SOURCE: Archer, Stanley. “Ecclesiastical Polity, Books 6-8: Issues of Power and Authority.” In Richard Hooker, pp. 98-116. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983.

[In the following excerpt, Archer examines Books six through eight of Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, asserting that Hooker's goal in the last three books was to reject the lay elders as part of church polity, while defending the office and authority of the bishops and upholding the monarch as the head of the Church of England.]

The final three books of Ecclesiastical Polity have long been subject to uncertainty, doubt, and tentative conclusions as to authorship. Although Hooker lists them in his outline in 1593 and his wording to the reader suggests that they are nearly complete, they were not published until long after his death.¹ Books 6 and 8 were first published in 1648 by Richard Bishop, who had obtained the publication rights from William Stansby, and book 7 finally appeared in John Gauden's edition of 1662.

Conjectures about the cause of the delay have been numerous and varied. Hooker may not have completed either the drafts or their revisions before his death, so that they may not have been ready for publication. The reception and sale of previous publications may have been such that Sandys, who owned the rights to the work, was unwilling to publish the remaining books.² The manuscripts may have been suppressed and publication delayed by the influence of someone in the government or in the church.³ Whatever the explanation, one has to examine the final books with some skepticism since their publication was neither overseen nor approved by the author. Despite the opportunities for corruption or censorship of the manuscripts during their passage through many hands following Hooker's death, there appears to have been little tampering with the text, except perhaps for book 6, which remains something of a mystery.

Hooker's outline calls for the following contents of the final books: (1) rejection of lay elders as a part of church polity, (2) a defense of the office and authority of bishops, and (3) a defense of the monarch as head of the church. These subjects involve a basic shift from book 5, where he defends rites and ceremonies of the church in detail, to broader questions of authority in the church and the origins of that authority. Book 6, as presented, differs from the other two, since it is intended as a refutation of a key Puritan position regarding polity, whereas books 7 and 8 clarify and defend the existing church polity.

The concerns of these books are echoed in a letter Hooker received from his former pupil George Cranmer. Writing probably after publication of book 5, Cranmer reviews the situation in the church, traces the decline of Elizabethan Puritanism, and suggests how Hooker might proceed to the completion of his work.⁴ The most essential points of the Puritans are, he says, “overthrow of episcopal, erection of presbyterial authority.”⁵ These two aims, Cranmer believes, unite all Puritans. Satisfying all other objections they express against the church would not cause them to abandon their basic goals. He charges that their complaints are tactical, insincere, and frivolous, and suggests to Hooker that they undermine the state as well. He recommends that Hooker direct his arguments toward the clergy, even to the more learned among them, and that he urge the necessity for Christian ministry to put obedience above contention. The letter, like Cranmer and Sandys' notes on book 6, indicates the lasting friendship and mutual helpfulness that existed between Hooker and his former pupils. At the conclusion of book 5, Hooker appended this brief note to the reader, “Have patience with me for a small time, and by the helpe of Almightie God I will pay the whole” (2:535). The passage and Cranmer's letter suggest that books 6-8 were undergoing at least major revisions and perhaps some composition during the period 1597-1600.

BOOK 6: LAY ELDERS

In the opening paragraph of book 6, Hooker speaks of a lessening in the controversy, which in fact did occur after 1593, and speaks of the remaining issues of “the weightiest and last remains of that cause, Jurisdiction, Dignity, Dominion Ecclesiastical” (3:2). A strong appeal of the discipline proposed by the Puritans is that it leaves substantial jurisdiction in the hands of laymen; Hooker's purpose in book 6 is to reject that viewpoint. Having already discussed in book 5 the ceremonial and ritual duties of the minister and having explained that the clergy exist as a class apart from laymen, Hooker reaffirms in this book that a church is a society empowered to make canons or laws for its own operation. He turns to examine what is appropriately meant by the power of the church in “spiritual jurisdiction.” The chief end of this function is to help men understand their sins and repent; thus, jurisdiction in the church has primarily to do with penitence. Inner repentance is the province of the individual; outward expression of repentance is the function of the church. Associated with outward repentance, or the “Discipline of Repentance,” are rules or laws through which men perform reparations for their sins.

Genuine repentance to Hooker involves the desire for self-denial, reparation, and reform “with present works of amendment” (3:11). The proper stages of repentance are contrition, confession, and “works of satisfaction” (3:11). All three of these conditions apply to the virtue of repentance within the individual, but confession and satisfaction belong also to the discipline of penance, invested in the church.

Since Christ granted his Apostles “regiment in general over God's Church” (3:12), the church has the power and authority to make laws and to enforce them through courts and consistories. In order to cure men of sin, the church in ancient times imposed “offices of open penitence,” sanctioned by Christ's original grant of authority. In time public confession ceased and the church instituted private confession to a priest, which it declared a sacrament. Hooker rejects the sacramental view after lengthy analysis and argues that confessions should be to God. Then he summarizes the various kinds of confessions among the Jews, pointing out that for injuries to and trespasses against others, public confession was encouraged. Yet neither this nor the biblical example of confession to the Apostles requires confession of sins to a priest, nor was private confession considered necessary in the ancient church “for many hundred years after Christ …” (3:23). He cites a series of patristic writers who recommend public confession for serious sin, not to deny that private confession existed but to stress that it was not considered mandatory. Both forms included satisfaction or duties imposed by a clergyman before penance was complete.

The role of the minister in the early church has bearing upon Hooker's position with regard to the laity: “men thought it the safest way to disclose their secret faults, and to crave imposition of penance from them whom our Lord Jesus Christ hath left in his Church to be spiritual and ghostly physicians, the guides and pastors of redeemed souls, whose office doth not only consist in general persuasions unto amendment of life, but also in the private particular cure of diseased minds” (3:31). Private confession to a priest became the ordinary mode, first in the Greek church, then in the Latin, because men were reluctant to acknowledge their most serious sins in public, but the forms of penance, as Hooker shows, were afterward subject to numerous alterations. The Greek church abolished public confession, and then Nectarius abolished all confession.

Even though penance is not a sacrament, Hooker considers it a duty, “both lawful and behoveful for God's people” (3:47). He surveys some of the practices of reformed churches, emphasizing private confession among Lutherans, and then explains the practice of the Church of England—a general, public acknowledgment of sins, followed by absolution by the minister. Hooker believes this general form of confession is adequate, provided that the people are truly penitent. But just as some men take no heed of their sin, others weigh it too heavily and are troubled by scruples. For these the church permits private confession, the advice of the clergyman, and absolution, a form of confession especially applicable to those approaching death. The practice of the church, then, is to discourage public confession of specific sins, to include in the prayer service general confession and absolution, and to permit in special instances private confession and absolution.

Since justice logically requires a measure of reparation—particularly when a sinner's deed has harmed another person—Hooker considers satisfaction following confession, defined as follows: “The name of Satisfaction, as the ancient Fathers meant it, containeth whatsoever a penitent should do in the humbling himself unto God, and testifying by deeds of contrition the same which confession in words pretendeth” (3:55). Because no one may satisfy his sin against God, an infinite wrong which only Christ's sacrifice can satisfy, laws regarding satisfaction are designed to require little. Yet even private repentance, if sincere, requires some attention to satisfaction—prayers, fasts, and alms deeds being the usual means, though some sins require that satisfaction in the form of restitution be made to men harmed by the sins. The manner of restitution and reparation was at times defined in the ancient church by canon law, which commonly required denial of communion until satisfaction was made. Whereas the ancient church required satisfaction before absolution, the practice of the Roman church is to provide absolution first. Hooker agrees with the Roman view that a minister has the power to absolve sins but draws attention to the differences with Rome regarding penance. In the Church of England, absolution by the priest is not considered essential to forgiveness.

Whereas Hooker does not deny that repentance by an individual can be adequate in God's sight, he accords ministers two important roles. The first concerns the fitness or propriety of church services regarding penance: “To remission of sins there are two things necessary; grace, as the only cause which taketh away iniquity; and repentance, as a duty or condition required in us. To make repentance such as it should be, what doth God demand but inward sincerity joined with fit and convenient offices for that purpose? the one referred wholly to our own consciences, the other best discerned by them whom God hath appointed judges in this court” (3:77; italics mine). The ministers, metaphorically judges, determine what a fit office is. They also are responsible for two kinds of penitents, those who repent voluntarily and those “such as are to be brought to amendment by ecclesiastical censure …” (3:78). In this second kind of spiritual jurisdiction, “which by censures constraineth men to amend their lives; it is true, that the minister of God doth more than declare and signify what God hath wrought” (3:79). Absolution presupposes sincere repentance on the part of the sinner and is not a one-way exercise of power, but censure for sin remains a clerical power.

Hooker follows with a reexamination of the Catholic view of penance as a sacrament, stoutly opposing the viewpoint, as well as the viewpoint of Aquinas and the pronouncement of the Council of Trent regarding the power of sacraments generally. In this he repeats material covered in book 5, and belabors an apparent contradiction in Catholic doctrine regarding penance as a sacrament.

At the end he returns to a theme raised earlier about inordinate guilt and anguish in those whose minds are troubled by a sense of sin, particularly those who believe they have committed the unpardonable sin. Hooker appears to regard the unpardonable sin as apostasy, for those who persist in it. Yet some “wrong themselves with over rigorous and extreme exactions …” (3:105), guilt driving them to perform excessive acts in the hope of satisfaction. It becomes the duty of the minister to reassure them about their souls, to explain that God does not require perfection but rather a sincere heart, sorrowful for sin.

As it stands, book 6 appears to be, as Keble said, about ninety-five percent digressive. Only a small portion of the work deals with the subject of lay elders. The manuscript repeats two paragraphs in different spots, contains a large gap of perhaps half a page, and omits the chapter titles at the beginning. Though Keble accepted the work as authentic, he assumed that it was a fragment of some kind inserted by an editor as the major section of book 6. It is possible that the work represents a lost sermon on the subject of penance, or that Hooker first intended it for inclusion in book 5, where he writes of penance as another rite of the church. He may then have decided against including in a book already very long an account only tangential to his main purpose.

An additional reason for assuming that Hooker did not intend book 6 as it now stands arises from a set of notes compiled by George Cranmer and Edwin Sandys in response to a manuscript copy of book 6, probably in 1597 or 1598. Cranmer's notes, the more extensive, appear first, followed by those of Sandys. Each provides page numbers and catch words for the notes, which show that Hooker's manuscript included at least eighty-five pages. The notes do not make merely editorial corrections and comments; some are substantive, so much so that Keble was able to assemble from the notes a conjectural outline of the manuscript seen by Cranmer and Sandys (1:xxxvi). Keble demonstrates beyond doubt that except for the first portion, the text of book 6 in no way follows the outline of the manuscript critiqued by Hooker's pupils. He concludes that the text has been corrupted, perhaps by the Puritans, and that the major portions might well be separated from Ecclesiastical Polity.

The notes of Cranmer and Sandys warrant extended discussion. First, Hooker's pupils had previously seen a manuscript of book 7, for Cranmer refers to it. Second, both thought Hooker's conclusion weak and recommended strengthening it; Sandys thought Hooker should enlarge the scope of the book. Third, their comments clearly treat the manuscript as a rough draft susceptible to many alterations and additions. The nature of their comments and advice becomes evident in these words of Sandys, a member of Parliament, on cases of “mixed” law—that is, any law that involves both civil and ecclesiastical matters: “The canon law I know greately urgeth that all mixt causes be ecclesiasticall, for honour of that part: which seemes hard to yeald to, at least wise it would be now hardly taken to require it. These thinges you must needes handle somewhere or other” (3:132). It is clear that they offer candid criticism of difficult issues treated in the manuscript, for instance, ecclesiastical courts.

The notes reveal that approximately one third of Hooker's manuscript dealt with the precedent derived from clerical or ministerial power among the Jews. Here both Cranmer and Sandys are thorough and severe in their criticism, suggesting that Hooker has either erred or reached conclusions that his sources do not warrant. In fact, Cranmer urges a kind of general caveat in which Hooker admits that the ancient history of the Jews is such that one cannot conclude very much with assurance but that “partly out of Scripture, partly by probable coniecture and out of the writinges of the Jewes you have collected and sett downe that which in your opinion is most consonant unto trueth” (3:118). He then summarizes Hooker's main argument about the Jews under thirteen points, which indicate an emphasis upon separation of religious and lay duties in the Jewish state. Further, Cranmer and Sandys suggest that Hooker clarify the position of his opponents—which he is supposedly refuting—and one gets the impression that he had little to say about it. This is an oddity, for in book 6 he is attempting to do what he did in book 2, to overturn or refute an important Puritan position. His approach in book 6 appears to resemble more that of book 5, where he makes the case for the Church of England on the precedent of pre-Christian Jews, the early church, or both, and then deals with Puritan arguments opposed to it.

Keble's inclination to reject the surviving text of book 6, which differs drastically from the manuscript reviewed by Sandys and Cranmer, may be mistaken. Faced with extensive and probing criticism, Hooker may have chosen to retreat from the more complicated issues that his approach had raised. Since he did not need to argue for the controversial rights of ecclesiastical courts or the power of excommunication, he may have found it prudent to restrict his inquiry. The long discourse on the Jews was perhaps too tentative and uncertain to establish or refute any position on the separation of clergy and laity. To reorient his account toward spiritual jurisdiction in connection with the minister's power over penance may have appeared a preferable approach, as Houk suggested.⁶ To Hooker it was obvious that lay elders would render the ministerial roles of confessor and absolver extremely difficult, but he has not clarified that point in book 6 as it stands. It seems an inescapable conclusion that the book was incomplete at the time of Hooker's death. The suggestion by Houk that he may have contemplated another section entitled “Agents of Spiritual Jurisdiction—Lay Elders” appears plausible.⁷

BOOK 7: BISHOPS

Book 7, the last part of Ecclesiastical Polity to see publication, appeared in John Gauden's edition of 1662. Gauden, then bishop of Exeter, wrote a life of Hooker to accompany the edition, a biography so inaccurate that Gilbert Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, asked Izaak Walton to write a replacement. Despite the questionable actions of Gauden during the civil wars and his unreliable biography, the authenticity of book 7 has never been seriously challenged. Though no manuscript is known to be extant, Keble found the internal evidence of Hooker's authorship unassailable.⁸

The book attempts to answer the Puritan opposition to the bishops, a long-standing and important quarrel. So long as bishops remained, the church retained a hierarchy, and it appeared to Puritans that a Catholic monarch might easily restore the Roman church. Had not John Knox warned that the best way to keep the rooks from returning was to tear down their nests? And Thomas Cartwright had asserted that it was not adequate to dismount the pope, that one had to take away the stirrups so that he could not climb back into the saddle.

The twenty-four chapters of book 7 may be classified under three headings: chapters 1-2 explain the origin and history of the office of bishop; chapters 3-16 outline the bishops' authority and powers and review arguments against them; chapters 17-24 defend the honors and privileges of English bishops.

ORIGINS AND HISTORY

In the opening section Hooker uses an anecdotal account of a reformer who urged his audience that in order for a nation to bear good fruit, three great branches needed to be lopped off—nobles, lawyers, and prelates—showing that the result of this rash innovative spirit was confusion within the nation. Reformers in England have been content, he argues, to begin with prelates, but their intent goes far beyond their present effort, which has subjected bishops to mockery and abuse. In contrast to the spirit of innovation, Hooker places the example of the past, with all its force: “A thousand five hundred years and upward the Church of Christ hath now continued under the sacred regiment of bishops” (3:143). The imposing weight of historical evidence establishes the divine origin of a rank whose success in society remains unquestioned. He traces the existence of bishops in England from the second century (following Bede) and denounces as shallow the spirit of innovation that would alter it: “some wicked thing hath undoubtedly bewitched us, if we forsake that government, the use whereof universal experience hath for so many years approved, and betake ourselves unto a regiment neither appointed of God himself, as they who favour it pretend, nor till yesterday ever heard of among men” (3:144).

A part of the Puritan argument, he notes, had been to accept ancient bishops as legitimate and worthy and then to deny, on the basis of external and superficial differences, that modern bishops are their true successors. In response he examines the essential conditions common to early bishops and those of his own time. He explains that the Greek origins of “bishop” implied guide and overseer and explains how the term came to mean a principal ecclesiastical overseer.

Hooker argues that from the beginning of the church, bishops have had superiority, not only in the sense of exclusive duties, but also in the sense of power over other ministers. He examines the power of ancient bishops under four headings: its origin, its demonstrative evidence from antiquity, its manner of governance from ancient testimony, and its extent. The office originated with the Apostles who were messengers and teachers to the people, but were also bishops by virtue of their serving as governors of the early church. Hooker grants that the episcopal power they exercised may not have been limited to a definite area, as it was with later bishops, although in the instance of James, bishop of Jerusalem, it was. According to the New Testament and early fathers of the church, the Apostles handed down their authority to other bishops, who became the authorities for settling disputes within the church. Hooker cites St. Augustine for proof that by his time bishops were universally established and shows that a Puritan interpretation of a passage from St. Jerome, seeming to indicate that bishops were established only in Alexandria, is incorrect.

It is in this section that Hooker deals with the question of apostolic succession. Bishops could argue, as some did, that they were the true descendants of the Apostles in a sacred office instituted by Christ. Hooker denies that the power of the bishop actually stems from divine command. He admits that the Apostles did appoint bishops and were bishops and that the appointment was “not without the special direction of the Holy Ghost” (3:164); on the other hand, the institution of bishops was a positive law of the Apostles, subject to repeal if the church saw fit: “On the other side bishops, albeit they may avouch with conformity of truth that their authority hath thus descended even from the very apostles themselves, yet the absolute and everlasting continuance of it they cannot say that any commandment of the Lord doth enjoin; and therefore must acknowledge that the Church hath power by universal consent upon urgent cause to take it away …” (3:165). On the question of apostolic succession, he thus identifies himself as a moderate, willing to uphold tradition, yet recognizing that the law supporting the tradition rests upon reason. As with kings, so with bishops: a legitimate polity may exist without them, since Christ's divine ordination of the Apostles was of individuals, not of an office. But lest he be thought to concede too much, he turns to Jerome's other argument that bishops were created through the instigation of the Holy Ghost: “if any thing in the Church's government, surely the first institution of bishops was from heaven, was even of God, the Holy Ghost was the author of it” (3:168). This is indeed strong ground for believing the office necessary and beneficial, but not adequate for any single bishop or group of bishops to see themselves as indispensable.

POWERS AND AUTHORITY

Bishops hold the special and exclusive rights of ordaining ministers and of exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction—moderating disputes, appointing special ceremonies and fasts, and disciplining ministers. Hooker cites Jerome, Cyprian, and Chrysostom to confirm the distribution of power and responsibilities between bishops and presbyters. He likewise illustrates from the testimony of early fathers that the power of bishops extended beyond one church or parish to the see or diocese. For as the organization of the church increased in scope and along with it the number of bishops, it became expedient to establish some bishops over others as presiding officers. Bishops of metropolitan cities within the Roman Empire became archbishops, and later some archbishops of major metropolitan centers became primates, until the primate of Rome in time became the pope. The primate's chief function was apparently to assist the bishops in quelling heresy, so that ample precedent exists for the office of archbishop.

Having demonstrated the differing degrees or ranks in early Christianity, Hooker turns to the Puritan arguments that such differences are a modern innovation not supported by Scripture. He undertakes an analysis, pointing out that the biblical passages are somewhat ambiguous, but that even in the absence of strong biblical support, the office of bishop is not therefore compromised. He returns to apply his principle regarding the law of nature: “The law of nature then being his law, that must needs be of him which it hath directed men unto” (3:213). Thus the bishops as an institution can stand, even without belief in apostolic succession.

Hooker proceeds to answer opposition on particular points, urging that the Puritan reading of the early history of the church regarding bishops is fallacious. To the argument that bishops are unnecessary because the judicial authority can be exercised at the congregational level, Hooker responds by making an analogy to the state, showing the need for courts of appeal: “which hath been always observed every where in civil states, and is no less requisite also for the state of the Church of God” (3:220-21). To answer the objections that the bishops exercise power beyond that of their predecessors, he argues that bishops have acquired their powers in the body politic of the church through the orderly development of laws. For example, the role of bishops in ordaining ministers more nearly resembles the New Testament ordination by the Apostles than the selection of ministers by the congregation, as the Puritans advocate. He particularly objects to congregational power of selecting ministers because the ministry of a clergyman is not limited to a congregation. He shows that ancient practice of the church was ordination by bishops, though he admits as exceptions direct authorization from God or ordination when a bishop cannot function. In the system whereby bishops and landowners select pastors, the people have a choice only indirectly, “yet can they not say that they have their pastors violently obtruded upon them, inasmuch as their ancient and original interest therein hath been by orderly means derived into the patron who chooseth for them” (3:232).

Hooker briefly defends the civil power of bishops to order offenders jailed by arguing a precedent from the Jews and by pointing out that the justice in each individual sentence is what should determine the issue. For the bishops' participation in other civil affairs, Hooker examines man's ability to separate spiritual from civil or secular affairs and finds the distinction difficult to make. For example, the main function of universities is to produce clergymen; should these institutions of the nation be ruled totally by secular officers and laws? Should a nobleman, who happens to be a clergyman, be forced to give up his ministry if chance makes him a governor of a civil state? Hooker argues that a kind of economy exists in grace as well as in nature that should enable men to exercise their talents to the fullest. This principle implies that kings may make civil officers of church officials. Those who consider this power a violation of divine law misinterpret the Scripture and the patristic writers. On the office of the bishop and the powers that accompany it, he concludes: “In the writings of the ancient Fathers, there is not any thing with more serious asseveration inculcated, than that it is God which maketh bishops, that their authority hath divine allowance, that the bishop is the priest of God, that he is judge in Christ's stead, that according to God's own law the whole Christian fraternity standeth bound to obey him. Of this there was not in the Christian world of old any doubt or controversy made, it was a thing universally every where agreed upon” (3:261). Again he points to the universal assent of mankind as the voice of God itself and the unanimous testimony of the ancient fathers as a matter of weight. Those who will not accept such guides exalt private judgment so high as to deny legitimacy to all superiors.

HONORS AND PRIVILEGES

On the more difficult question of the honors appropriate to bishops, Hooker explains that degree in life naturally admits of degree in honor. Outward signs of honor—titles and insignia of office—are only superficial indicators of where honor should be directed. He believes that honor due to bishops is not merely traditional but effects a public good, because without them the exercise of true religion in the state “cannot well and long continue” (3:264). The example of Aaron demonstrates the benefit to society of spiritual regiment, and “Bishops are now as high priests were then, in regard of power over other priests …” (3:266). Historically, the church has benefited, beyond doubt, from the prelacy. Through their role as superiors or overseers, the bishops have used their authority to assure that the church carries on its work effectively.

Hooker classifies the public, external honors due to bishops as those of title, place, ornament, attendance, privilege, and endowment and argues in defense of all of them. Bishops appropriately have forms of address, distinctions of rank, special attire (“ornaments”), a variable number of attendants for honor as well as assistance. In chapter 21 Hooker arrives at an issue that George Cranmer in his letter had alluded to, one that had been important in church affairs since the time of Henry VIII and especially during the reign of Edward VI—the honoring of bishops with wealth. Hooker's rhetoric on the matter is intense; he speaks of “the sacrilegious intention of Church robbers, which lurketh under this plausible name of Reformation” (3:281-82). The schemes of those who sought to deprive the church of wealth and properties had created major problems for Elizabeth's bishops—especially for the archbishops Matthew Parker, Edmund Grindal, and John Whitgift—who on occasion took courageous steps to preserve the holdings and rights of the church. The properties of the church are really God's, Hooker argues, returned to Him by men who first received them at His hands. God's ownership of property is founded upon many biblical passages of both Testaments which lead Hooker to the following conclusion: “God doth not refuse to be honoured at all where there lacketh wealth; but where abundance and store is, he there requireth the flower thereof, being bestowed on him, to be employed even unto the ornament of his service” (3:291). Scripture is also a precedent for the stewardship of God's properties being vested in His ministers, and ancient practice has placed this responsibility in the bishops' hands.

Distribution of income and revenue in the Jewish religion recognized rank and privilege. The bishops' power over disposition of revenues naturally led to questions and to opposition, and some abuses from earlier times had been corrected. As one remedy, a fixed ample amount (one fourth of the diocesan revenues) was set aside to each bishop's use, yet some considered this amount excessive. Hooker responded that these revenues belong to the church, not to the bishop who enjoys them, and to deprive the church of them is sacrilege.

In justifying the income of bishops as appropriate to their office and in arguing in support of preservation of church property, Hooker includes a passage in praise of Queen Elizabeth for her record on the question. Yet confiscation of monastic properties under Henry VIII was in part just, for the monks “were properly no portion of God's clergy (only such amongst them excepted as were also priests)” (3:321), so that their holdings could be compared with those of a corporation or city. Even so, the dissolution of these religious houses brought little good to society, only to individuals. If the wealth of the church was once excessive, the excesses have been removed, and no further confiscation of church properties should occur. Hooker believes that revenues amounting to 126,000 pounds yearly have already been removed from the church, enough to provide adequate livings for more than four thousand clergymen. He concludes with the pleas that the position of the clergy be maintained and that no further spoilation of the church occur.

BOOK 8: ROYAL SUPREMACY

The eighth book of Ecclesiastical Polity, first published with book 6 in 1648, answers the Puritan objection to the power of the king or monarch over the church, which in England had been established by the law in 1532 making the prince the temporal head of the church. Headings for the book's nine chapters were originally provided by James Ussher, archbishop of Armaugh, who had in his possession two manuscript copies. The reasons for accepting the authenticity of book 8 have been carefully outlined by Houk, and no serious question appears to remain.⁹ Archbishop Ussher entitled the first three chapters “Of Kings and their Power Ecclesiastical Generally” and the remaining six “Of the Kings of England particularly,” divisions which Houk believes consistent with those of books 6-7.¹⁰

Hooker begins his defense of “power of ecclesiastical dominion” vested in the prince by a reference to the ancient Jews, whose kings were also religious leaders. Jewish kings made laws in matters of “mere” religion—that is, unmixed with secular affairs: “According to the pattern of which example, the like power in causes ecclesiastical is by the laws of this realm annexed unto the crown” (3:328). Opponents of this arrangement raise two main arguments against it: that church and state should be separate and that the church should be governed by “Christian governors” from within. Hooker gives careful consideration to each of these.

A church is that body politic within a state which represents and maintains true religion, as did the religious polity of the ancient Jews. Hooker grants that church and commonwealth may be considered as separate entities or societies, but the nationalistic ideal of the Renaissance permits him to view them as closely complementary: “We hold, that seeing there is not any man of the Church of England but the same man is also a member of the commonwealth; nor any man a member of the commonwealth, which is not also of the Church of England; therefore … no person appertaining to the one can be denied to be also of the other” (3:330). Joint membership by all members of the societies permits the exercise of rights and powers in both. “For the truth is, that the Church and the commonwealth are names which import things really different; but those things are accidents, and such accidents as may and should always dwell lovingly together in one subject” (3:336). This is an example of Hooker's ideal of unity, perhaps in this instance somewhat removed from reality.

Hooker next examines the lawful exercise of power by the monarch—“what the power of dominion is”—along with church matters in which the king's dominion may be felt. Order in any society requires degrees, marked by relative amounts of power, dominion being the highest. The king's powers are limited by God's commands, by law, and by established power belonging to groups within a society. Hooker acknowledges that the king's dominion over the church is not commanded by Scripture but asserts that once established, it has the stamp of God's approval. Jesus ordered that tribute be paid to Tiberius, even though Tiberius was not appointed by God. “That the Christian world should be ordered by kingly regiment, the law of God doth not any where command; and yet the law of God doth give them right, which once are exalted to that estate, to exact at the hands of their subjects general obediences in whatsoever affairs their power may serve to command” (3:346). Once granted, dominion cannot be withdrawn without the consent of the ones to whom it is granted, though if there is none to inherit dominion the power may return to the body that granted it.

The scope of a king's power is determined by the original compact, by positive laws, and by tradition, as well as the laws of God and nature. Aristotle, as quoted by Hooker, seemed to believe that the best kings were the most restrained, but Hooker disagrees somewhat:

I am not of opinion that simply always in kings the most, but the best limited power is best: the most limited is, that which may deal in fewest things; the best, that which in dealing is tied unto the soundest, perfectest, and most indifferent rule; which rule is the law; I mean not only the law of nature and of God, but very national or municipal law consonant thereunto. Happier that people whose law is their king in the greatest things, than that whose king is himself their law.

(3:352)

Hooker concludes that kings may lawfully exercise dominion over religion, that their dominion does not extend to the normal duties of clergymen—administering the sacraments, ordination, and ecclesiastical jurisdiction—and that the necessary rule of the king's actions over the church is not fully or clearly established in England. To clarify the need for rule, he cites limitations on the king's dominion in civil affairs and quotes Ambrose, “‘kings have dominion to exercise in ecclesiastical causes, but according to the laws of the Church’” (3:358).

In answering Puritan objections to royal supremacy, Hooker considers naming the king “head” of the church, the Puritans' point being that the title belongs only to Christ. At length Hooker shows that head applied to the king differs from the meaning applied to Christ. This section includes an interesting discussion of Christ as the Word, and as king, priest, prophet, and acknowledged spiritual head of the church. As temporal head of the church, the king has the power of calling church councils or synods, a right established by precedent of the Jews and the Christian emperors of Rome. But the king, who does not rule by right of conquest, cannot claim an absolute authority to make canon law: “nature itself doth abundantly authorize the Church to make laws and orders for her children that are within her” (3:396). Neither does the hierarchy enjoy the power of jurisdiction through divine right, “as ours also do imagine” (3:397).

He next examines the manner of establishing canon law through church council or convocation. The crux of the question is whether the prelates themselves in council, representing the clergy, have the power of passing laws, or whether their proposals must be approved by the king in order to become law. New laws being necessary from time to time, the power for instituting them for the church should be clear, whether they relate to doctrine or to polity. A difficult question involves laws relating to doctrine. Hooker asserts that laws do not really establish true belief, but only direct men away from false beliefs by pointing out the truth. Second, they are difficult to enforce: “as opinions do cleave to the understanding, and are in heart assented unto it is not in the power of any human law to command them, because to prescribe what men shall think belongeth only unto God” (3:401).

The authority of making laws for the church being derived from the entire society, it is not clear in what forum the authority must be exercised. Councils of clergymen cannot claim an absolute right on the analogy to the Council of Jerusalem, for no council since has had equal authority, and Hooker prefers to leave the matter somewhat ambiguous: “we are to hold it a thing most consonant with equity and reason, that no ecclesiastical law be made in a Christian commonwealth, without consent as well of the laity as of the clergy, but least of all without consent of the highest power” (3:404). To pass and impose canon laws without the consent or understanding of the laity seems somehow unjust: “Peace and justice are maintained by preserving unto every order their rights, and by keeping all estates as it were in an even balance” (3:405). Thus the canons of a general church council have no force of law without approval of the public (through Parliament) and the king. Hooker grants that Parliament, the broadest representative body, has the power of passing laws applicable to the Church. Parliament with the convocation “is that whereupon the very essence of all government within this kingdom doth depend; it is even the body of the whole realm …” (3:408). He points out the anomaly that could arise if the king had to enforce a law which he opposed. The voice of the king, on the precedent of early emperors, is most fittingly a veto over laws passed by the clergy or by clergy and laymen.

While bishops alone consecrate, the king “elects,” that is, “selects” a bishop and appoints him to his diocese. The laws of Henry VIII made, in fact, the consecration and the concurrence by other bishops little more than an appendage of the royal will. This bishop not only becomes a spiritual nobleman but receives a position as one of the chief financial officers of the church. In both roles a Tudor monarch had a keen and, to Hooker, appropriate interest. “Election” thus fittingly precedes consecration. For this kind of power vested in the king, Hooker finds analogies with foreign governments and especially with the Roman Empire, citing the disputes between kings and popes during the Middle Ages over the appointment of bishops. While he approves of the king's prerogative, Hooker acknowledges that abuses can occur, as when kings do not select those most fit for the office, or leave sees vacant while enjoying their revenues, or tax the dioceses too heavily—practices that Tudor monarchs had permitted at one time or another.

In addition to the appointment of bishops, the king enjoys a wide range of powers over ecclesiastical services and teaching. He may also participate in councils and serve as a judicial officer. The king must approve directives and commands to the entire national church. Direct intervention into church matters by the monarch was unusual, but clearly a constitutional possibility. An extraordinary instance occurred in 1577 when Queen Elizabeth sent a royal directive to all bishops ordering the suppression of gatherings of ministers called “prophesyings,” sermons before mixed audiences of clergy and laymen. Hooker considers the royal power a kind of final court, to be employed on appeal or in exceptional circumstances.

His final defense of the Tudor settlement concerns the king's immunity from censure by ecclesiastical courts. Hooker argues that the king, as the source of lawful authority, must of necessity be above that authority and therefore punishable by God only. Citing negative evidence from Scripture, he argues that no early king of the Jews was excommunicated. Against the precedent of the Emperor Theodosius's excommunication by St. Ambrose, and the emperor's submission, Hooker argues that it was an example of “extraordinary zeal on both sides, and not [a proceeding] from a settled judicial authority” (3:453), since Ambrose did not possess the authority to punish the emperor. Hooker agrees that a clergyman has the right to deny the sacraments to an evil or sinful king, yet the church possesses no settled judicial authority to pass sentence upon kings.

Notes

1. On the question of composition of the books see W. Speed Hill, “The Evolution of Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity” in Studies in Richard Hooker, ed. Hill, pp. 132-34.

2. C. J. Sisson, The Judicious Marriage of Mr. Hooker and the Birth of “The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), pp. 85-86, 98.

3. Ibid., p. 108.

4. Cranmer's letter is traditionally dated 1598, though Hardin Craig argues in support of an earlier dating. See “Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity—First Form,” Journal of the History of Ideas 5 (1944): 100-101.

5. The Works of That Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker: With an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Edited by John Keble, revised by R. W. Church and F. Paget. 7th ed. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888. Reprint. New York: Burt Franklin, 1970, 2:608. Quotations in this chapter will be from Keble's edition and will be cited in the text by volume and page numbers.

6. R. A. Houk, ed., Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Book VIII (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), pp. 70-71.

7. Ibid., p. 72.

8. Works, ed. Keble, 1:xli.

9. Houk, pp. 82-90. For a recent article giving reasons in support of Houk's view see Arthur S. McGrade, “Repentance and Spiritual Power: Book VI of Richard Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 29 (1978): 163-76.

10. Ibid., pp. 89-90.