[In the following essay, Spinks explores Hooker's understanding of the purpose of the sacraments]

Hooker explained the place and purpose of sacraments thus:

Christ and his holie Spirit with all theire blessed effectes, though enteringe into the soule of man wee are not able to apprehend or expresse how, doe notwithstandinge give notize of the tymes when they use to make there accesse, because it pleaseth almightie God to communicate by sensible meanes those blessinges which are incomprehensible. Seinge therefore that grace is a consequent of Sacramentes, a thinge which accompanieth them as theire ende, a benefit which he hath receyveth from God him selfe the author of sacramentes and not from anie other naturall or supernaturall qualitie in them, it may be hereby both understood that sacramentes are necessarie, and that the manner of theire necessitie to life supernaturall is not in all respectes as foode unto naturall life, because they conteine in them selves no vitall force or efficacie, they are not physicall but morall instrumentes of salvation, duties of service and worship, which unlesse wee performe as the author of grace requireth, they are unprofitable.¹

Here, in summary, we have Hooker's understanding of the sacraments. They are a means of participation in the divine, or union, and as such can be described as “morall instrumentes” that must be performed as the Author of grace requires. In fact, his words “not physicall but morall instrumentes” are practically identical to Perkins's—“a morall and not a physicall instrument.”² It is in Book 5 of the Lawes that Hooker treated sacraments in the context of the ordering of church worship as set forth in the 1559 Book of Common Prayer. However, although the Lawes were not a systematic theology, Hooker did treat his chosen topics in systematic fashion. According to Arthur McGrade, Book 5 provides an important hinge between the arguments of Books 1-4, which give the philosophical and theological grounding of the church and Books 6-8, which show the relationship between the Church and Crown:

The thesis of Book V, that religion should have a special place in the ordinary world, fits Book V to serve both as a buffer between the contrasting publicities of the earlier and later portions of the Polity and as a means of positively relating their principles and decisions by reference to a world of common religious experience. In short, Book V serves as the keystone in an argumentative structure which is more coherent than has recently been thought.³

Thus in many ways Book 5 is the center of Hooker's great work. Nevertheless, it presupposes the arguments of Books 1-4, and the establishment of a God of Reason who orders the universe through laws eternal. William Gregg correctly surmized:

From his fundamental definition of law, Hooker lays out, in a logical and reasonable manner, the implications of his world view articulated through law, beginning with God's own law, and then created order, the Church, and the liturgical and sacramental life of the faithful within the Church.⁴

Sacraments in Hooker's thought are part of the specific ordering in God's Church, which itself is set within his general ordering of the created universe. Salvation itself, while being a supernatural act of God, nevertheless takes place within the ordering of the universe. Salvation and sacraments are part of the unfolding spiral of divine law and order.

Beginning with law he transcends the Puritan [presbyterian] reliance upon Scripture, a necessity if he is to succeed in refuting that position. His exposure to law at the Temple no doubt stood him in good stead, for he examines not only the nature and types of laws, but also goes into the factors that account for their origins. Long before the book ends he has made the Puritans' scripturalism look altogether too narrow and, in large measure, untenable.⁵

Hooker defined law in the following terms:

All things that are have some operation not violent or casuall. Neither doth any thing ever begin to exercise the same without some foreconceaved ende for which it worketh. And the ende which it worketh for is not obteined, unlesse the worke be also fit to obteine it by. For unto every ende every operation will not serve. That which doth assigne unto each thing the kinde, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the forme and measure of working, the same we terme a Lawe.⁶

God's will is always prompted by reason, and it is this divine reason which Hooker called the “Laws Eternal:” “God worketh nothing without cause. All those things which are done by him, have some ende for which they are done: and the ende for which they are done, is a reason of his will to do them.”⁷

The general end of God's external working is the exercise of his most glorious and abundant virtue. He has made all things to show “beneficence and grace in them.”⁸ The counsel of God and that law of God are one and the same. “This law therfore we may name eternall, being that order which God before all ages hath set down with himselfe, for himselfe to do all things by.”⁹ The inference is that since the will of God is reasonable and based on wisdom and is concerned with the good, he is in no way the author of evil, neither does he wish anything but the good for his creation. Already Hooker had parted company with Perkins in his understanding of the will of God. For Perkins, God's will is not ruled by a law of reason, but is “an abolute rule both of justice and reason;” if God wills a thing, then it is automatically reasonable, even if this contradicts human concepts of what is reasonable.¹⁰ For Hooker, God's will is rational and is primarily concerned with the good, and thus his eternal mode of being is love. Rationality and love are his will—a position explicitly rejected by Perkins.¹¹

The law that relates to God's own being Hooker called the first law eternal. But there is a second law eternal, which God has set down “as expedient to be kept by all his creatures, according to the severall condition wherwith he hath indued them.”¹² This law includes the laws of nature and Angels, and the law of reason. There is also Divine law—revelation—and human law. The laws of nature are concerned with the ordering of the universe and of all creatures: “it cannot be, but nature hath some director of infinite knowledge to guide her in all her wayes. Who the guide of nature but only the God of nature? In him wee live, move, and are.”¹³ Angelic beings have their own laws.¹⁴ The laws of reason that are applicable to humans are ones which make them aspire for perfection by participation in the divine:

And for this cause there is in all things an appetite or desire, whereby they inclyne to something which they may be: and when they are it, they shall be perfecter then nowe they are. All which perfections are conteyned under the generall name of Goodnesse. And because there is not in the world any thing wherby another may not some way be made the perfecter, therefore all things that are, are good. Againe sith there can bee no goodnesse desired which proceedeth not from God himselfe, as from the supreme cause of all things; and every effect doth after a sort conteine, at least wise resemble the cause from which it proceedeth: all things in the worlde are saide in some sort to seeke the highest, and to covet more or lesse the participation of God himselfe.¹⁵

By reason humans attain the knowledge of things that are or are not sensible.¹⁶ “Man in perfection of nature being made according to the likenes of his maker resembleth him also in the maner of working.”¹⁷ This means that humans have choice, and to choose is to will one thing before another. Goodness is seen with the eye of the understanding, and the light of the eye is reason. Here again we find a difference between Hooker and Perkins that affects soteriology and their understanding of sacraments. For Perkins, the result of the Fall left humans with little if any of the divine image and an inclination to evil; for Hooker, the Fall did not entirely obliterate that image, and humans still retain free will, and a reason which should incline to the good. Reason provides humans with three types of counsel—mandatory, permissive, or admonitory. Laws of human nature lie within the power of humans to discover through discourse and reason. From the law of reason comes the laws of societies and nations, which also presuppose a concern for mutual participation and fellowship:

Two foundations there are which beare up publique societies, the one, a naturall inclination, wherby all men desire sociable life and fellowship, the other an order expresly or secretly agreed upon, touching the common manner of their union in living together. The later is that which we call the law of a common weale, the very soule of a politique body, the parts wherof are by law animated, held together, and set on worke in such actions as the common good requireth.¹⁸

However, humans are not capable of attaining the full perfection they seek—that is, the spiritual and divine; “If then in him we be blessed, it is by force of participation and conjunction with him.”¹⁹ The Fall deprived humans of this direct possibility. God, however, revealed “a way mysticall and supernaturall,” the first of which is the tender compassion of God, and the second is redemption by the precious death and merit of a mighty savior.²⁰ This salvation requires faith, hope, and charity. Laws concerning these things are supernatural. However, scripture also contains natural or rational laws. Scripture is sufficient for the end for which it was instituted. In moral actions divine law is of considerable help to the law of reason, but in things supernatural, it alone is the guide.²¹ Overall,

of lawe there can be no lesse acknowledged, then that her seate is the bosome of God, her voyce the harmony of the world, all thinges is heaven and earth doe her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power, but Angels and men and creatures of what condition so ever, though ech in different sort and maner, yet all with uniforme consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.²²

Having laid the foundations of the divine ordering of the universe and human life through law, Hooker proceeded to discuss more fully in Book 2 the use and understanding of scripture, in Book 3 the bearing of scripture on church polity, and in Book 4 he defended the ceremonies of the Church of England against the charge of being “popish.” It is not sufficient to say that an ecclesiastical law is useless or ineffectual if authority and tradition are on its side.

As for arbitrarie alterations, when lawes in them selves not simply bad or unmeete are changed for better and more expedient; if the benefit of that which is newly better devised bee but small, sith the custome of easines to alter and change is so evill, no doubt but to beare a tollerable soare is better then to venter on a daungerous remedie.²³

Already in Book 4 Hooker touched on sacraments, describing them as significant ceremonies. “Sacraments are those which are signes and tokens of some generall promised grace, which alwaies really descendeth from god unto the soul that duly receiveth them.”²⁴ Sacraments are part of the overall divine structure that allows humans to find union with the divine. Just as human laws enable us to partake of society, so the laws of the church and the divine law enable us as members of the mystical body of Christ to be partakers of the divine.

In comparison with Perkins's theological method, the question arises here as to how grace and predestination relate to the laws eternal. The Lawes only allude to these specific issues, partly perhaps because according to John Luoma, the books were arranged as an answer to three specific questions raised by Thomas Cartwright in his Reply to an Answere.²⁵ Scriptural authority, church polity, and ceremony were the issues Cartwright raised, and these are the ones Hooker answered. Grace and predestination were not part of that agenda. In Book 5 Hooker touched on the matter indirectly when defending prayer for that all may find mercy, and the will of God that all should be saved. His argument was that although some will not be saved, only God knows their identity and “for us he hath left no sufficient meanes to comprehend and for that cause neither given any leave to search in particular who are infalliblie the heires of the kingdom of God, who castawaies.”²⁶ Charity requires that we pray for all, and this conforms to God's “generall inclynation which is that all men might be saved, yeat allwaies he graunteth them not for as much as there is in God sometimes a more private occasioned will which determineth the contrarie.”²⁷

The author(s) of A Christian Letter seized on this as pointing to a doctrine contrary to that outlined in the Articles of Religion:

Heere we begge your ayde to make manifest unto us, howe God eternallie predestinateth by a constant decree, them whom he calleth and saveth (as our Church professeth) and yet hath, as you say, a generall inclination that all men might be saved: Whether he foresaw not something that occasioned his will otherwise, so that he elected not all, but onely them whom he calleth and saveth, or that of his generall inclination he elected all men, but some more privatelie occasioned him in time to alter his will, and to refuse them; or that some men gave God occasion that he saveth them, though he never decreed it before the foundations of the world. What meant the blessed Apostle where he sayeth: Whom he predestinated them also he called: and whom he called them also he justified, etc. Is this to bee understoode of a constant decree, as we say, or of an inclination?²⁸

Hooker's annotated reply reads: “The booke of that Law I presume no farther to looke into then all men may and ought thereof to take notise. I have not adventured to ransack the bosome of God and to search what is there to be read concerning every particular man as some have done.”²⁹

The subject of predestination was also a matter of dispute between Hooker and Travers, and Travers complained that Hooker was unsound on this matter, and he asked for clarification. Hooker did indeed give some clarification in his sermon(s) on justification, and in works that were left incomplete and unpublished at his death. In fact, what he has to say on these two areas of salvation helps clarify his views on sacraments as instruments of grace. Predestination had also been the subject of Hooker's sermon at St. Paul's Cross in 1581. Although that has not survived, we do have Walton's summary of its thesis: “That in God there were two wills; an antecedent, and a consequent will: his first will, that all mankind should be saved; but his second will was, that those only should be saved, that did live answerable to that degree of grace which he had offered, or afforded them.”³⁰

Walton added, “This seemed to cross a late opinion of Mr. Calvin's, and then taken for granted by many that had not a capacity to examine it, as it had been by him before, and hath been since by Master Henry Mason, Dr. Jackson, Dr. Hammond, and others of great learning.”³¹ It certainly worried those who interpreted the Article XVII on Predestination in supralapsarian terms.

In Notes toward a Fragment on Predestination, Hooker set out the framework of an explanation of his views.³² Beginning with the lex orandi fact that prayer in the Book of Common Prayer was made that all men may be saved, Hooker expounded on the meaning of knowledge and will, and the attributes of God. Knowledge in God is of two kinds; simple thought which precedes act, and vision which follows. Through the knowledge that precedes the will of God, God knows what each cause will effect if it comes into being. In accordance with reason, God knew from eternity the many ways in which he could create the universe and arrange matters within it.³³ Although knowledge and will belong together as a simple act, in order to explain them it is necessary to separate divine mind and will. Hooker cited as example that God knows that Peter should be saved before he knew that he would have the merits through which he was to be saved. Hooker also made reference to the books that contain the names of the saved and the sons of death.³⁴ God's external operation is twofold—creation and government. Then he makes a significant statement concerning the character or attributes of God: “Creation imposes on God the character of a parent (personam parentis), His own nature imposes love upon the things created. Therefore God hates nothing which he has made.”³⁵

Because God is creator, a prime attribute of God is love. This is precisely the logic of the Lawes, and here, as has already been suggested, there is a difference of emphasis from Perkins's. Love is an attribute of God that Perkins fights shy of, and he rarely mentions. It is always a minor footnote to God's will and command. For Hooker, God's reality is not encountered simply as will and command, but in the law of things. Hooker argues that the God of reason who created a universe is a God of love, and his will must be an expression of reason and love. Thus, “In the whole creation nothing evil can be found: because the sole creator is a God by nature good and kind.”³⁶ The government of God does nothing to offend against what he has framed. Certainly that government has been affected by the Fall, but God governs with ordinary acts and supernatural acts. he acts through primary and secondary causes.

The acts of the creative and, in the first instance, governing will are these: to wish to create angels and men so that they may enjoy blessedness as an effect of the goodness of God. To wish to lavish this blessedness as a reward. To wish that nothing necessary to this end be wanting to his creatures. To wish to lavish justice and supernatural aids because these are necessary to this end. To wish to work according to the manner of His nature. To wish to instruct whatever good or evil be impending. [To wish not to hinder] To wish to exert force on neither side. To wish not to hinder sin, if they should wish of their own accord to become involved with it, which happens and which God has forseen but does not cause. Sin, therefore, is beyond the bounds of predestination but not those of prescience.³⁷

It is, maintained Hooker, quite wrong to seek the origin of evil either in the work of creation, or of government of creation in a simple sense. Humans and angels were not created simply for the purpose of God being able to torment them. Furthermore, because of the way in which God has brought about the universe and governs it, his will does not override contingency—not even the contingency of sin—but he does stabilize it.³⁸ God's will concerning sin comes from his will as governor, not as creator. Sin itself comes from the devil, and in the Fall humans chose evil rather than good. Sin grieves God and gives him the character of a judge, but does not completely remove his love as a parent.³⁹ The result of his love is salvation through Christ. Not all are saved, though. The reason remains something of a mystery.

This, however, is certain and tested, that none of the wicked perish through God's decree [according to the rule of justice] except those in whom a sin is foreseen as the true and just cause of their damnation according to the rules [of justice which] of His justice which has become known to us with the help of reason, although we perhaps might not be able to explain fully this [reason] cause.⁴⁰

In this fragment Hooker sketched the bare bones of his view on the matter. A larger picture can be gained from his other fragments, which treat more fully grace and predestination, together with his sermons and statements which he made in Book 5 of the Lawes.

Hooker carefully distinguished between things that are contingent and things that are necessary; “contingencie and necessitie of events, doe import a different kinde or manner of operation in the causes out of which they spring.”⁴¹ Most things in the world are a mixture of necessary causes and contingency. God's eternal and infallible foresight of all things does not make all things necessary. There is a distinction between prescience or God's foreknowledge, and predestination. Prescience may know all things, but doesn't cause all things: “Prescience as prescience hath in itselfe noe causing efficacie,” and “His prescience then doth not take away casualties, nor make all things in the World subject to inevitable necessitie.”⁴² Indeed, “If prescience did impose any such necessitie, seeing prescience is not only of good butt of evill, then must wee grant that Adam himselfe could not chose but sinne, and that Adam sinned not voluntarily because that which Adam did ill, was foreseen.”⁴³ Hooker appealed to 1 Samuel 23:11-12, where God had foreseen all things, and as a result David was able to make the choice that avoided danger.⁴⁴ What must be taken into account is that God wills the good, and that humans have free will, but do not always will the good. What God wills “is not only to himselfe allwayes good, butt in such sort good that he chooseth it, maketh it his end, taking pleasure and delight in it, as being utterly without hurt.”⁴⁵ Thus Hooker asserted: “In all this God determineth nothing which tendeth soe to his owne glorie, butt that it alsoe maketh for the good of the workes of his hands, especially the good of reasonable creatures euther severally considered, or els jointly as in one bodie.”⁴⁶ God by nature hates nothing he has made, and if God punishes it is because there is some quality in humans of which God is not the author. Once again we see that Hooker emphasizes the characteristics of God that Perkins explicitly rejects as being a false starting place.

Punishment of humans was not part of the original (antecedent) will of God, but consequent:

Wee cannot saye therefore truely, that as God to his owne glorie did ordaine our happines, and to accomplish our happines, appoint the guifts of his grace: Soe he did ordaine to his glorie our punishment, and for matter of punishment our sinnes. For punishment is to the will of God noe desired end, butt a consequent of ensuing sinne; and in regard of sinn, his glorie an event thereof, butt noe proper effect.⁴⁷

In defense of this distinction Hooker cited John Damascene. He noted how Augustine changed his mind on the matter, and how ever since certain theologians such as Prosper and Hilary identified a problem in his theology, and tried to mitigate the problem. “Sinne,” wrote Hooker, “hath awakened justice, which otherwise might have slept;” “The evill of Sinne is within the compasse of Gods prescience, butt nott of his Predestination, or forordaining will.”⁴⁸ Original sin, stated Hooker, “God did not predestinate, but he foresawe it, and predestinated grace to serve as a remedie.”⁴⁹ Here Hooker seemed to reject a supralapsarian position. However, William Newlands noted that some statements are patient of a supralapsraian interpretation. Thus in Book 5:

God therefore lovinge eternallie his Sonne, he must needes eternallie in him have loved and preferred before all others them which are spirituallie sithence descended and sproonge out of him. These were in God as in theire Savior and not as in theire creator onlie. It was the purpose of his savinge goodnes, his savinge wisdome and his savinge power which inclined it selfe towardes them. They which thus were in God eternallie by theire intended admission to life, have by vocation or adoption God actuallie now in them, as the artificer is in the worke which his hand doth presentlie frame … Wee are therefore in God through Christ eternallie accordinge to that intent and purpose whereby wee were chosen to be made his in this present world before the world it selfe was made, wee are in God through the knowledge which is had of us and the love which is borne towardes us from everlastinge.⁵⁰

Neelands comments that the passage suggests, without being explicit, a supralapsarian view of election, a view of election that abstracts from the fallen state of the human race in actual history.⁵¹

Other passages seem to represent an infralapsarian position. Neelands concluded: “To the extent that election in Christ involves the raising of the creation to participation in divinity, it is supralapsarian; to the extent election in Christ also involves the healing of the creature wounded and helpless in sin, it is sublapsarian.”⁵² Neelands observed that the combination seemed to be Hooker's own novelty; he did not pursue it elsewhere, but consistently taught that God's justice is only active in respect to punishment for actual guilt, “in Travers's words, that reprobation is conditional.”⁵³ It would seem that Hooker avoided any direct and explicit discussion of the double decree either in a supralapsarian or infralapsarian format. Yet he did not thereby reject predestination:

Soe that all his forknowne elect, are predestinated, called, justifyed, and advanced unto glorie according to that determination and purpose which he hath of them; neyther is it possible that any other should be glorifyed, or can be justifyed and called, or were predestinated besides them which in that manner are foreknowne, whereupon wee finde in Scripture the principall effects of Gods perpetuallie during favour applied only unto them.⁵⁴

Hooker summarized his position in eight points:

1. That God hath predestinated certain men, not all men.

2. That the cause mooving him hereunto was not the foresight of any vertue in us att all.

3. That to him the number of his elect is definitely knowne.

4. That it cannot be butt their sinnes must condemne them to whome the purpose of his saving mercie doth not extend.

5. That to Gods foreknowne elect, final continuance of grace is given.

6. That inward grace whereby to be saved, is deservedly not given unto to all men.

7. That noe man commeth unto Christ whome God by the inward grace of his spritt draweth not.

8. And that it is not in everie, noe not in any mans owne meere abilitie, freedome, and power to be saved, noe mans salvation being possible without grace.⁵⁵

Before proceeding further with Hooker's doctrine of grace, it is convenient at this point to ask in what tradition, if any, did he stand? Walton was able to cite successors, but gave no precursors. It is clear that he rejected the type of supralapsarian doctrine of Perkins, though there are certain definitions and statements which are not totally alien to Vermigli and Zanchius.⁵⁶ Furthermore, he had much in common with Perkins. Michael T. Malone made a brief comparison, and concluded:

On the subject of predestination, the similarities between Perkins and Hooker are striking. Both affirmed it, both gave it preeminent position in their theologies. Both even affirmed double predestination, provided Hooker's restriction of the decree of reprobation to the occasional will of God does not exclude it from a proper definition of predestination. Both endorsed unconditional election and both said the final perseverance of the saints is inevitable and guaranteed by God's grace.⁵⁷

Hooker was writing around the time of the Cambridge disputes over predestination, which led to the “Lambeth Articles.” These articles were drafted by Whitaker, one of Perkins's close associates, but revised by Andrewes and Whitgift. They were never given any official approval, and in fact Elizabeth was furious that these articles were drawn up at all. However, their nine points provide an interesting comparison with Hooker's eight points.

1. God from eternity has predestined some men to life, and reprobated some to death.

2. The moving or efficient cause of predestination to life is not the foreseeing of faith, or of perseverance, or of good works, or of anything innate in the person of the predestined, but only the will of the good pleasure of God.

3. There is a determined and certain number of predestined, which cannot be increased or diminished.

4. Those not predestined to salvation are inevitably condemned on account of their sins.

5. A true, lively justifying faith, and the sanctifying Spirit of God, is not lost nor does it pass away either totally or finally in the elect.

6. The truly faithful man—that is, one endowed with justifying faith—is sure by full assurance of faith of the remission of sins and his eternal salvation through Christ.

7. Saving grace is not granted, is not made common, is not ceded to all men, by which they might be saved, if they wish.

8. No one can come to Christ unless it be granted to him, and the Father draws him: and all men are not drawn by the Father to come to the Son.

9. It is not in the will or power of each and everie man to be saved.⁵⁸

There is little in these nine points which is not found in Hooker's eight points, even if differently framed. The only exception is the first point. Hooker put forward a single predestination by not explicitly positing a doctrine of reprobation. As Rowan Williams noted in the Dublin Fragment, Hooker showed his anxiety over a doctrine of absolute divine decrees divorced from a theology of the “natural” will of God “to exercise his goodnes of his owne nature, by producing effects wherein the riches of the glorie thereof may appeare.”⁵⁹ It could be argued that this is in line with Article XVII, and goes back to the Zurich reformers, and especially Bullinger. They acknowledged that not all would be saved, but—like Beza and Perkins in a preaching context—put the emphasis on the universal call of the gospel. In his study of predestination during the English Reformation up to Hooker, O. T. Hargrave showed that these two approaches, with many individual variations and emphases, were present in the Henrician church, and vied with one another throughout the period, though with “double predestination” as exemplified by Perkins, dominating.⁶⁰ Thus Hooper appears to have drawn upon Bullinger and Melanchthon, and taught that the promise of the gospel was to all, and that God's will is that all should be saved. The elect are those who simply by faith apprehend the mercy promised by Christ. Rejection is because of sin not hearing the gospel.⁶¹ He echoed his close friend Bullinger who taught in the Decades (theoretically required reading by the English clergy):

For we must not imagine that in heaven are laid two books, in the one whereof the names of them are written that are to be saved, and so to be saved, as it were of necessity, that, do what they will against the word of Christ and commit they never so heinous offenses, they cannot possibly choose but be saved; and that in the other are contained the names of them which, do what they can and live never so holily, yet cannot avoid everlasting damnation. Let us rather hold, that the holy gospel of Christ doth generally preach to the whole world the grace of God, the remission of sins and life everlasting.⁶²

In the Fourth Decade, after treating God's providence, Bullinger turned to predestination.

The doctrine of the foreknowledge and predestination of God, which hath a certain likeness with his providence, doth no less comfort the godly worshippers of God. They call foreknowledge that knowledge in God, whereby he knoweth all things before they come to pass, and seeth even present all things that are, have been, and shall be. … And the predestination of God is the eternal decree of God, whereby he hath ordained either to save or destroy men; a most certain end of life and death being appointed unto them.⁶³

But this decree is Christologically based, and filled out with biblical quotations emphasizing that those who believe are elected, and is an encouragement to respond to the gospel. Hargrave cited a letter from Bartholomew Traheron to Bullinger, which clearly indicated a perceived difference between the teaching of Calvin and that of Bullinger. Bullinger's reply stated his differences with Calvin.⁶⁴ Bruce Gordon reminded us that at the Synod of Dort,

the head of the Zurich church, Johann Jakob Breitinger, was forced to defend the orthodoxy of Heinrich Bullinger by demonstrating the concurrence of opinion between Zwingli's successor and John Calvin on double predestination. Apart from being an act of theological creativity, the occasion was a painful reminder of unresolved tensions within the Reformed churches.⁶⁵

Latimer, whose idiosyncratic theology has already been mentioned, was a “home grown theologian” who also taught that Christ shed as much blood for Judas as he did for Peter (sufficient for all). Peter believed it, but Judas did not, and that is why he was condemned. The gospel is universal and God's will is that all mankind should be saved. The cause of damnation is that we are so wicked that we refuse salvation when it is offered to us.⁶⁶ Illustrative of this divided opinion is the petition circulated to a number of bishops in 1562 by Thomas Talbot of St. Mary Magdalene Church in London, complaining of persecution by those who seemingly held a strict double predestination. Talbot and his associates held:

That God doth foreknow and predestinate all good and goodness, but doth any foreknow, and not predestinate, any evil, wickedness or sin, in any behalf; which thing all the learned fathers unto this our age have always most firmly holden and maintained, and a great many of the learned of this our age yet do firmly hold and maintain.⁶⁷

Much more pertinent to Hooker, however, are the views of Antonio de Corro and Peter Baro.

Corro was a Spanish monk who fled to Switzerland and eventually came to England where he was associated with the Spanish-speaking group of the London Strangers Church. His preaching caused offense to the French and Italian group who regarded him as unorthodox.⁶⁸ His views were published in Tableau de l'oeuvre de Dieu, 1569, in which God's characteristics are mercy and kindness, and he loves what he has made rather than hating it. Salvation is offered to all, and election (as implied by Bullinger's Sermon on Predestination) is identified with those who appropriate the benefits that Christ offers. Corro's opponents regarded this work as teaching synergism, with man cooperating with God in the process of salvation.

In 1572 Corro became Latin Reader in Divinity at the Temple, where he quickly clashed with Richard Alvey, Hooker's predecessor. In a work published in 1575 he taught that Christians are to “hope well of all men, and not to be rash in reckening any man to be a reprobate.”⁶⁹ Thus:

Therefore I lyke not the ungodly speeches of some men, which say that few be chosen, and sith I am not sure whether I be of that nomber or no, I will not refrayne myne owne pleasures. … In the temptation of predestination, than the which there is not a more dangerous, let this be oure comforte, that Gods promises are universall to all beleevers: that he sayeth, ask and ye shall receive, for every one that asketh receyveth: and finally that we pray togither with the universall Churche of God.⁷⁰

He taught that it is clear from the gospel that “if we believe and be in Jesus Christ, we be chosen.”⁷¹

From the Temple Corro moved to Oxford, and later became a prebendary of St. Paul's London. According to Travers, Hooker was the spiritual successor to Corro. Whether Hooker saw himself as such is another matter, though he must have known something of the situation at the Temple, and may have known of Corro in Oxford.

We have already noted that Peter Baro, ordained by Calvin in Geneva and in 1574 appointed Lady Margaret Professor at Cambridge, together with Barrett, was involved in the Cambridge dispute over predestination. In April 1596 Baro wrote a letter to the Danish theologian, Nicholas Hemmingius, outlining three types of predestination doctrine found among Protestants.⁷² The first, a supralapsarian view, he assigned to Calvin, Beza, Luther, and the mature St. Augustine. The second, an infralapsarian approach, he assigned to the early St. Augustine, Cardinal Bellarmine, and Zanchius. He offered a third, which he clearly espoused, and which he saw as being that of Melanchthon. This view, Baro explained, holds that God by nature is good, and created man for what is good—that is, a life of blessedness. After the Fall he promised his Son as a deliverer, and in this respect this view sides with the infralapsarians. God invites all men to repentance, faith and salvation. God has predestined such as he from all eternity foreknew would believe in Christ, and he likewise reprobated from eternity all those who contumaciously continued in sin. This, Baro claimed, was the teaching of the fathers, which Beza recognized, but rejected in favor of his own interpretation. Baro continued thus:

Christ has died for all: God therefore never has hated or purposed to hate any one in reference to his being a man formed by him, but only in reference to his being a sinner. On the contrary, he has promised and sent Christ to all those who have fallen in Adam and are sinners, that he may bruise the head of the serpent and restore that which had perished. It has also been his will, that the Gospel should be published to every creature, that is, to each of the human race, that all and every one of them may come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved:—this is called, by the ancient Fathers, “the antecedent will of God.” It is therefore of God and of his mere grace that certain individuals are saved; and it is through their own perverseness and depravity that others are damned:—this is called, “the consequent will of God,” because it is a consequence of the impenitency of men who persevere in sin.⁷³

Baro thus rediscovered and used the same terminology as Walton reported of Hooker, yet having been ordained by Calvin, it can hardly be claimed that Baro was not of the Reformed persuasion. Rather he is one more example of a protestant minority who opposed the prevailing supralapsarian and infralapsarian versions of double predestination. Hooker's view was thus far from new, either to the protestant world or to England. What was new was the lengthy and sustained doctrine of God and his providence as set forth in the Lawes within which this view of predestination was set. Whereas a Whitaker could easily take apart an occasional treatise on predestination as presented by Barrett or Baro, any serious criticism of Hooker would of necessity entail a full refutation of the very basis of the Lawes.

What, then, did Hooker have to say on the subject of grace and justification? It is by grace that God perfects fallen humans. Grace is not another nature in addition to those given humans by virtue of being rational creatures, but is the bestowing of gifts to take away the impediments which have grown into nature by sin.⁷⁴ Grace augments (free) will. Hooker takes the text “Behold I stand at the door and knock,” and after describing the Pelagian position, he explained:

Butt the Catholique exposition of that and all such sentences was that to stand and knocke is indeede a worke of outward grace, butt to open cometh not from mans will without the inward illumination of grace, whereupon afterwards ensueth continuall augmentation thereof, not because the first concurrence of the will itselfe with grace, much lesse without, doeth deserve additions after following, butt because it is the nature of Gods most bountifull disposition to build forward where his foundation is once laid.⁷⁵

Perkins distinguished three types of grace; Hooker also posited three types, or categories of grace:

The Grace whereby God doth incline towards man, the grace of outward instruction, and the grace of inward sanctification, which twoe worke mans inclination towards God, as the first is the well spring of all good, and the second the instrument thereof to our good, soe that which giveth effect to both in us, whoe have noe cause att all to thinck ourselves worthy of eyther, is the gratious and blessed guift of his Holy Spiritt.⁷⁶

Through grace and only by grace comes justification. Hooker rejected what he and his contemporaries identified as the Roman concept of infused grace and inherent grace, with a first and second justification.⁷⁷ “The rightuousnes wherein we muste be found if we wilbe justefied, is not our owne, therefore we cannott be justefied by any inherente qualitie.”⁷⁸ Though we are full of original and actual sin,⁷⁹ nevertheless righteousness is imputed to us:

But imputation or righteousnesse hath covered the sinnes of every soule which beleeveth; God by pardoning our sinne hath taken it away: so that now although our transgressions be multiplied above the haires of our head, yet being justified wee are as free, and as cleere, as if there were no one spot, or staine of any uncleanesse in us. For it is God that justifieth, and who shall lay any thing to the charge of God chosen? Saith the Apostle in the 8. Chapter to the Romans.

Now sinne being taken away, wee are made the righteousnesse of God in Christ.⁸⁰

However, Hooker divided justification into three categories: a glorifying righteousness in the world to come; a justifying righteousness; and a sanctifying righteousness. The two latter seem to be Hooker's attempt to link the teaching of St. Paul with that of the letter of St. James. He thus wrote:

Nowe concerninge the rightuousness of sanctification, we denye it not to be inherente, we graunte that without we work we have it not, onely we distinguishe it as a thinge in nature differente from the rightuousness of justification. We are righteous the one waie by the faith of Abraham; the other waie excepte we do the workes of Abraham we are not rightuous.⁸¹

This can be explained further:

we have alredy shewed, that there are two kindes of christian rightuousnes the one without us which we have by imputacion, the other in us which consisteth of faith hope charitie and other christian virtues. And Ste James doth prove that Abraham had not onely the one becawse the thing he beleved was imputed unto him for rightuousnes but also the other becawse he offred up his sonne. God gyveth us both the one Justice and the other, the one by accepting us for rightuous in Christe, the other by workinge christian rightuousnes in us. The proper and moste ymediate efficiente cawse in us of this latter is the spirite of adoption which we have receyved into our hartes: that whereof it consisteth whereof it is really and formally made are those infused virtues proper and particuler unto saintes, which the spirite in that very momente when firste it is gyven of god bringeth with it. The effectes thereof are suche accions, as the apostle doth call the fruites the workes the operacions of the spirit: the difference of which operacions from the roote whereof they springe maketh it nedfull to putt ii kindes likewise of sanctifying rightuousnes habituall and actuall. Habituall that holynes wherewith our soules are inwardly indued the same instante when firste we begyn to be the temples of the holy goste: Actuall that holynes which afterward bewtefieth all the partes and actions of our life, the holynes for which Enoch Job Zachery Elizabeth and other saintes are in scriptures so highly comended. If here it be demaunded which of theis we do firste receyve? I aunswere that the spirite, the virtues of the spirite, the habituall justice which is ingrafted, the externall justice of Christe Jesus which is ymputed, theis we receyve all att one and the same tyme.⁸²

In what he terms “Hooker's via media doctrine of justification,” Lee Gibbs rightly discerned that these two differ in essence, order, and dignity.⁸³ Hooker argued that the gift or in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit, the habitual righteousness of sanctification which is ingrafted, and the external imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ are always united in time, but the latter, the actual righteousness by grace, is inferred from the habitual righteousness, or life of faith, hope, and charity, which is the inward gift of the Spirit. Faith is itself a gift of the Holy Spirit, so that faith is both the prerequisite and consequence of justification. McGrath thus concluded that Hooker's understanding of the nature of justification is similar to that of Calvin's.⁸⁴ Hooker also noted that we are called, justified, and sanctified, and will be glorified, because we are elected before the foundation of the world.⁸⁵ The concepts of election and justification are taken up in his discussion on the sacraments.

All thinges which God in theire times and seasons hath brought forth were eternallie and before all times in God as a worke unbegunne is in the artificer which afterward bringeth it into effect. Therefore whatsoever wee doe behold now in this present world, it was inwrapped within the bowells of divine mercie, written in the booke of eternall wisdom, and held in the handes of omnipotent power, the first foundation of the world beinge yeat unlaide. So that all thinges which God hath made are in that respect the ofspringe of God, they are in him as effectes in theire highest cause, he likewise actuallie is in them, thassistance and influence of his deitie is theire life. … Our beinge in Christ by eternall foreknowledge saveth us not without our actuall and reall adoption into the fellowship of his Sainctes in this present world. … Wee are therefore adopted sonnes of God to eternall life by participation of the onlie begotten Sonne of God, whose life is the wellspringe and cause of oures.⁸⁶

Here divine election is connected with participation in the divine, and includes participation in the visible church and its activities. Later in his explanation Hooker said:

Thus wee participate Christ partelie by imputation, as when those thinges which he did and suffered for us are imputed unto us for righteousness; partlie by habituall and reall infusion, as when grace is inwardlie bestowed while wee are on earth and afterwards more fullie both our soules and bodies made like unto his glorie. The first thinge of his so infused into our hartes in this life is the Spirit of Christ.⁸⁷

It is through the Holy Spirit and participation that Christ has communion with his church, and he is “personallie in them.”⁸⁸

Sacraments are a means of this personal participation or communion, and through them God imparts grace:

But theire chiefest force and virtue consisteth not herein so much as in that they are heavenlie ceremonies, which God hath sanctified and ordeined to be administred in his Church, first as markes wherebie to knowe when God doth imparte the vitall or savinge grace of Christ unto all that are capable thereof, and secondlie as meanes conditionall which God requireth in them unto whome he imparteth grace.⁸⁹

Thus the created universe itself, with its laws, allows particpation in the divine, and even though sin has interrupted, election through Christ, justification, and the society of the church allows this participation to be achieved. This is sheer grace. Within this divine ordering, sacraments too are a divine means to partake of grace and participate in the divine.

Notes

1. [Richard Hooker, The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker, 6 volumes, edited by W. Speed Hill (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1977-1993) (cited as FLE; The Lawes of Ecclesiatical Polity is cited as Lawes).] Lawes 5: 57.4.

2. [There is no modern edition of the complete works of William Perkins. The editions used here are the three volumes printed by J. Legatt and C. Legge, 1616-1618 (cited as Perkins, Works). Reference is also made to the Sheppard edition of The Commentary on Galatians, Gerald T. Sheppard, ed. (New York: Pilgrims Press, 1989).] Perkins, Works 2: 260.

3. Arthur S. McGrade, “The Public and the Religious in Hooker's Polity,” Church History 37 (1968), 404-422, 420.

4. William Otis Gregg, Richard Hooker's “Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity I-V: A Theology of Sacramentality,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Notre Dame, IN, 1993, 92.

5. Stanley Archer, Richard Hooker, Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983, 45.

6. Lawes 1: 2.1.

7. Lawes 1: 2.3.

8. Lawes 1: 2.4.

9. Lawes 1: 2.6.

10. Perkins, Works 1: 278.

11. Perkins, Works 1: 293.

12. Lawes 1: 3.1.

13. Lawes 1: 3.4.

14. See especially Lawes 1: 4.1-4.

15. Lawes 1: 5.2.

16. Lawes 1: 7.1.

17. Lawes 1: 7.1.

18. Lawes 1: 10.1.

19. Lawes 1: 11.2.

20. Lawes 1: 11.6.

21. Lawes 1: 16.5.

22. Lawes 1: 16.8.

23. Lawes 4: 14.2.

24. Lawes 4: 1.4.

25. John K. Luoma, “Restitution or Reformation? Cartwright and Hooker on the Elizabethan Church,” Historical Magazine of the Episcopal Church 46 (1977), 85-106.

26. Lawes 5: 49.2.

27. Lawes 5: 49.3.

28. Para. 10. FLE 4: 27.

29. FLE 4: 28.

30. Keble, Works I: 22-23.

31. [John Keble, The Works of Mr Richard Hooker: With an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1874 edition)] 1, 22-23. Thomas Jackson (1579-1640) was an Oxford divine, later to be president of Corpus Christi College through the influence of William Laud. Henry Hammond (1605-60) was a staunch Royalist and defender of the episcopal system. Henry Mason, one time chaplain of Corpus Christi, Oxford, authored a work on universal grace in 1633.

32. FLE 4: 83ff.

33. FLE 4: 84.

34. FLE 4: 85-86.

35. FLE 4: 86.

36. FLE 4: 86.

37. FLE 4: 88.

38. FLE 4: 89.

39. FLE 4: 94. Cf. FLE 5: 71 “Now the minds of all men being so darkened as they are with the foggie damp of originall corruption.” Hooker never denies sin, original or actual, but as Lake says, compared to the views of other Protestants, Hooker's vision of sin as a species of ignorance, a sort of intellectual laziness, seemed almost benign. Lake, Anglicans and Puritans?, 150.

40. FLE 4: 96.

41. FLE 4: 125.

42. FLE 4: 129.

43. FLE 4: 102.

44. FLE 4: 130.

45. FLE 4: 133.

46. FLE 4: 133.

47. FLE 4: 142.

48. FLE 4: 139 and 142.

49. FLE 4: 103.

50. Lawes, 5: 56.6-7.

51. William David Neelands, “The Theology of Grace of Richard Hooker,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Trinity College/University of Toronto, 1988, 142.

52. Neelands, Dissertation, 143.

53. Neelands, Dissertation, 144.

54. FLE 4: 166.

55. FLE 4: 167.

56. See chapter 2.

57. Michael T. Malone, “The Doctrine of Predestination in the Thought of William Perkins and Richard Hooker,” Anglican Theological Review 52 (1970), 103-117, 116.

58. H. Porter, Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Cambridge, London: Cambridge University Press, 1958, 365-366.

59. FLE 4: 134. See Rowan Williams, “Hooker: Philosopher, Anglican, Contemporary,” in A. S. McGrade, ed., Richard Hooker and the Construction of Christian Community, Temple, AZ: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1997, 369-383, 371.

60. O. T. Hargrave, “The Doctrine of Predestination in the English Reformation,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1966.

61. Hargrave, Dissertation, 34-38.

62. Decades IV, Sermon 1 in Parker Society edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1850), 32-33.

63. Decades IV, Sermon IV in Parker Society edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1851), 185.

64. Hargrave, Dissertation, 38-40. Original Letters Relative to the Reformation, Parker Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1847), 325-6; Corpus Reformatorum XIV, 480-90.

65. Bruce Gordon, “Calvin and the Swiss Reformed Churches,” in A. Pettegree, A. Duke, and G. Lewis, eds., Calvinism in Europe 1540-1620 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 64-81, 64.

66. Sermons and Remains of Hugh Latimer, Parker Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1844), 175-206.

67. Quoted by Hargrave, Dissertation, 213.

68. See the discussion in C. M. Dent, Protestant Reformers in Elizabethan Oxford, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983, chapter 5.

69. Antonio de Corro, A Theological Dialogue, Wherein the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Romanes Is Expounded. London, 1575, fol. 153a.

70. Corro, A Theological Dialogue, fol.153a.

71. Corro, A Theological Dialogue, fol.154a.

72. “To the most famous Mr. Nicholas Hemmingius, Professor of Divinity in Denmark, a man worthy to be held in the highest honour and esteem by me, Peter Baro,” in (perhaps unfortunately) Nichols, ed., Writings of Jacob Arminius, 3 vols. 1853, reprint Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1986, 1, 91-100.

73. Nichols, ed., Jacob Arminius: Works 1, 98.

74. FLE 4: 102.

75. FLE 4: 104.

76. FLE 4: 112.

77. FLE 5: 111. See E. Yarnold, “Duplex iustitia. The Sixteenth Century and the Twentieth” in G. R. Evans, ed., Christian Authority (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 204-223.

78. FLE 5: 112.

79. FLE 5: 50.

80. FLE 5: 50.

81. FLE 5: 113.

82. FLE 5: 129.

83. Lee W. Gibbs, “Richard Hooker's Via Media Doctrine of Justification,” Harvard Theological Review 74 (1981), 211-220, 217.

84. Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, vol. 2., 105.

85. FLE 5: 152.

86. FLE 2, Lawes 5: 56.5, 6 and 7.

87. Lawes 5: 56.11. Cf. A. M. Allchin, Participation in God: A Forgotten Strand in Anglican Tradition, Wilton: Morehouse-Barlow, 1988.

88. Lawes 5: 56.13.

89. Lawes 5: 57.3.