Richard Hooker: the Confident Church of England Reformer*
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Richard Hooker: the Confident Church of England Reformer* David Neelands Trinity College, University of Toronto ABSTRACT: Richard Hooker is generally acknowledged as a critical sixteenth-century figure in the Church of England. 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 attitude to Roman Catholics and occasional criticisms of central figures of the Protestant Reformation 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 Walter Travers 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 Catholic views, particularly on the Pelagian question and the doctrine of justification by faith. 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 theology; 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 York: Peter Lang, 2016, 61-76. 1 This section “Attitude to ‘the Papists’” first appeared in David 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 Roman Catholic views: although the Church of England retained “parte of their ceremonies, and almost their whole government . 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 heresy of Roman Catholics is on the matter of justification. They attribute merit to human actions in sanctification, so that further grace is itself merited.8 Hooker also believes 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 Bishops 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 Catholic church 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 Puritans 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.