Proverbs 8 (wisdom as the ordering principle of creation).
Further Reading
- W. Speed Hill, ed., Studies in Richard Hooker: Essays Preliminary to an Edition of His Works (1972) - the foundational scholarly collection. - Torrance Kirby, Richard Hooker's Doctrine of the Royal Supremacy (1990) - the best study of Hooker's political theology. - A.S. McGrade, The Political Thought of William of Ockham (1974) - essential background for understanding the late medieval philosophical context Hooker inherited.