Richard Hooker and the English Reformation

P. G. STANWOOD OOKER, it might almost be said, is the name of a book rather than H the name of a man," wrote Christopher Morris in his introduction to the Everyman's Library edition of the first five books of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie. Now almost 100 years later, we know much more both about the book and the man. Of Hooker himself, C. J. Sisson's 1 Judicious Marriage of Mr. Hooker (1940) opened up and clarified many details of the life. His biographical research has been expanded in a number of ways, especially through the careful scrutiny and reassembling of Izaak Walton's early "official" Life (1666) by David Novarr in The Making of Walton's "Lives" (1958), and most recently by Jessica Martin in her fascinating study of Walton's Lives: Conformist Commemorations and the Rise of Biography (2001). Georges Edelen left his biography of Hooker unfinished at the time of his death, but much of his deep learning and scholarship is displayed in his detailed chronology of Hooker's life prefixed to the commentary volumes of the Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker, and also in his editorial work on the Preface and Books I­ N of the Lawes in that edition. In addition, Philip Secor has recently published Richard Hooker: Prophet of Anglicanism (1999), a lively and engaging portrait aimed at a general audience.

I. The Orders of Grace and Nature.- The Priority of God’s Gracious Action in Richard Hooker’s Hermeneutic.- Powers of Nature and Influences of Grace in Hooker’s Lawes.- Grace and Hierarchy: Richard Hooker’s Two Platonisms.- II. Providence and Predestination.- Richard Hooker and the Debates about Predestination, 1580–1600.- Richard Hooker on the Un-conditionality of Predestination.- Providence, Predestination, and Free Will in Richard Hooker’s Theology.- III. The Church and Common Prayer.- Richard Hooker on the Identity of the Visible and the Invisible Church.- Angels descending and ascending: Hooker’s discourse on the ‘double motion’ of Common Prayer.- Sorrow and Solace: Richard Hooker’s Remedy for Grief.- IV. Grace and the Sacraments.- Presence and Absence: Richard Hooker’s Sacramental Hermeneutic.- ‘Participation of God Himselfe:’ Law, the mediation of Christ, and sacramental participation in the thought of Richard Hooker.- Grace, Sin, and Nature: Richard Hooker’s Theology of Baptism.- Reflections on Richard Hooker’s understanding of the Eucharist.- V. Polemics of Reform.- Language and Exclusion in the First Book of Hooker’s Politie.- Book VI of Hooker’s Lawes Revisited: the Calvin Connection.- Book VI and the ‘Tractate on Penance:’ do they belong together?.- Richard Hooker and Christopher St. German: Biblical Hermeneutics and Princely Power.- Richard Hooker: A Selected Bibliography: Egil Grislis with the assistance of John K. Stafford.- Index of Subjects and Names.- Index of Hooker’s Works.