moderation as the peace of the Church could permit. Thus her majesty has always observed the two rules before mentioned, in dealing tenderly with consciences, and yet in discovering faction from conscience, and softness from singularity."

" 30

This letter though unfair to the Puritans, shows the political wisdom of the government. The Puritan church system was unsuited to English society, and the principle of constraining all things to precepts forced from the word of God was impracticable.. With all its strength and narrow sincerity, the Puritan temper and the rigid restraint it would set on life, could not reach even a temporary dominance until the time's abounding energies had had their fling. Moreover, a certain intellectual improvement now occurring in the Church was more in harmony with these energies of life, and tended to disparage Puritanism.

30 Letter given in Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, bk. I, ch. VIII, taken from Burnet, Hist. Ref., Vol. III, p. 419. It was written to M. Cretoy, the French minister.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE ANGLICAN VIA MEDIA: RICHARD HOOKER

THE revolutions of reform and change in England lowered the morale of the clergy and wasted the revenues of the schools and universities where the clergy should have been educated. These untoward conditions appearing in the time of Henry VIII, did not improve in the short reforming reign of the boy Edward. The Marian reaction or subversion had no sound restorative effect; and accounts agree as to the dearth of educated and decently behaving clergy in the time of Elizabeth. Seemliness overspread the Church under Whitgift's rule, while a certain Anglican intellectual revival was effected. by Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.

Political and religious exigencies in the early years of Elizabeth had demanded a defense of the Church as against Roman Catholic recusants: the need was met by the excellent Apology of Bishop Jewel. Twenty-five years later a work of genius justified the doctrines, liturgy, and ceremonials of the Church as against the Puritan. attack.

Bishop Jewel of Salisbury took counsel with other divines in the composition of his Apology, which was published in 1562 as the authoritative defense of the Church of England against the Romanists. It was soon translated into many tongues, an excellent and also authoritative English version coming from the pen of Lady Anne Bacon, wife of Sir Nicholas and mother of the great Francis. Everywhere it was accepted as the sufficient confession and defense of the Catholic and Christian faith of the English Church. So it remained. "Three great princes successively, viz. Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles, and four archbishops were so satisfied with the truth and learning contained

in it, that they enjoined it to be chained up and read in all parish churches throughout England and Wales." 1

The Romanists cry out, declares the text,

that we are all heretics and have forsaken the faith, and have with new persuasions and wicked learning utterly dissolved the concord of the Church; that we renew, and as it were, fetch again from hell the old and many-a-day condemned heresies; that we sow abroad new sects, and such broils as never erst were heard of; also that we are already divided into contrary parts and opinions. . . . That we have seditiously fallen from the Catholic Church and by a wicked schism and division have shaken the whole world. . . . That we set nought by the authority of the ancient fathers and councils of old time; that we have . . . disannulled the old ceremonies,"

-and that we are clean given over to all wickedness.

In reply to all such allegations, the Apology sought to establish the legitimacy of the Church of England as a true and ancient church, neither a heresy, an innovation, nor a schism. Its office was to show

"that God's holy gospel, the ancient bishops, and the primitive church do make on our side, and that we have not without just cause left these men, and rather have returned to the apostles and old catholic fathers. . . not colourably or craftily, but in good faith before God . . . and if they themselves which fly our doctrine, and would be called catholics, shall manifestly see how all those titles of antiquity, whereof they boast so much, are quite shaken out of their hands,"

then they may bethink themselves indeed as to which side they might better join.

Jewel's Apology remains the classic statement of the Anglican as against the Roman position. There is no need to follow its proofs of its main theses, nor its presentation of the sacraments, the ministry, scripture, and ceremonies; its counter attack upon the abuses and innovations of the Roman Church, or its consideration of councils and papal supremacy. Nor need we notice the abundant replies by Roman Catholics, or Jewel's further

1 Strype, Annals, II, 1, p. 147. The Apology and Lady Bacon's translation are printed in Vol. III of Jewel's Works, Parker Society (1848). With Jewel's Apology compare his letter to one Scipio, as to the Council of Trent.- Strype, Annals, 1, II, pp. 60–68,

Defense of his Apology. Rather we turn at once to his protégé, the Judicious Hooker, the only man of the English Reform whose repute has fixed a title to his name, even as Aquinas was termed Doctor Angelicus (for his marvellous and holy intellect, rather than for his disposition, of which less is known) or Duns Scotus, Doctor Subtilissimus.2

Isaac Walton's lovely and précieux "Life". of this jewel of the English Church has fixed in our minds the impression of a sensitive intellectual nature, a being of precocious and extraordinary scholarship, an ecclesiastical philosopher with a beautiful reasoning and constructive mind: a man diffident, modest, with a "dovelike " disposition; a sweet and holy man, who most fittingly should meditate upon his deathbed on the nature and number of the angels, their blessed obedience and order, praying that it might be reflected among men. This impression is borne out by whatever else is known of Hooker and above all by the quality of his works. Their style is winning in spite of its inversions; "long and pithy," says the genial Fuller, " driving on a whole flock of clauses before he comes to the close of a sentence." Whether we search the ranks of the English Church of the sixteenth century, or look among objecting Puritans or Catholic recusants, Hooker seems the one unquestionable intellectual person whose delight is to reason on the things of God and man with sweetness and persuasion. For his all considering method, he may be likened to Aquinas, whom he had studied well. In England he had one intellectual predecessor, the Welshman Reginald Pecock, who had Hooker's reasoning mind, but lacked his judiciousness.8

Hooker was born in Exeter in 1554, of unemphatic parents, but under the auspices of a notable uncle, John Hooker, public official, antiquary, historian, and writer of good English. The worthy man recommended his nephew Richard to the patronage of Bishop Jewel, through whose assistance doubtless the studious lad found

2 The term "Judicious Hooker" is in Cowper's epitaph on Hooker. 3 Ante chap. XX.

himself at the age of fourteen a poor scholar in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, which had been the scholastic nurse of both John Hooker and the bishop. Under its rugged régime Richard studied, taught, graduated as Bachelor and then as Master, till in 1579 he became a fellow, and was appointed to lecture in Hebrew. His lectures in logic had already brought him reputation. His knowledge of Aristotle, even of Plato, of the serious classics generally, likewise of the Church Fathers and of Aquinas, will impress the reader of his Polity.

In 1581 Hooker was summoned to preach at St. Paul's, London, and three years later received a vicarage in Buckinghamshire. He He gave that up to become Master of the Temple, a church already accustomed to Puritan views. Burghley wished to appoint Travers, the author of the Discipline, who was lecturing there in the afternoons, while Whitgift had another candidate. The Queen approved of neither, and so Hooker was given the place. At once arose an interesting dissonance between the new master's teachings, and those of the Puritan divine: as Fuller says, it was Canterbury in the morning and Geneva in the afternoons. This proved too much for Hooker's nerves, and the archbishop suspended his opponent, who thereupon in a Supplication to the Council complained of his removal without a hearing, and elaborately defended his position. Hooker replied, although already immersed in the plan of his great undertaking, which, as he wrote to Whitgift," he intended as a justification of the laws of our ecclesiastical polity." The Temple was too distracting; London too noisy; he needed the quiet of the country to complete his work, the importance of which and the great talents of the author, Whitgift fully recognized. He placed Hooker in a quiet parsonage not far from Salisbury, from which some years later Hooker removed to a living given him by Elizabeth near Canterbury. He is said to have had an uncouth, ill tempered wife; but she managed his affairs, and he made her his executrix, calling her "well-beloved" in his will. The first four books of the Polity were printed in 1594, the fifth in 1595, and the three remaining, with or with