cannot forget that if God's ordinances do not bind him, yet they most certainly and rigidly bind us. St. Augustine has words bearing upon this very point-" We gather that invisible sanctification was present with and profited certain persons without visible sacraments, and yet on this account the visible sacrament is not to be despised; for he who despises the visible sacrament can in no wise be sanctified invisibly."

It seems almost certain that Hooker's opinion concerning the validity of nonepiscopal ordination of ministers, in cases of necessity, was formed under the influence of sympathy with the foreign reformersmen who have been the bane of the English Church at all times. Possibly (though this is urged with hesitation), Hooker may have had in view the gaining of recognition at the hands of the English authorities of the ministerial status of these men. In the early

years of Elizabeth's reign, not a few of these foreigners and certain exiles of extreme Protestant opinions, had found their way to these shores, and in the confusion and disorder of the times had obtained possession of English benefices.2 Hooker's words,

1 Quaestt, in Levit. 84.

2 For example, William Whittingham, Dean of Durham, of whom Archbishop Sandys wrote to Lord Burghley, April 4,

"neither hath nor can have possibly a bishop to ordain" are not applicable to men who first sought entrance into the ranks of the ministry in England, where bishops were plentiful.

Some light is shed upon Hooker's allowance of non-episcopal ordination in certain rare cases, by the consideration that he wrote the Seventh Book of The Ecclesiastical Polity, or the substance thereof, after his acquaintance with Saravia. Now it is abundantly evident from Strype's account of Saravia,' that this divine was conspicuous amongst the foreign reformers in upholding episcopacy, even before Bancroft's celebrated sermon on the same subject. But nevertheless, the present writer has been quite unable to satisfy himself that Saravia was ever episcopally ordained. His influence on Hooker and the latter portion of The Ecclesiastical Polity was undoubtedly great. Any one possessing any knowledge of human nature knows the difficulty of asserting

1579-" If his ministry, without authority of God or man, without law, order, or example of any Church, may be current take heed to the sequel. Who seeth not what is intended? God deliver his Church from it. I will never be guilty of it." Previously Sandys had summoned him "to show his orders, or rather no orders, that he had received at Geneva" (Strype, Annals of Ref., II. ii. 168, 620). It is more than doubtful if Whittingham had ever been ordained at all, even at Geneva. Travers, Hooker's opponent at the Temple, is another instance. 1 See Strype's Whitgift, II. iv. 202-210.

absolutely a truth disparaging to the position of a close and valued friend; and it is not every one who is proof against the influence of personal considerations. If Saravia had not received ordination at the hands of a bishop, and such the present writer believes was the case, it seems highly probable that this fact weighed with Hooker in penning the words quoted above, from Book VII. ch. xiv. § 11, concerning cases of "inevitable necessity." It was a marked feature of Hooker's character to refrain, even to a dangerous degree, from condemnation of the opinions of others: his reverence for opponents led him far in the way of toleration.

Upon Hooker's attitude in regard to the ordination of the clergy, Mr. Keble remarks, "There is nothing here to indicate indifference in Hooker with regard to the apostolical succession; there is much to shew how unwilling he was harshly to condemn irregularities committed under the supposed pressure of extreme necessity."1 And, again, in commenting on the passage under discussion, quoted above, beginning, "Another extraordinary kind of vocation. he says

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Here, that we may not overstrain the author's meaning, we must observe first with

1 Hooker's Works, Editor's Preface, § 40.

what exact conditions of extreme necessity, unwilling deviation, impossibility of procuring a bishop to ordain, he has limited his concession. In the next place, it is very manifest that the concession itself was inserted to meet the case of the foreign Protestants, not gathered by exercise of independent judgment from the nature of the case or the witness of antiquity. Thirdly, this was one of the instances in which unquestionably Hooker might feel himself biassed by his respect for existing authority. For nearly up to the time when he wrote, numbers had been admitted to the ministry of the Church of England, with no better than Presbyterian ordination." 1

We have already observed Hooker's tokens of sympathy with the Calvinists and Lutherans abroad, in regard to their views of the Holy Eucharist, and his readiness to demand no larger faith as of necessity: and his allowance of the validity of non-episcopal ordinations, in what he describes as "cases of inevitable necessity," is in accordance with a similar mental attitude. Considering the vital importance of maintaining a valid ministry, and thereby shutting out any suspicion of defect in the administration of the Word and Sacraments, Hooker's concessions, limited as

1 Hooker's Works, Editor's Preface, § 41.

they are, are open to the gravest objection. In this instance, as in that of the Eucharistic controversy, his sympathies carried him too far in the way of compromise.

CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION

"Were the Fathers then without use of private confession as long as public was in use? I affirm no such thing. The first and ancientest that mentioneth this confession is Origen, by whom it may be seen that men, being loth to present rashly themselves and their faults unto the view of the whole Church, thought it best to unfold first their minds to some one special man of the clergy, which might either help them himself, or refer them to an higher court if need were. Be therefore circumspect,' saith Origen, 'in making choice of the party to whom thou meanest to confess thy sin; know thy physician before thou use him if he find thy malady such as needeth to be made public, that others may be the better by it, and thyself sooner helpt, his counsel must be obeyed and followed.'

"That which moved sinners thus voluntarily to detect themselves both in private and in public, was fear to receive with other Christian