Stephen J Plant, Trinity Hall, Cambridge Ecclesial Communion, Ecclesiastical Polity and Reconciled Diversity in Richard Hooker’s Theology Introduction There are two reasons why Richard Hooker deserves attention in the context of Meissen theological conversations. The first is that in his major work, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie,1 Hooker addressed English Puritans who were convinced that the Protestant Reformation in England had never been completed and was now indeed in retreat; this makes the Lawes, one might say, one of the earliest significant contributions to an Anglican theological dialogue with Lutheran and Reformed theology.2 The second reason is that with respect to the particular topic of ecclesial communion and reconciliation, Hooker’s thinking helps make sense of how English Anglicanism has arrived at some key components in its current understanding of ecclesial communion and reconciliation. In any informed account Hooker is one of the key figures in the development of a distinctively Anglican ecclesiology and theology. Unlike Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Hooker made his contribution to the development of Anglicanism, largely from the political sidelines. Born in Devon in 1554, Hooker caught the eye of John Jewell, Bishop of Salisbury, who helped secure a place for him to study at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Two years after his ordination in 1579, Hooker was appointed a public preacher and took the opportunity to challenge the Puritans3 on the doctrine of predestination by pursuing an essentially Arminian line. In 1585 he became preacher at the Temple Church, largely a Church for lawyers, in London. This prestigious appointment brought him into conflict with a leading Puritan, the lawyer Walter Travers and it was this conflict that gave rise to the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie though, as Diarmaid MacCulloch remarks, ‘the scale of Hooker’s work was grander than its occasion’.4 Recognizing the importance of Hooker’s developing work Archbishop Whitgift supported his appointment as sub-dean of Salisbury Cathedral and to two livings in Kent, which together provided him with the material security needed to write.5 The Preface and first four books of the Lawes were published in 1593; Book V appeared in 1597. The remaining three books were held back - either because their contents were judged by Hooker too controversial for publication or perhaps more simply because they were incomplete – and were posthumously published6. Hooker died in Kent in 1600. 1

All references to Hooker’s Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie are to The Folger Library Edition (FLE) of the Works of Richard Hooker, the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge MS & London, 1977. References cite book, chapter, and section followed by the standard FLE citation. English spelling, syntax and grammar have, of course, evolved since the 16 th century; Elizabethan usage is followed in the FLE. 2 This is a serious point: viewing Hooker as an early ecumenist is not at all far-fetched; see, e.g., ‘Hooker on Ecumenical Relations: Conciliarism in the English Reformation’, W.B.Paterson, 283-303 in ed. Arthur Stephen McGrade, Richard Hooker and the Construction of Christian Community. 3 The term ‘puritan’ attaches, in the context of 16th and 17th century English church history, rather loosely to those who believed that the Protestant reformation had not been completed in England and that further theological, liturgical and political reforms were therefore needed. Many but by no means all ‘puritans’ (the term was initially coined as a Spottname) looked to Geneva and Zürich for their lead in matters of both faith and order. 4 Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700, 506. 5 Hooker fulsomely acknowledged Whitgift’s patronage in his dedication to Book V: V Ded. V: 1-8. 6 Books VI and VIII in 1648 and VII not until 1661.

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To even the most dedicated Anglican, Hooker’s Lawes is a forbiddingly long and complex text and those who acknowledge its difficulty include admirers.7 Hooker has a lot to say and was prepared to take his time in saying it. In the Folger edition Book V alone – which is the main focus of this paper - extends over 500 pages. This obliges those who write about it, especially those required to keep their comments to a maximum of 4,000 words, to find ways of focusing their attention. In what follows, I begin by sketching some of the features of Hooker’s approach and method in the Lawes as a whole. Then, turning to Book V, I explore Hooker’s understanding of reconciliation in terms of participation in Christ, his view of the role of the sacraments for the Church’s participation in Christ and the consequences of participation for the reconciliation of Christians divided by differing views of ecclesial polity and practice. What we will see is that, with Hooker, the reconciliation of God and humanity achieved in Christ is shared through participation in the sacraments. Thus, it is perhaps less the case for Hooker that ecclesial communion is in the service of reconciliation than that the reconciliation of human and divine achieved in Jesus Christ makes possible the Church’s communion with God from which communion between Christians flows. This may help their dialogue partners to understand the prominence given by English Anglican ecumenists to questions of order and sacramental fellowship relative to more narrowly doctrinal matters. Strategy, tone and method in Hooker’s Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie From the outset one is struck by the irenic tone of Hooker’s Lawes. Many polemicists affect an attitude of Christian generosity; with Hooker one senses it is genuine: The explication of which two things I have here thought good to offer into your own hands, heartily beseeching you even by the meekness of Jesus Christ, whom I trust ye love; that, as ye tender the peace and quietness of this Church, if there be in you that gracious humility which hath ever been the crown and glory of a christianly disposed mind … Let not the faith which ye have in our Lord Jesus Christ, be blemished with partialities.8 Though Hooker certainly regards himself as a Protestant, he sets out doctrinally to keep an open mind. On the one hand, the humanist in him respects the scholarly achievements of the Reformers; he is generous, for example, in his description of Calvin, thinking him ‘for my own part … incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did enjoy, since the hour it enjoyed him’.9 On the other hand, though he understands the natural human inclination involved, Hooker is unwilling to submit the English Church to the doctrinal tutelage of any particular Reformer: Such naturally is our affection, that whom in great things we mightily admire; in them we are not persuaded willingly that anything should be amiss… This in every profession hath too much authorized the judgments of a few. Thus with Germans hath caused Luther, and with many other Churches, Calvin to prevail in all things.10

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For example Rowan Williams, who remarks ‘…it has long been recognised that Hooker’s many gifts did not include what a modern audience would regard as a common touch’ , ‘Foreword: Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie Revisited’, in ed. Torrance Kirby, A Companion to Richard Hooker, p. xv. 8 Lawes Preface, 1.3. 9 Lawes Preface, 2.1. 10 Lawes Preface, 4.8.

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Initially, the form that the Lawes took was a point by point rebuttal of the proposals made by Thomas Cartwright to broader debates on the reform of the English Church. One of Cartwright’s key claims was that ‘Scripture alone is the rule of all things which may be done by men’. From this, Cartwright thought, it followed that ‘Scripture prescribes an unalterable form of Church government’ and that ‘the English Church is corrupted by popish orders, rites’ that are unscriptural. Hooker willingly accepted the authority of Scripture. Yet though Scripture came first, Hooker favoured a Thomist approach that looked for the meaning of biblical texts less in the literal word than in the realities they address, their intention rather than their letter. The Church’s tradition had value, but Hooker did not incline to follow it uncritically. Drawing heavily on Luther’s principle of adiaphora, Hooker took the view that it was not the case, as the Puritans maintained, that liturgical and ecclesiastical practice must follow Scripture literally; rather, he maintained that what is not forbidden in Scripture is permitted. This axiom applied, for example, to orders of ministry meant that while a threefold order of ministry of deacons, priests and bishops could not be justified on the basis of Scripture beyond all reasonable doubt, it was nonetheless a theologically proper form of order. There was a political dimension too to Hooker’s thinking that makes it not altogether false to describe him, using a term anachronistically, as a liberal. The Puritan aim for the Church was semper reformanda. This meant in practice the attempt to effect, by political coercion if necessary, the re-formation of the liturgy, doctrines and ecclesiastical order of the English Church. Hooker, on the other hand, had theological reasons for resisting the use of public power for salvific ends. His view of the Church was at this point essentially Augustinian: the Church is a corpus permixtum in which the wheat and tares are sown together and will not be separated until the harvest. Attempts to reform the Church by activism are wasted because this side of the end of history, good and evil are so thoroughly intermingled. Hooker has sometimes been traduced as little more than a lick-spittle defender of the Elizabethan establishment, a 16th century Eusebius to the Virgin Queen. Such views are wholly unfair: Hooker did not think Elizabeth’s settlement perfect. On the contrary, against those who sought out some perfect form of Church government, Hooker held the surprisingly modern view that: the stains and blemishes found in our State, which springing from the root of human frailty and corruption, not only are, but have been always more or less, yea and… will be till the world’s end complained of, what form of government soever take place.11 Before we turn to Book V, the book whose content has most to give to a consideration of ecclesial communion and reconciliation, it is helpful briefly to note the subjects addressed in the preceding books of the Lawes. Book I of the Lawes is concerned with ‘Laws, and their several kinds in general’. Book II tackled head on the claim that Scripture is the only rule governing human life. Book III dealt with the particular claim that the Church’s polity must be contained in Scripture. Book IV examined claims that some of the rites and ceremonies retained in the English Church ought to be extirpated because they were corrupt and ‘Popish’.

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Lawes Preface, 3.7.

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Incarnation and reconciliation By the time Hooker reached Book V, therefore, his argument is already at an advanced stage. In Book V he was able to turn, on the basis of general principles already established, to a number of very particular issues. The title of the book – plainly not chosen to aim at popular success – is Of theire fourth assertion, That touchinge the severall publique duties of Christian religion, there is amongst us much superstition reteind in them; and concerning persons which for performance of those duties are indued with the power of Ecclesiasticall order, our lawes and proceedings accordinge thereunto are many wayes herein also corrupt. Book V purports to be a rebuttal of charges: firstly, that many of the current liturgical practices in the English Church are unscriptural and, secondly, that the characters of those at whose hands the liturgy is done are unfit. The first charge is dealt with at far the greater length in chapters 1-75, while tackling the second charge takes up chapters 76-81. For our purposes – that is with ecclesial communion and reconciliation in mind – it is at chapter 50 that Hooker’s argument begins to be interesting. By this stage, Hooker has addressed not only the role of prayer in the liturgy, but specifically the saying of the creeds. From the creeds, it was natural to remark on the vital importance of the fact ‘That God is in Christ by the personall incarnation of the Sonne who is very God’.12 Reiterating a polemical point concerning the necessity of the incarnation for salvation in circulation at least since Athanasius in his arguments against the Arians, Hooker maintains that ‘The worldes salvation was without the incarnation of the Sonne of God a thinge impossible, not simplie impossible, but impossible it beinge presupposed that the will of God was no otherwise to have it saved then by the death of his own Sonne’.13 The union of the two natures in Christ was, for Hooker, axiomatic. His view of the relation of the two natures in Christ, however, largely followed a Reformed rather than a Lutheran line in Christology. Thus, with respect to the two natures, Hooker asserts: Lett us therefore sett it downe for a rule of principle so necessarie as nothinge more to the plain deciding of all doubtes and questions about the union of natures in Christ, that of both natures there is a cooperation often, an association always, but never any mutual participation whereby the properties of the one are infused into the other.14 In spite of this, Hooker believed that with respect to His natures, Christ is ‘by three degrees a receyver’. This is so, firstly, in that He is ‘Sonne of God’, second that His human nature receives the honour of the union with divinity given it, and thirdly that by means of the union ‘sundrie eminent graces have flowed as effects from deitie in to that nature which is coupled with it’.15 For Hooker, only because Christ was gifted with eternal generation from the Father, with union with God and with God’s blessing, is it possible to conclude that ‘to save the world it was of necessitie the Sonne of God should be thus incarnate’.16 12

Lawes V.51.1; 2:209. Lawes V.51.3; 2:211. 14 Lawes V.53.2; 2:218-19. 15 Lawes V.54.1; 2:220. 16 Lawes V.54.10; 2:227. 13

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Bonhoeffer makes the point that Christology must always precede soteriology and for Hooker this proves also to be case. From the union of human and divine in Christ, Hooker moves on to the participation of humanity in general in God: Wee have hitherto spoken of the person and of the presence of Christ. Participation is that mutuall inward hold which Christ hath of us and wee of him, in such sort that ech possesseth other by waie of speciall interest propertie and inherent copulation.17 The last word in this sentence is a startlingly explicit sexual metaphor to describe ‘the union or mutual participation which is between Christ and the Church of Christ in this present worlde’. This union was preordained, for ‘whatsoever wee doe behold now in this present world, it was inwrapped within the bowels of divine mercie, written in the booke of eternall wisdom, and held in the hands of omnipotent power, the first foundations of the world being as yeat unlaide’.18 All human beings, Hooker thought, in some degree are in communion with Christ in consequence of their creation in God’s image and likeness. For Christians, however, elect from before the dawn of time, the extent of participation is deeper still: ‘Wee are in Christ because he knoweth and loveth us even as partes of him selfe’.19 However, there was, to be sure, too much of Augustine in Hooker’s theology, for him to think that all baptized members of the Church participate in God’s grace equally: ‘as he dwelleth not by grace in all, so neither doth he equallie work in all them in whom he dwelleth’.20 It is not hard to discern here the influence of Eastern sources; this is not a theology of reconciliation based in a theologia crucis, it is a doctrine of participation in the divine, of divinization or theosis, in which there is more Athanasius than Luther. Hooker summarises the links he has made to this point in Book V in a passage that illustrates his preference for Johannine over Pauline themes and therefore the mystical quality of his account of divine human reconciliation and the entire absence of juridical ideas and vocabulary: Thus therefore wee see how the father is in the Sonne and the Sonne is in the father, how they both are in all things and all things in them, what communion Christ hath with his Church, how his Church and everie member thereof is in him by originall derivation, and he personallie in them by way of mysticall association wrought through the guift of the holie Ghost, which they that are his receive from him, and together with the same what benefit soever the vital force of his bodie and blood may yield, yea by steppes and degrees they receave the complete measure of all such divine grace…’.21 The stage is thus set beautifully for the climax of this phase of the book in Hooker’s thinking about the sacraments.

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Lawes V.56.1; 2:234. Lawes V.56.5; 2:237. 19 Lawes V.56.7; 2:239. 20 Lawes V.56.10; 2:242. I wonder, in spite of the citation of Augustine at this point in the Lawes, whether Hooker has taken on board sufficiently Augustine’s sense of the extent of the effects of sin on humanity. To be sure, Augustine does not think the divine image is erased by sin; but it is not hard to see where the Augustinian Friar of Wittenberg got his deep sense that participation in God was impossible without the reconciling power of the cross. 21 Lawes V.56.13; 2:244. 18

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‘The necessitie of Sacraments unto the participation of Christ’ For Hooker, it is God’s grace that is the effective instrument in the sacraments22 and not any quality intrinsic in the sacraments themselves. To signal this he distinguishes between ‘physicall’ and ‘morall’ instruments, asserting that sacraments fall under the second heading. This is obviously important in order to maintain the principle that God alone is author of the benefits of sacramental grace: For wee take not baptisme nor the Eucharist for bare resemblances or memorialls of thinges absent [here, contra Zwingli], neither for naked signs and testimonies assuring us of grace received before, but … for meanes effectuall whereby God when wee take the sacramentes delivereth into our hands that grace available unto eternall life, which grace the sacraments represent or signifie.23 It is God’s grace, in short, that changes people – an insight Hooker shared with, among others, Thomas Aquinas - but the sacraments, nonetheless, do more than point to grace: the sacraments perform God’s grace. Concluding summary and comments In the Preface to the Lawes Hooker outlined a case, following Aristotle, that every society is bound together by a common purpose or good. Each such society is, precisely on the basis of its common good, a fellowship or communion.24 For Hooker, a national church, if it is to be such a fellowship, should have a common worship. According to the doctrine of adiaphora Hooker thought the English Church was authorized to agree both common prayer and common orders of ministry, without any need to extrapolate from its particular English liturgical practices and ecclesiastical polity ‘imperial’ claims about how other national churches ought to go about their business. But Hooker goes further still: in a communion constituted by its common worship, the highest sharing is the communion of the body and blood of Christ. In spite of Hooker’s undoubted allegiance to several basic characteristics of Protestantism, this turn in his thought is remarkable, and may represent the point at which the English Church drew some kind of line between it and the continental Reformation. The turn concerning the sacraments, if I am right in describing it as such, is one that MacCulloch too registers in Book V: ‘Deliberately and at some length Hooker re-emphasized the role of the sacraments and liturgical prayer at the expense of preaching’. It is tempting to speculate, though difficult to assess, that Hooker’s understanding of the salvific role of the sacraments in the life of the Church proved formative for Anglicanism. Certainly there is a point of difference here with Martin Luther’s view that ‘Ubi est Verbum, ibi est ecclesia’. For Luther everything that makes the Church the Church is contained in the Word preached, the Word in the tangible form of the sacraments and the Word in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. It is not, of course, the case that for Luther, the sacraments play no role in the Church being the Church, far from it. Rather, there is for Luther equivalence between the Word preached and the Word contained in the sacraments such that where there is one without the other, there the Word is in full. For what my own view is worth I believe Luther to be right, at 22

Hooker held that there are only two sacraments: baptism and the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. Lawes V.57.5; 2:247. 24 On this see John S. Marshall, Hooker and the Anglican Tradition: An historical and theological study of Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, 155 ff. 23

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least on this point, and insofar as some forms of Anglican practice can seem to devalue preaching relative to the sacraments, they yield to a rather puzzling view of the means effectual of the εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

Works cited Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, Book V, Volume II of The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker, W. Speed Hill, General Editor, the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge MS & London, 1977 Editor, Torrance Kirby, A Companion to Richard Hooker, Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2008. See especially chapter 12, ‘The Church’, by William H. Harrison, 305-336 John S. Marshall, Hooker and the Anglican Tradition: An historical and theological study of Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, Adam & Charles Black, London, 1963. See especially chapters XVII & XVIII Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700, Allen Lane Press, London, 2003 Editor Arthur Stephen McGrade, Richard Hooker and the Construction of Christian Community, Tempe, AZ, 1997

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