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Home , James VI and I, Richard Hooker

: the Confident Church of Reformer*

David Neelands College, University of Toronto

ABSTRACT: Richard Hooker is generally acknowledged as a critical sixteenth-century figure in the . He has been claimed by a variety of advocates for positions inside and outside the Church of England and for positions that developed later. An apparently eirenic to Roman Catholics and occasional criticisms of central figures of the Protestant should not obscure the fact that he was a confident upholder of the Reformation of the Church of England, and that his careful defence of its institutions did not, in his mind, exceed a careful reformed position. His defence provides a platform convenient for ecumenical discussions.

Attitude to ‘the Papists’ Hooker’s attitude to ‘the Papists’, was out of the ordinary polemical mode. 1 accused Hooker of preaching “sower leaven” in his sermons at the Temple. This phrase was a code phrase, based on a frequent New Testament allusion to the ambivalent power of yeast both to expand and to “puff up” flour though very small in size, to refer to corrupt pre-Reformation and contemporary Roman views, particularly on the Pelagian question and the doctrine of justification by . In Travers’ mind were, no doubt, the questions of assurance and of Hooker’s notorious view of the two wills in God; Travers and Hooker do not seem to have quarreled on sacramental ; but principally involved must have been Travers’ conviction that Hooker’s generous view about the possibility of salvation of Roman Catholics compromised the principle of the gratuity of justification.

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah on October 27, 2006. The paper draws in conclusions about Hooker from several articles I have published. For detailed treatment of the argument, the reader is referred to them. Subsequently published in Reformation Worlds: Antecedents and Legacies in the Anglican Tradition, ed. Sean A. Otto and Thomas P. Power. Studies in Church History, vol. 13. New : Peter Lang, 2016, 61-76. 1 This section “Attitude to ‘the Papists’” first appeared in Neelands, The Theology of Grace of Richard Hooker (ThD Dissertation, Trinity College / University of Toronto, 1988), 57-63, and appears here in a revised form.

PAGE 1 OF 16 Hooker certainly did consistently hold a particularly generous view of his contemporary papists. Roman Catholics were members of the visible church,2 since the visible church is made up of those who profess Jesus Christ as Lord, and only apostasy, the rejection of this profession, /62/ can separate the Christian from the church.3 Hooker mocked those who wanted to avoid papist errors by avoiding customs shared with the papists.4 Imitating the continental Reformed churches in something that made no sense in itself just to avoid sharing a traditional custom was also foolish: “we had rather followe the perfections of them whom we like not [the papists], then in defectes resemble them whome we love [other Reformed churches].”5 But, although even Whitgift did not agree completely with Hooker on the question, earlier English Reformers had expressed Hooker’s view. And Hooker made no secret of his rejection of views: although the Church of England retained “parte of their ceremonies, and almost their whole . . . wee are devided from the Church of Rome by the single wall of doctrine.”6 Although they do not reject the profession that Jesus Christ is Lord, and are therefore not apostates, “Heretiques they are.”7 The principal of Roman Catholics is on the matter of justification. They attribute merit to human actions in , so that further grace is itself merited.8 Hooker also they wrongly attribute a causal efficacy to the elements of the eucharist,9 and press transubstantiation, as a core doctrine, a theory that cannot be established from Scripture.10 Furthermore, they erect “traditions” on a par with Scripture.11 But Hooker at least twice, in the Answer to Travers, refers to the at the Council of Trent as “the fathers of Trent,” far from an abusive term.12

2 Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastiall Politie V.68.9; 2:355.8-13; citations from Hooker’s works and other related texts are taken from The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker, general ed. W. Speed Hill, 7 vol., (Cambridge, Mass.; Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977-1998). See also Lawes III.1.10; 1:201-02. 3 Lawes V.68.6; 2:352.5-8. 4 Lawes IV.7.6 ; 1:297.7-17. 5 Lawes V.28.1; 2:121.26-28. 6 Lawes IV.3.1; 1:280.13-16. 7 Lawes IV.6.2; 1:289.26. Notice that heresy, schism and apostasy are dealt with in Jude 1 as well as Lawes III. Hooker noted that the Church of England has been accused of all. 8 Justification [5]-[9]; 5:110-118, esp. 5:111.1-6; 3:111.23-24. 9 David Neelands, “Christology and the Sacraments”, in A Companion to Richard Hooker, ed. Torrance Kirby (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 394-96. 10 Neither Scripture nor the witness of antiquity supports the view of transubstantiation. V.67.9-11; 2:336-40. See Neelands, “Christology and the Sacraments”, 398-400. 11 Lawes III.8.14; 1:231.15-18; V.65.2; 2:302.3-9. In fact, the word “tradition” often has a negative sense for Hooker, as distinct from “custom” and “experience,” which are generally positive in tone. For a discussion of “papist errors” on the sacrament, see Neelands, “Christology and the Sacraments”, 376, 384, 385, 394-6. 12 Answer 13; 3:239.31, 241.6.

PAGE 2 OF 16 There is stronger language addressed to “the reprobates” alluded to in the Two Sermons upon S. Judes Epistle. On the supposition that these sermons were directed primarily against papists, some have found the tone to be quite different from that of the Temple sermons. The tone is quite different indeed, but it is clear that the reprobates mentioned include both papists13 and atheists14, and puritanizing “separatists”15. The severe phrase “son of perdition and Man of Sin” used of the pope,16 is shocking to modern ears, but the second part of the phrase, “Man of Sin” occurs twice in the undisputedly genuine Learned Discourse on Justification17 and, for that matter, in the Preface to the Authorized Version of the Bible of 1611. Hooker was eirenic, but he was a man of his time in many respects; his “sympathy” for Roman Catholics depended upon an objective and accurate account of the genuine doctrines shared with them by the Church of England, and an objective and accurate account of those very important matters wherein the Roman held different views. Hooker also exposed the anxiety about the use of prelatical power by Roman Catholics to cruelly and with a high hand overrule legitimate civil power, but did so in a way that ironically emphasized the greater power of God’s mercy over human sinfulness, and the possibility that a Protestant’s sins might be as terrible as those of any papist prelate: /63/ The houre maye come when we shal thincke yt a blessed thinge to heare, that yf our synnes were as the synnes of Popes and Cardinalls, the bowels of the mercye of God are larger. I do not propose unto you a Pope with the neck of an Emperor under his foote, a Cardinall riding his horse to the bridell in the blood of sainctes: but a pope or a Cardinall, sorrowfull penitent disrobed, stript not onlie of usurped power, but also delivered and recalled from error; antichrist converted and lying prostrate at the feete of Christe:18 It is clear that Hooker maintained an accurate acquaintance with the writings of his Roman Catholic contemporaries on the eucharist,19 although he was little affected by them. His not least contribution to the accuracy of sixteenth century debates on the eucharist was his direct denial of the venerable canard of the supposed errors of the

13 1 Jude 7; 3:20.23-21.5. 14 1 Jude 9; 3:23.13-20. 15 1 Jude 11; 3:25.26-26.7. 16 1 Jude 15; 3:32.16-17. 17 Justification [5], [27]; 3:112.6, 147.19. Compare the equally disobliging formula, “Babylonian strumpet” in A Remedie Against Sorrow and Feare 3:375.28. There, in a funeral sermon, the Roman Catholic Church is criticized for leading to pride and security, instead of humility and watchfulness. Comparable accusations would be leveled at the Pharisaical in A Learned and Comfortable Sermon of the Certaintie and Perpetuitie of Faith in the Elect 1; 5:75.10-19. 18 Justification [35]; 162.27-163.1. 19 Dublin 18; 4:120.14-121.5. /74/

PAGE 3 OF 16 pseudo-Thomas and Catharinus, that Christ’s sacrifice was for original, the sacrifice of the Mass for actual, sin.20 In this regard, Hooker distanced himself from others involved in the polemical debates: for him, it was important to describe accurately what the Roman Catholic Church believed, and to indicate where the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church were in agreement, in order to refute “their” charge “that when we cannot refute theire opinions we propose to our selves suche insted of theires as we can refute.”21 This reference to inaccuracies in Protestant anti-papist polemics, and Hooker’s consistent conviction that the defence of the Reformation meant accuracy of the description of Reformation and anti-Reformation views and the avoidance of hyperbole, seems to come from a traumatic experience his Church experienced at the beginning of his public career. In 1580-81, the Church of England received a shock in the secret arrival of Edmund Campion and his Jesuit companions. Campion provided a direct challenge to the establishment of the church, while disclaiming a challenge to royal supremacy that had been part and parcel of previous papist initiatives. Campion was an emblem of the growing Jesuit interest in the polemics of accuracy in the account of the conflicting views of church teaching in the Reformation period that would eventually be perfected by , and he produced a pamphlet, Decem Rationes, challenging Reformation views, particularly those of Luther and Calvin that seemed to overstate Christian doctrine. Many in England were impressed by his analysis and by his person as he publicly defended himself effectively against his accusers at a government trial and cruel public execution. John Aylmer, who had ordained Hooker, and who was, during the sequestration of Grindal from 1577-1582, the senior cleric of the Province of Canterbury, recommended a careful policy of accuracy in describing papist erroneous positions and the avoidance of the hyperbole of continental reformers like Luther and Calvin. This was not the general policy of the Church of England or of the Queen’s Council towards papist writings, but it /64/ seems to have informed the position of Richard Hooker, whose public writings studiously described papist views accurately even to the point of attracting criticism, and who carefully avoided Reformation hyperbole.22 In describing Reformation and anti-Reformation positions accurately and without hyperbole, it is clear that Hooker explicitly rejected some papist positions, and at the

20 Supplication 3:203.21-24; Answer 14; 3:242.9-15. Francis Clark has traced the rise of this puzzling misapprehension, from the 1520s, where it was related to polemic from Lutherans on the subject of the need for penance, down to the near present in order to justify the view that the Reformers had real errors to combat. Francis Clark, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1960), 469-503. 21 Answer 12; 3:238.4-13. 22 The incident and its effect on the apologetics of the Church of England and on Richard Hooker are detailed in Neelands, “Richard Hooker’s Paul’s Cross Sermon”, in Torrance Kirby and P.G. Stanwood (ed.), Paul’s Cross and the Culture of Persuasion in England, 1520-1640, (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 245-261. It is perhaps worth noting that Hooker was particularly fond of litotes, especially used ironically, the opposite rhetorical device to hyperbole.

PAGE 4 OF 16 same time indicated where they contained some elements of shared right teaching. Hooker consistently denied that there was any real merit in any sort of human work, but he held that there was a real growth in virtue in those being sanctified, and that the divinization of the elect in glory was as a reward for their works.23 This emphasis and series of connections was certainly unusual, if not novel, in the , but the individual parts had all been affirmed before, some clearly and some tentatively and confusedly. Although Hooker clearly had the same apologetic motive that led to the production of his benefactor Jewel’s extended polemical apologies against Roman Catholics, he had a higher loyalty, his distinctive insistence on describing accurately the “matter itself” that was part of his spirituality of the truth. For him, in the debate about justification as elsewhere, the new forces in the Church of England produced a spirituality of hypocrisy and phariseeism: the new piety replaced hearkening “to the readinges of the law of God” and keeping in mind the “aphorismes of wisdome,” with preaching and hypocrisy, “discoverie of other mens faltes.”24 Thus he claimed a spiritual motive, as well as the political one referred to above, in his eirenic and objective outlook towards the “papists,” and in this outlook he self-consciously opposed himself to the polemical anti- papist stance of the Puritan agitators for further reforms. It is therefore not surprising that later Roman Catholics, from time to time, claimed Hooker’s support, whether this was opportunistic or not: his position on scripture was considered favourable to Roman Catholics by Roman Catholics, who argued that he held that the canon of scripture was not determined by Scripture itself,25 and Scripture cannot validate itself.26 Roman Catholics took kindly to Hooker’s emphasis on the importance of the sacraments, not only signifying but conferring grace,27 to his acknowledging that papists are in the Church,28 and to his recognition of points of agreement between the Church of England and the papists.29 Hooker’s insistence on the truth, and this support, sometimes cost his reputation.30

23 David Neelands, “Hooker on Divinization: Our Participation of Christ”, in From Logos to Christos: Essays in Christology in Honour of Joanne McWilliam, ed. Ellen M. Leonard and Kate Merriman (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2010), 137-149. 24 Lawes V.81.10; 2:487.26-488.4. See David Neelands, “Richard Hooker and Assurance”, in Perichoresis 7.1 (2009), 93-111. 25 Michael Brydon, The Evolving Reputation of Richard Hooker: An Examination of Responses, 160-1714 (Oxford, 2006), 33. 26 Brydon, 66, 103. 27 Brydon, 34, 154. 28 Brydon, 65, 125. 29 Brydon, 152. 30 Brydon, 198-204.

PAGE 5 OF 16 Hooker’s Protestantism31 After this survey of Hooker’s views on the “papists” it might be opportune to review the biographical details that suggest Hooker’s relationships to contemporary English theological movements. Hooker’s views on church government, and on the episcopacy, put him in opposition to the “Puritans” of the second half of the of Elizabeth, who advocated further reform of the Church of England to restrict the authority of the prince in /65/ ecclesiastical matters and to replace the episcopacy with a presbyterian system. This was a harsh debate within the Reformed households. In this, Hooker clearly sided with Whitgift and the court party, against Cartwright and Travers. This debate continued in England and for a century or more after Hooker’s death, when the typical positions on episcopacy and royal supremacy were debated between groups who showed a significant diversity from each other on the theology of grace and of election and assurance. But it would be an anachronism to read back the seventeenth century theological line-up into the reign of Elizabeth. Although Hooker was frequently quoted in support of the Stuart position against the seventeenth century Presbyterians, his views were much more moderate than those made official by ; in fact, their “old fashioned” moderation may account for the abandonment of the program of publication of the Lawes: the extended and developed account of episcopacy and royal supremacy in Books VII and VIII, although opposing presbyterian views, would be embarrassing to those who taught the divine authority of the episcopacy and the divine right of the monarchy. The official formularies, including both the Articles and the liturgy and Homilies, had their birth in an earlier age, and were not Calvinist, but not so much anti-Calvinist, as pre-Calvinist. Elizabeth herself preferred to look backward to the standards of the period of her brother’s reign, her own Protestant youth, before the Calvinist theological leadership of the Reformed world had yet been accomplished. But the formularies were patient of Calvinist interpretation. Their cautious formulations did not rule out the stronger theology that was to set the agenda for the Elizabethan church. Neither did they state it. The Lambeth Articles of 1595, though unofficial in original intent, were one attempt to narrow the Articles so that they would not be so comprehensive, on the questions of assurance and . Hooker came to consciousness and matured in this Elizabethan world, where an increasingly triumphant became assumed

31 This section “Hooker’s ” first appeared in The Theology of Grace of Richard Hooker, 208-217 and appears here in a revised form. Although he might have, Hooker did not call himself or his church “Protestant”. That term, deriving from the actions of the Lutheran minority at the decision of the Diet of Speyer in 1529, was used to apply not only to Lutherans but also to churches with Lutheran-like settlements, such as the Church of England; but the word did not figure in the English formularies, and no official use until the seventeenth century, when Charles I affirmed his allegiance to “the Protestant religion”, as distinguished from both Roman Catholicism and Puritanism, and when the Oaths were altered to include the phrase, in 1688. After 1662, the term increasingly applied not only to the Church of England, but also to the views expressed in the groups of dissent.

PAGE 6 OF 16 as the official theology, though it had hardly been accommodated when the formularies were given authoritative form. Hooker’s roots were honestly Protestant. His uncle and protector, John Hooker, was a notable of reform in the Edwardian period. Richard Hooker was taken up, it was said, as a protégé by , Elizabethan and first official apologist for the Reformed English Church. When Jewel died in 1571, took up Jewel's interest and support for Richard Hooker. Through Jewel’s sponsorship, Hooker became a member of Corpus Christi College, which was said to have a papist element, but Hooker was most clearly associated with , his tutor, who was not in any sense a papist. Rainolds survived to be on “the more radical side of the table” at the , as a moderate “Minister” selected by King James. /66/ In any case, Hooker consistently praises the origin and goals of the English Reformation, hardly mentioning its theological leaders. Significantly enough, he hardly mentions the precursors of Reform such as Wycliffe32 or the Cambridge Lutherans of the 1520s33. In the peroration to Book IV of the Lawes, Hooker traces the course of the English Reformation to show God’s providential direction of it. Henry VIII is chosen as the origin of the movement, as the champion of the independence of the English Church, and the beginning of the eradication of superstition. Edward VI is referred to as “Edward the Saint: in whome … it pleased God righteous and just to let England see what a blessing sinne and iniquitie would not suffer it to enjoy.” Mary’s reign is noted only as nearly obliterating the beginning and the progress of the eradication of superstition from “the ruines of the house of God.” Elizabeth is reckoned a “most glorious starre” arising out of the preceding darkness.34 Hooker’s summary is, however, singular in not mentioning by name the significant theological figures of the movement. Indeed, this silence is typical of all Hooker’s extant writings, with a very few exceptions. Jewel is praised by name, in another place, as “the worthiest Divine that Christendome hath bred for the space of some hundreds of yeres.”35 And William Fulke (1538-89), the enemy of the and the Reims version of the New Testament, is mentioned in

32 Some have seen the phrase “as from time to time since the Gospell began to shine among us” in A Christian Letter [Preface] as a reference to Wycliffe. The reference is far from clear, and it is not used by Hooker but by his adversaries. (4:9.15-16). In the commentary on this passage, John Booty rightly notes that this may refer as well to the onset of the English Reformation in the sixteenth century. (4:185) Hooker does refer to Wycliffe’s political works several times (see references at 7:263 and Speed Hill at 6:325n27 and 6:326n29), and typically shows he has read well by noting that he has been unable to find one of Wycliffe’s supposed opinions, with which he does not agree, VII.22.7; 3:276.26-28. In fact, it is Queen Elizabeth, not Wycliffe, who is “the most gloriouse starre”, IV.14.7; 1:343.10-344.2, see below. 33 Hooker cites John Frith (executed for heresy 1533) against the authors of Christian Letter, 4:46.13-14, as supporting Hooker’s approach to erroneous eucharistic theology among Roman Catholics. See quotations in commentary at 4:219-220. 34 IV.14.7; 1:343.10-344.2. 35 Lawes II.6.4; 1:171.2-4.

PAGE 7 OF 16 passing in Book VII as an authority on the position that episcopacy was a decision of the church, not a divine ordinance.36 But these references to individual leaders are very much the exception. Over and over, A Christian Letter, written by a person or persons claiming to be “Ptorestant”, criticizes the first five books of the Lawes for their deviations from the Articles of Religion37 and from the writings of the earlier English Reformers, particularly the Marian martyrs. Although he might have done so, Hooker never once quotes these pre-Edwardian figures in his notes in the text of A Christian Letter, with the exception of a brief reference to John Frith as exhibiting a desirable eirenical point of view.38 More significantly, with one possible exception, Hooker never quotes the Articles at all.39 He does quote Calvin and other foreign Reformers, and he does quote an enormous range of medieval and patristic authors, apparently as showing the manner of the interpretation of scripture and the creeds in earlier times of . This is consistent with his view of the authority of the church in interpreting scripture. The Thirty-Nine Articles did have authority in the Church of England, although the interpretation of this authority and the nature of subscription were not consistent or clear until the reign of James VI and I. Hooker subscribed to them at least once, on July 17, 1591, when he became prebend of Netheravon attached to .40 In fact, it was some of the Puritans, not the Conformists, who objected strenuously to the non-doctrinal parts of the /67/ Articles, particularly those dealing with the authority of the king and of bishops. Hooker alludes to the authority of the Articles in one or two passages in the Lawes, but is otherwise silent on them: the forme of common prayer being perfited, articles of sound Religion and discipline agreed upon, Catechismes framed for the needfull instruction of youth, Churches purged of thinges that indeede were burthensome to the people or to the simple offensive and scandalous, all was brought at the length unto that wherein now wee stand.41

36 Lawes VII.11.8 fn h; 3.208.h. 37 Hooker was criticized for deviations from no less than seventeen of the Thirty-Nine Articles. W. Speed Hill, “Richard Hooker in the Folger Edition: An Editorial Perspective” in Richard Hooker and the Construction of Christian Community, ed. Arthur Stephen McGrade (Tempe, Arizona: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1997), 19n46. 38 4:46.13-14; 4:219-20. /75/ 39 Hooker possibly refers to Article 10 at Dublin 1, 4:101:3-6. Speed Hill has supposed that the phrase “in everie article” in Hooker’s notes in A Christian Letter (4:3.3) refers to the official Articles of Religion. W. Speed Hill, “Editorial Perspective”, 12. This may be so, but the phrase could as well refer to each of the twenty-one points made by the authors of Christian Letter. 40 Clavi Trabales (, 1661), 147. 41 Lawes IV.14.4; 1:339.23-29.

PAGE 8 OF 16 This is a reference to the basic skeleton of the Elizabethan settlement as it related to doctrine and discipline, and, once again, interprets the Reformation as primarily the purging of superstition and corruption, rather than a of doctrine. Later, he explicitly commends subscription to the Articles as a way of combating novelty.42 Thus Hooker recognized the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles, and their appropriateness, but did not see fit to quote from their content in support of his view. This need not mean he disagreed with them, or held them in low esteem. Rather, it may simply mean that they were of contemporary and national authority only, and therefore in some sense provisional, and in principle in as much need of defence as any other institution of the Elizabethan settlement. They did not have the force of the Biblical, patristic and medieval witness to the decision of the church in matters of doctrine and discipline. In any case, although the Reformation established by the Tudor monarchs is part of the providence of God for the , it is not the creation of something new. The English Reformation is not the beginning of a new commonwealth, but the reform of an old one, and as such, it retains whatever is valuable in the old.43 It was the role of the three good Tudors to establish the reformation of “a decayed estate,” and to reduce the Church of England “to that perfection from which it swarved.” To quote the Tudor Articles would beg the question. The Articles of Religion were a part of the restored perfection, but had to be justified properly, like every other part of the Tudor ecclesiastical settlement, by the appeal to Scripture as interpreted by the earliest church, by reason, and by the previous decisions of the Church. Thus Hooker would not quote them in their own defence, or, as it turned out, in his.

Hooker and Luther But what of the great continental Reformers? is apparently recognized as a genuine pioneer in the reform of the Church, and given credit for preserving the continuity of the church, rather than beginning a new one.44 And Martin Luther is acknowledged, /68/ for better and for worse, as the accepted authority in the German Church, as Calvin was in the French.45 Luther is also held up as an example of an authority who challenged the authority to preach of an unauthorized preacher, Thomas Müntzer.46 Luther was, however, too lenient in not distinguishing peaceful from violent Anabaptists.47 More seriously, Lutherans deny the foundation of faith “by consequent”, in that their speculations about the presence of Christ in the eucharist led them into

42 Lawes V.81.11; 2:489.9-15. 43 Lawes V.17.5; 2:63.26-33. See also IV.8 and 14; 1:298ff and 336ff. 44 Lawes III.1.1; 1:201.4-9. 45 Lawes, Pref. 4. 8; 1.26.28-27.1. 46 Lawes VII.14.11; 3.227.17-23. 47 Lawes, Pref. 8.9; 1.46.32-47.1.

PAGE 9 OF 16 serious Christological error.48 Most seriously, Luther, like the papists, insisted on a theory of Christ’s presence in the eucharist that could not be supported by Scripture.49 Hooker at no time acknowledges the importance of Lutheran writings in the English Reformation, from the 1520s on, nor the partial dependence of the and the Articles of Religion on Lutheran sources. The Saxon Reformer is never once identified as a founder of the movement of Reform in England. Hooker mentions Luther’s views only occasionally, and then only as deviating from sound Christianity, particularly in Christology, where Hooker consistently condemned the ubiquity of Christ’s glorified body in the eucharist and the consequent typical Lutheran view of the presence of Christ in the sacrament.50 Lutherans are not criticized for their views of justification or predestination. Yet perhaps Hooker’s most profound debt to Luther can be seen in his dependence on the deep theological principles of the magisterial reformation itself, beginning with Luther and his theology of the “two kingdoms", and including Calvin, that are the touchstones of Hooker’s doctrine of the Royal Supremacy in matters ecclesiastical.51 And Hooker probably owed his reliance on the use of the critical category of as well as his version of , to Luther and Lutheran sources, just as the English formularies owed their core assumptions and some of their language.

Hooker and Calvin52 Hooker has subsequently been identified as both a Calvinist and an anti-Calvinist. The reasons for this contradictory identification are found in his remarks about Calvin, and especially about those disciples of Calvin who were pressing for further reforms in the Church of England in the direction of Calvin’s Geneva. As for Calvin himself, Hooker refers to him as “incomparably the wisest man that ever the french Church did enjoy, since the houre it enjoyed him.” Hooker acknowledges that Calvin’s reputation was rightly earned on the strength of his Biblical commentaries and the Institutes of the Christian Religion; Calvin is a “grave and wise man”; Calvin did not hold the same theological views as some of his current disciples advocating change; Calvin acknowledged that different churches could make different decisions about their polity.

48 Justification [17]; 5:125.1-3 & fn k. 49 Lawes V.67.10; 2.340.24-28. See “Christology and the Sacraments”, 376, 396-7, 50 Lawes V.54.9; 226.7-22; 55.4, 5; 2:228-230; 67.10; 2:337.14-29; Justification [17]; 3:125.1-3. 51 W.J. Torrance Kirby, Richard Hooker’s Doctrine of Royal Supremacy (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990). . This thesis is cogently argued elsewhere, and will not be repeated here. 52 For the most part, the argument of this section has been dealt with in Neelands, “The Use and Abuse of in Richard Hooker’s Defence of the English Church”, Perichoresis 10.1 (2012), 3–22. Republished in: Rob Clements and Dennis Ngien (ed.), Between the Lectern and the Pulpit: Essays in Honour of Victor A. Shepherd, (Vancouver: College Publishing, 2014), 31–47. The references to Hooker’s writings and other works will be found there and are not repeated here.

PAGE 10 OF 16 If the highest /69/ compliment is imitation, then Hooker honours Calvin by echoing, without attribution, Calvin’s instrumentalist account of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and Calvin’s account of sanctification, neither to be found explicitly in the English formularies Hooker was defending. Hooker undoubtedly follows Calvin in the account of the eucharist in Book V of the Lawes, although Calvin is not cited53 and in his assumptions about sanctification in Discourse on Justification.54 And Hooker seems to have preferred the unofficial in some cases.55 Hooker also offers some criticisms of Calvin: he carried himself with less humility than one ought; his reforms of church discipline in Geneva were overly promoted for other churches; his machinations in the institution of Presbyterian polity in Geneva was not admirable; one of his opinions was “crazed”. Yet even in points of praise, Hooker observes a reference of distance: Calvin is not the greatest figure of the French church through the ages, but rather there has been no one of his stature since him; admiration for his preaching, less important than the biblical commentaries and the Instututes, was outrageously overstated; although a “grave and wise man” Calvin was human and not necessarily infallible. But it is Calvin’s disciples who are more to be criticized: their veneration for him was dangerous and promoted his authority beyond measure, and they ignored his frailty; they treated criticisms of Calvin as dangerous for the reputation of the church; they are so biased in favour of Calvin’s model, that they fail to recognize it as a novelty. And Hooker quotes Calvin to show that Calvin did not agree with some of the opinions of current followers. For instance, Hooker invokes Calvin’s judgement of Philosophy.56 In speaking of Calvin, Hooker often uses rhetorical devices, such as irony and litotes, to offer distance from Calvin; he uses phrases from Beza’s biography of Calvin in ironic ways: “Calvin that grave and wise man”, “men are men and truth is truth” to give that distance in ways that Beza, whose phrases these are, must not have intended. Recently an excellent study of Richard Hooker’s frequent rhetorical use of irony, while recognizing many previous studies that have identified Hooker’s admiration of Calvin, has concluded that “Hooker is highly critical not only of Calvin the man, but also of

53 Lawes V.67. See Francis Paget, An introduction to the fifth book of Hooker's Of the laws of (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), 180-182. 54 Justification [3]; 5:109.6-14; Institutes III.3; III.17.11,12 (1:814-816). There was some consonance, as Hooker noted, between this Calvinistic treatment of sanctification, and the scholastic theology of . See David Neelands, Theology of Grace, 38-46. “Justification and Richard Hooker the Pastor”, in Lutheran and Anglican: Essays in Honour of Egil Grislis, ed. John K. (Winnipeg: St. John’s College Press, University of Manitoba, 2009), 171-76. 55 FLE 5:667, 851. 56 Christian Letter 20; 4:65.11-12. Compare Lawes VII.11.10; 3:210.27-211.6.

PAGE 11 OF 16 aspects of his teachings”.57 I have argued that the use of irony with respect to Calvin does not diminish the genuine admiration Hooker has. It may, however, offer some distance from the superhuman view of Calvin promoted by his later disciples who pressed Calvin’s views and reputation farther that Hooker thought they should be pressed. Hooker held for a view of election that resembled Calvin’s, but did not agree with Calvin on unconditional reprobation, or with Calvin’s disciples on limited atonement. For Hooker, but not for Calvin and his disciples, grace is, in some ways, resistible and the justified do not have (perfect) assurance throughout their lives.58

/70/ Thomas Aquinas and Other Scholastics As has been noted, Hooker apparently took highly unusual care to identify and describe accurately the views of contemporary Roman Catholics. He also took an unusual interest in the medieval scholastics in order to develop a common theological account, that would also use the Thomistic neo-scholastic figures, especially Dominicans, such as Thomas Cardinal Cajetan (1469-1534) and Chrysostom Javelli (1470-1538). It has long been noted that Hooker mined the opinions of medieval scholastics, including Scotus, but especially Thomas Aquinas, although not without clear disagreements. Just as with his sixteenth century Roman Catholic and Reformation authors, he was careful to identify precisely what were subjects of agreement and what were not.59 Of the eight times Hooker cites Thomas, four are critical of Thomas. But the overall dependence on and admiration of Thomas in his writings is apparent, from the borrowing (with important differences) of Thomas’s classification of laws to the Thomistic pattern of the double need for human grace and the dictum that grace perfects nature and does not destroy it, with the corollary that perfects reason and does not destroy it.60 And Hooker toys with the principle of analogy, apparently using the accounts of both Cajetan, who argued for an analogy of proper proportionality, and John of St. Thomas (1489-1544), for the more accurate analogy of intrinsic attribution.61 This is not to say that Hooker does not introduce novelty. He frequently grafts Reformation branches onto a Thomistic theological tree.62 Having shown, through Thomistic argument, that human beings need revelation to know the

57 A.J. Joyce, Richard Hooker and Anglican moral Theology, Oxford, 2013, 56. See Neelands, "Use and Abuse of John Calvin", 43 fn 24, and Neelands, Review of A.J. Joyce, Richard Hooker and Anglican Moral Theology. Oxford: University Press, 2012. In Journal of British Studies, vol. 52 no. 2 (April 2013), 509-10. 58 David Neelands, “Richard Hooker and Assurance”, Perichoresis, 7.1 (2009), 93-111. 59 For detailed treatment of Hooker’s admiration of the medieval scholastics and references from secondary literature, see Neelands, Theology of Grace, 301-07. 60 See Neelands, “Scripture, Reason and Tradition”, 76-89. 61 Neelands, Theology of Grace, 316-324. 62 Neelands, Theology of Grace, 72. /76/

PAGE 12 OF 16 “divine law”, because the original way of salvation by works and reward was closed, he identified that divine law with justification by faith, the touchstone of the Reformation. The medieval scholastic patterns of the human search for happiness and the need for grace both because humans are both creatures and fallen are answered by the sixteenth century Reformation rediscovery of the meaning of justification and the meaning of the faith by which human beings are justified. Hooker’s frequent use and incorporation of scholastic thought raised suspicion among some of his critics. The authors of A Christian Letter complained that Hooker relied on , the scholastics, reason and reading in a way that threatens to revive popery.63 It might equally well be seen that he was involved in a theological conversation that crossed the boundaries of the Reformation.

Differences Within the Reformed World Enough has been said about the distance Hooker and the consensus of the Elizabethan Church of England set between themselves and Lutherans on /71/ Christology and the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This should not be interpreted as wholesale acceptance of the successful international Reformed and Calvinist position, as if that were the only other alternative, and as if it were uniform. Clearly, as is well known, Hooker and the authorities within the English Church distanced themselves from Calvinist Church polity and Calvinist separation of the authority in the church from the authority of the civil magistrate, and Hooker was a willing advocate of the official position. But there was more variety of opinion on other matters within the Reformed household, and Hooker was, as we have also seen, not afraid to dissent from an emerging Calvinist consensus, most particularly on predestination and assurance, even if that meant departing from the views of , whose position on the questions of polity he supported and generally promoted. That there was more variety to the Protestant household in England than stronger and weaker Calvinism, Hooker is prime evidence. It was primarily the recognition of the hyperboles of Reformed position and the avoidance of promoting them in defence of the Reformation that appears to have distanced Hooker from the great continental reformers and their disciples in England. This position, I have suggested, could well have derived from adopting the response of Bishop Aylmer to the trauma of the Jesuit arrival with Thomas Campion: accuracy and the avoidance of hyperbole in order to remain credible to all. Among these hyperboles might be listed:

63 Christian Letter 20; 4:64-71.

PAGE 13 OF 16 1. Salvation is , as opposed to the careful biblical and reformation view that justification is by faith, justification understood as declarative rather than constitutive, and faith understood in terms of certainty of adherence (fiducia) rather than certainty of evidence (notitia and assensus). The unique foundation of salvation is Christ, and as long as our ancestors (and contemporary papists) did not deny that, they might express their account of salvation incorrectly and yet be included in the mercy of God.64 2. Scripture is the only authority in church decisions relating either to what is to be believed and what is to be done () as opposed to the more careful and traditional view that scripture is sufficient for that for which it is intended, “to make human beings wise unto salvation” and “that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ and in believing to have life”; though Scripture is the first authority, reason has a role and there is a wide range of decisions that are the responsibility of the church, beyond what is what is necessary for salvation (prima scriptura).65 3. The internal witness of the guarantees the believer an infallible test to identify the canon of scripture without /72/ the witness of the church (and, since scripture is easy to interpret literally, an infallible certainty about its meaning, as opposed to recognizing that the “internal witness of the Holy Spirit” to the authority and meaning of scripture does not place our coming to faith and understanding outside the ordinary way we learn from human authority and reason, with the assistance of the Spirit.66 4. Full assurance of faith is given to all those justified, versus the paradox that the best assurance one could have was derived from a recognition of the weakness of one's faith;67 perfect assurance was a gift of glory; to presume it here in this world turned one into a presumptuous Pharisee.68 5. Damnation was on account of unconditional reprobation, versus the traditional view that God foresaw the damnation of those not elect, and permitted them to bring on their own damnation.69

64 Neelands, “Justification and Richard Hooker the Pastor”, 167-182. 65 See David Neelands, ‘“But who do you say that I am?’ The Labels we use for Richard Hooker: protestant, unprotestant, via media”, forthcoming. 66 Neelands, “Use and Abuse”, 38-39. 67 And perhaps the evidence of our love of our brethren, as in First Sermon Upon S. Judes Epistle. 68 Neelands, Richard Hooker and Assurance, 104-07. 69 David Neelands, “Richard Hooker and the Debates about Predestination 1580-1600”, Toronto Journal of Theology [David Demson Festschrift] (Spring 2001),187-202; republished in Richard Hooker and the English Reformation, ed. W.J. Torrance Kirby (Dortrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer, 2003), 43-61.

PAGE 14 OF 16 There were various attempts to bridge the gaps of the Reformation, at Augsburg (1518), at Marburg (1529), at Regensburg (1541), and so on. Yet, despite the hardening lines of the Reformation, there remained those who did maintain an “ecumenical vision”, despite the risk taken in maintaining such a position. Hooker was one of these. He was first of all, a confident Protestant: “That which especially concerneth our selves, in the present matter we treate of, is the state of reformed religion…”70 And that state was rich in texture, independent and based on a long tradition that was not displaced by the novelties of the current age. An honest “virtual” dialogue could continue across the terrible divides. And that virtual dialogue should involve a recognition that “the other” was still part of the Church of Christ, that it undermined the credibility of the Reformation position to repeat inaccuracies and hyperboles, no matter how venerable the source, and that, most important, it was important to understand the current positions of those “other”. In the phrase of a twentieth century scholar, Hooker illustrates the openness, reasonableness and tolerance of a moderate position.71 A confident Protestant can be fair and open, and not resort to self-defeating rhetoric. After his death, in 1605, his former student and supporter, Edmund Sandys published a proposal for the reunion of the moderate churches, A Relation of the State of Religion: and with what Hopes and Policies it hath beene framed, and is maintained in the several States of these Westerne partes of the world. This proposal did not come to fruition, but the proximity to Hooker is clear. And after his death, he was pointed to as a bridge figure who might be attractive to moderate Roman Catholics and moderate Protestants. Lucius Cary, 2nd (c. 1610 - 1643), Royalist politician maintained a circle at Great Tew, his country house, along with , /73/ admired Richard Hooker enormously and contemplated an ecumenical arrangement, on an international conciliar basis, modelled on Hooker's account of the Christian faith and the Church. Falkland commissioned a Latin translation of the Lawes so it could be read outside England.72 Could this be the ultimate source of a legend in Walton’s life about the on-the spot translation for the pope?73 In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, a new era began of ecumenical discussions between the Roman Catholic Churches and almost all other churches. Richard Hooker was readily identified as an asset in such discussions.74

70 Lawes IV.14.7; 1:344.4-6. 71 D.R.G. Owen, "Is there an Anglican Theology?" in M. Darrol Bryant, The Future of Anglican Theology (Toronto: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984), 8-10. 72 Hugh Trevor-Roper, Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans: seventeenth century essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 191-97. The manuscript is at Folger Library. 73 Walton’s Life of Hooker, Keble 1:71. 74 This identification has been pursued by Olivier Loyer, Richard K. Faulker and others. For a comprehensive treatment of sixteenth century witnesses to Hooker’s “ecumenical vision,” see William P. Haugaard, “Richard

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Hooker: Evidences of an Ecumenical Vision from a twentieth-century perspective,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 24 (1987), 427-439.

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