THE LIFE OF THOMAS HOOKER BY EDWARD W. HOOKER LIBRARY EDITION, 100 COPIES BOSTON 1870 Source: http://wwwarchiveorg/details/lifethomashooke00hookgoog Taken from Lives of the Chief Fathers of New England, vol. vi Formatted, modernized, and annotated by William H. Gross www.onthewing.org July 2020 What may be of most interest, are the excerpts from Hooker’s writings, copiously gathered in Chapter 7. The heart of the man is best revealed there. – WHG Contents Preface Chapter 1. Parentage and Education. Chapter 2. Silenced for Non-Conformity. Chapter 3. Arrival in New England. Chapter 4. Relocation to Hartford. Chapter 5. Influence in the State – His Death. Chapter 6. His Character. Chapter 7. His Writings. Chapter 8. Church Polity and Discipline. Chapter 9. His Posterity. APPENDIX. (A) Names of the first Proprietors of Cambridge. (B) Invitation to the Westminster Assembly of Divines (C) Catalogue of Ministers descended from Mr. Hooker. Ministers who married female descendants of Rev. Thomas Hooker. (D) Descendants who have served in Education (E) Descendants in important public offices, civil, military, and others. Others in spheres of literary influence and benevolent efforts. Descendants prominent in early legislation of Connecticut and Massachusetts. (F) Descendants who entered the profession of Law Descendants who have been Physicians Additional names of professional men Preface THE preparation of this volume of the Series has been delayed, beyond the expectations of the author and of the Committee of Publication. This delay has arisen from the pressure of other duties, and from the difficulty of collecting materials. The latter has been of no ordinary magnitude. In the almost total absence of original papers of any kind, from Mr. Hooker’s pen, the author has been compelled to rely principally upon matter, relative to him, which was incidental in Puritan and New England history, and scattered through many volumes in various libraries, and upon many thousands of pages. The reader will find in this volume, therefore, little of autobiography. The history of Mr. Hooker’s life in Connecticut, especially, has been found merged in the civil and religious history of the State. The scantiness of original materials has been rendered a matter for special regret, from the belief that there have been in existence rich materials for a far fuller biography, had they been carefully preserved. At the taking down of the old parsonage house of the First Congregational Church in Hartford, about thirty years ago, a large quantity of ancient papers was found, supposed to be those of Rev. Thomas Hooker; and they were thrown into Connecticut river by persons employed in the work, who were either ignorant or thoughtless of their value. If anything would justify a State enactment, making the careless or wanton destruction of ancient manuscript papers a felony, and punishable as such, the occurrence of such cases as this — which are frequent — would seem to do so. If, like many good and great men, Thomas Hooker was accustomed to record, in a journal form or otherwise, interesting incidents in his own life, his religious exercises, and results of his experience and observation as a Christian citizen and a minister, such records have been hopelessly put beyond the reach of any biographer. With its many imperfections, from whatever cause, the present volume is commended to the lovers of the Puritan character and principles, in hope that it will be found not altogether without value, as a small contribution to the stock of Christian biography. E. W. H May, 1849. LIFE OF THOMAS HOOKER Chapter 1. Parentage and Education. Parentage and ancestry. Contemporaries. Persecutions of the Puritans of his time. Education at Cambridge. Fellowship in Emmanuel College. Conversion, religious experience, and formation of character. Preaches at Chelmsford. Remarkable success and influence. Character of his eloquence as a preacher. THE eminence and usefulness of a great and good man invariably lead us to inquire into his early history; his parentage, ancestry, and early education; and the providential circumstances which gave direction to his mind, and stamp to his character. We generally have the means of answering such inquiries; and are permitted to see what the individual was in his childhood, youth, and advancing manhood; how his character was formed, and by what instrumentalities developed. And while we see how men have been rendered useful, influential and estimable, we are instructed respecting the methods by which we are to labor for the formation of character in those whom we are to educate for the service of God and the good of the world. There are cases, however, in which Divine Providence denies us the satisfaction of this description of knowledge. The early history of the individual is hidden from our view. No friend or admirer of his character has preserved the materials for his early biography; or if so, they remain as yet undiscovered, if not lost. We have therefore to begin with the man after he has grown up to his full intellectual and moral stature. We have no doubt he had an early education, and a course of training for his sphere of effort and usefulness. But we have to repress our curiosity on these points, and to rest satisfied that such a man lives and has become a blessing to the world; and be willing to leave the unknown years of his early life to be shown as among the secret things to be revealed in eternity. The case of the excellent Thomas Hooker was like that which has now been described. Nothing has come down to us, in the histories of him and of his times, which even answers the question who his father and mother were. His birthplace was Marfield, Leicestershire, England. His birthdate was July 7, 1586. All that is known of him from that day till his entrance upon his collegiate course, is comprised in two sentences of the biographical sketch given by the author of Magnalia Americana (Cotton Mather). “He was born of parents who were neither unable nor unwilling to bestow upon him a liberal education: from which the early lively sparkles of wit observed in him very much encouraged them. His natural temper was cheerful and courteous; but it was accompanied with such a sensible grandeur of mind, as caused his friends, without the help of astrology, to prognosticate that he was born to be considerable” We commence our history of him, then, as a student in Emmanuel college, Cambridge; with his character mainly formed, and his preparations made for the life he was to lead, and for the work he was to do, as a man, a Christian, and a minister of Christ. It would be matter of curiosity rather than of importance, to investigate the ancestry of Thomas Hooker, and to follow out the ramifications of lineage which would show the collateral relationships of his family. Perhaps we would find him related to Richard Hooker, the great apologist for English Episcopacy, and styled by king James, “the judicious” The existence of any relationship of consanguinity between these two men, however, is more than we have been able to discover. Moreover, it is of very little consequence in this sketch. If, however, there was such relationship, it is a matter of interest to the student of coincidences and contrasts, that these two men, of the same family name, and contemporaries in England for several years, should have thought, reasoned, and written so utterly at variance with each other on the great subject of Ecclesiastical Polity. Richard Hooker wrote his great work which has given such strength and permanence to both English and American Episcopacy; and Thomas Hooker, on the other hand, was the author of another system of Church Polity, of an entirely different character from that of his illustrious namesake. And he appeared as a master-builder among the churches of New England, upon the broad and scriptural foundation of a most decided and energetic Congregationalism; and this is not only as distinguished from Episcopacy, but even from Presbyterianism. There were strong points of resemblance between the two men, in the essential elements of their characters, both as men and as Christians. At the same time, they were diametrically opposite in their Ecclesiastical views. We are thus shown that it is quite possible for two men, of the same nation, language, name, and perhaps lineage —both Protestants, and of essentially the same religious belief — to think, write and teach in wide difference from each other on ecclesiastical matters, and to lay the foundations of two separate Protestant religious denominations, never brought into union, and generally living in controversy with each other. And yet, neither of these two men are found “grievously possessed with a devil,” nor deserving to be shut out of the other’s charity as a Christian. If in generations past, it has run in the blood of the Hookers to construct systems of ecclesiastical government, it is very clear that —blood notwithstanding — one may be an inflexible Churchman, and the other an equally inflexible Congregationalist. So that, while the same kind of blood may run in their veins, and in the same direction, their processes of thinking on such a subject as ecclesiastical polity, may run in stubborn and absolute opposition to each other, and the results of their investigations and reasonings are as wide asunder as the east is from the west. Placed side by side, the two men form a study, for the moral painter, of no ordinary interest. The things to respect, admire and love in each, are many. Widely as they differed in their views of the government of the church, imperfect and agitated with divisions and conflicts on earth, they still had so many points of harmony on the great articles of the New Testament faith, and in their spirit, so many resemblances to that of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we hope they have, together, seen ages of love, harmony, and bliss, as members of the Church perfect, peaceful, and glorified in heaven.