Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1955 Thomas Hooker and the Reformed Theology: The Relationship of Hooker's Conversion Preaching to Its Background. Everett aH rvey Emerson Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Emerson, Everett aH rvey, "Thomas Hooker and the Reformed Theology: The Relationship of Hooker's Conversion Preaching to Its Background." (1955). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 8124. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/8124 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. / */*/. THOMAS HOOKER AND THE REFORMED THEOLOGp THE RELATIONSHIP OF HOOKER'S CONVERSION PREACHING TO ITS BACKGROUND A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the L ouisiana-S tate U niversity and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ,of 'Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English e./hy E verett Harvey Emerson A#B. , Harvard College, 19i|.8 M• A., Duke U niversity, I9i-j9 May, 1955 UMI Number: DP69502 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI DP69502 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code uest ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to thank the following people for their help in preparing this study: Professor D. E. Stanford, who directed my work and supplied me wi^h good advice; Professor E. L. 0 Marilla, who read the study and helped much with stylistic matters; Professor T. S. K. .Scott-Ci^aig, of Dartmouth Col­ lege, who supplied several valuable suggestions; andTmy w ife. In preparing this study I have made use of the facili­ ties of the Louisiana State University Library and of the Widener Memorial,* Andover-Harvard, and Houghton libraries of Harvard University. Through the courtesy of interlibrary loan I have had access to books in many other libraries; those of the University of Chicago and Yale University have been particularly helpful. The officials of the Library and the Department of English of Louisiana State University made this study possible by procuring for my use tbe microfilms on which the .study is largely based. To these libraries, librarians and others I am very grateful. Without two notable compilations, Philip Gchaff's Oreeds of Christondorn and Heinrich Hoppe's deformed Dogmat- ic s , the work involved in th is study would have been-in- creas ed itmneasuralhiy . TABLE OP CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENT ........ .......................................... i i ABSTRACT........................................................................................ 'iv INTRODUCTION.................................................... 1 I REFORMED THOUGHT ON CONVERSION BEPOrtE HOOKER . 13 II THE PURITAN BACKGROUND OP HOOKER’S THOUGHT . ).|.6 I I I THOMAS HOOKER’S THEOLOGY AND ETHICS, AND HIS CONCEPT OP THE ROLE OP PREACHING . ............................98 IV HOOKER, COVENANT THEOLOGY, AND THESGRiuON AS THE MEANS OP GRACE . ......................................... 132 V ADDITIONAL PREACHING TECHNIQUES USED BY HOOKER . 103 VI SIIiiPARD AND COTTON Ii; HALATION TO HOOKER .... 20l(. CONCLUSION . .............................................................................21*1* SELiSCTKD BIBLIOGRAPHY...............................................................2i|6 VITA ....... V ;......................................................'. 2% , 1 X 1 ABSTRACT Recent students of New England Puritanism have argued that the theology of 3uch w rite rs as Jolin Cotton, Thomas Shepard, and Thomas Hooker" is not to be confused v/ith Cal- vinism, for it differs in important ways: it is covenant theology, a‘ later development of the Reformed theology which* put more emphasis on man's s p ir itu a l a b ility and less on predestination. This dissertation examines the teachings of the important Puritan divine Thomas Hooker (l5d6-l6i.}.7) on conversion, in the light of ‘Calvin's teaching and seven­ teenth-century Reformed and Puritan thought. Puritan thought such as Hooker's differs from the thought of Calvin in being more concerned with man's salva­ tion and less concerned with God's glory. Predestination * was for Calvin a teaching which emphasized God's mercy and also His justice; for Puritans it was most Important for its * * role in the conversion process.^ Hooker is ] Ike Calvin in th at lie ‘ taught that conversion is accomnan ' - • ■ by nersuusion, but unlike Calvin in that Calvin 'did not me ;■ — cent ml to /'""" Chris tian doctrine the so-called "I'ive Point.: of Calvinism" ‘and put less cm pi 1 a.sis on .nan':; 1 nubility un m aid too lat-r strict theology o.l deformed sciio’J asticism, tne basis of whicii hooker's tl saadi t dovolo; >■ ■.\. ^ The most important doctrine in understanding Hooker’s conversion teaching is not the covenant but the sermon as a means of grace. According to this theory, the preacher’s * exhortations to take the steps necessary for converaion-- such as contrition and humiliation--will by God’s grace so affect the elect that they will follow the preacher’s direc­ tio n s . Preaching of the word has the e ffe c t of making the conversion process--actually| a result of God’s irresistible grace--appear to be a matter of man’s choice. Calvin taught this sacramental concept of preaching, although it did not loom large in his practice because he was not nearly as con­ cerned -with the salvation process as,were" later deformed writers# But John Preston and others of his time developed / the concept of the sermon as a means of grace and related it to psychological processes. The developed doctrine provides the basis for many of Hooker’s exhortations, which, ’to on'e unfamiliar with the doctrine, may sound Anninian. Hooker’s most effective preaching ability was his anal­ ysis of the "shifts” and rationalizations by which men avoid • t. taking the steps ores cribed for salvation. These analyses are often in the form of characters. Hooker’s thought is more: closely related to the school ol' deformed theology called "High Calvinism^ than it is to covenant theology. His do pa rtures from s trio t orthodoxy are rare and not sum rising, considering the di rricul ties of * contending at the same time that man totally lacks spiritual ability and th -1 ■■!■■■ n is fully re sponsible ./n i* the state of v his soul. Two aspects of Hooker!s thought appear to be im­ portant weaknesses.. First, conversion has an ambiguous role in his teachings, for to the unconverted it is the ultimate goal, but those who regard themselves a 3 converted may not enjoy assurance: they must continually test themselves to see if they are really saved. .Second, Hooker teaches that conversion is a long and painful process but argues that those who fall to attempt the process are resisting God's free gift of grace. Cotton and Shepard, Hooker's contemporaries, differ so considerably from Hooker in the d e ta ils of th e ir teaching on conversion that the three cannot be. said to form a school of theology; they belong to the school of Calvin and his. sue- . cossors, tho deformed theology. Hooker's greatest accomplishment ,wus his degree of suc­ cess in reconciling divine predestination and human respon­ sibility, but his effort was not sufficiently successful to warrant for him an important place in the history of seven- ■' tee'nth-contury ideas. v i ( \ INTRODUCTION j Thomas Hooker died afc the age of sixty-one, yet had lived long enough to establish a great reputation on both — sides of the Atlantic. Cottqn Mather called him^ "The Light of the Western Churches,"^ while Samuel Collins, agent of Archbishop Laud, said of him in 1629, "1 have lived in Essex to see many changes and have seene the people idolizing many new ministers and lecturers; but this man surpasses them all for learning, and some other considerable parts, and , . • 2 gains more and far greater following than all before him." / He was more talked about than the question of tonnage and 1 poundage. In our own times he has been called "a statesman of the first rank,"^ "the father of American democracy,"'* 1 In Magnalia Christi Arnericana. ^Calendar of State Papers: Domestic, 1628-1629, CXLII, 55h > No. 1 1 3 , quoted by Perry MiTier, "Thomas Hooker and the Democracy of Early C onnecticut," New England Q uarterly, IV (1931), 665. “ — ^ ------------- •5 S tate Papers: Domestic, 1.628-1629, CXLIV, 56?, No. 3 6 , quoted by M iller, "Hooker," p• ~"665". ^Warren Seymour Archibald, Thomas Hooker (New Haven, 1933), p. 1. — ^Encyclopaedia Britannica, l)j.th ed. , n, v. "Thomas HookerT 11 1 L and the ’’noblest of the New England Puritans*” He has been ranked by the editors of the standard history of American literature as a major author,*^ and it has been said that ’’There is great need for an adequate study of [Thomas Hooker, ] one of the leading thinkers arid writers of the sev- enteenth century.” The following study is an attempt to fill partially that need. Thomas Hooker was born at Marfield, a tiny town in 9 Leicestershire, England, in l5'86. Probably he attended Market-Bosworth School, near Marfield, before he arrived In l 6 olj.