"But now that we may lift up our eyes (as it with the lower animals, because he is fitted were) from the foot-stool to the throne of God, for a more divine perfection, and craves and leaving these natural, consider a little the therefore a higher good than what belongs state of heavenly and divine creatures. Touching angels, which are spirits immaterial and in- to them. Reason is the director of the will, tellectual, the glorious inhabitants of those sacred the light of the soul. Whereas the rule palaces, where is nothing but light and blessed of nature is simple necessity; that of beasts immortality, no shadow of matter for tears, dis- an instinctive judgment of sense; and that contentments, griefs and uncomfortable passions of angels an "intuitive intellectual judgment to work upon; but all joy, tranquillity, and peace, concerning the amiable beauty and high even for ever and ever, doth dwell. As in num-goodness of that object, which with unspeak ber and order they are high, mighty, and royal able joy and delight doth set them on work. armies, so likewise in perfection of obedience unto The rule of voluntary agents on earth is the that law, which the Highest, whom they adore, love, and imitate, hath imposed upon them; such sentence that reason giveth concerning the observants they are thereof, that our Saviour him- goodness of those things which they are to self being to set down the perfect idea of that do."* It is the office of reason, therefore, which we are to pray and wish for on earth, did to discover the good to which man's higher not teach to pray or wish for more than only that nature is adapted, the laws which at here it might be with us as with them it is in heaven. God which moveth mere natural agents it does in various ways, and by various once regulate and express its activity. This as an efficient only, doth otherwise move intellectual creatures, and especially his holy angels: for, signs or tokens, which our author discusses beholding the face of God, in admiration of so at length. There is some intricacy and congreat excellency, they all adore him; and being fusion in his argument here; but its general rapt with the love of his beauty, they cleave in- effect is, that there are clearly discoverable separably for ever unto him. Desire to resemble by reason certain axioms or principles of him in goodness, maketh them unweariable and morality, which are universally binding, and even insatiable in their longing to do by all means to which the conscience answers as its apall manner of good unto all the creatures of God, but especially unto the children of men: in the propriate rule and life. These moral laws countenance of whose nature looking downward, witness to themselves in the orderly and they behold themselves beneath themselves; even happy lives of those who conform to them, as upwards in God, beneath whom themselves are, just as the works of nature are all "behovethey see that character which is nowhere but in ful and beautiful, without superfluity or dethemselves and us resembled. Thus far even the fect." The prevailing infraction of even the Paynims have approached; thus far they have seen into the doings of the angels of God. principal of these laws among certain nations, is not allowed as any evidence against their Orpheus confessing that the fiery throne of God is attended on by those most industrious angels, universal validity, but is attributed to "lewd careful how all things are performed amongst and wicked custom, which beginning perhaps men; and the mirror of human wisdom plainly first amongst few, afterwards spreading into teaching, that God moveth angels even as that greater multitudes, and so continuing from thing doth the man's heart, which is thereunto time to time, may be of force even in plain presented amiable. Angelical actions may there- things to smother the light of natural underfore be reduced unto these three general kinds : first, most delectable love, arising from the visible apprehension of the purity, glory, and beauty of God, invisible saving only unto spirits that are pure; secondly, adoration grounded upon the evidence of the greatness of God, on whom they see how all things depend; thirdly, imitation, bred by the presence of his exemplary goodness, who ceaseth not before them daily to fill heaven and earth with the rich treasures of most free and undeserved grace." He then enters upon the consideration of the Law of Reason," the binding principle of reasonable creatures in this world." This opens up to him a wide field of ethical disquisition, in which he treats of the several functions of the will and reason in man. The will is the moral capacity in man which brings him into relation to his appropriate moral good. He has this capacity over and above the sensible capacity, common to him * Works, vol. i. pp, 212, 213. standing." There is a true and substantive moral law, therefore, according to Hooker, discoverable in the light of human reason, and binding upon human conduct; and in the relation which man bears to this the law of his nature, he is contradistinguished from all other creatures in the world. In his case alone is observation of law righteousness, and transgression of it sin. It is the moral reality of a living will in man that makes the difference. "Take away the will, and all acts are equal."+ The law now mentioned binds man simply as man. Its force is irrespective of society; but out of the fact of society there springs up a set of correspondent laws. The ground of domestic society is found in human wants; the ground of political government in human crimes. The natural fountain of law and Vol, i. p. 228. + Cod. Justin. 968, quoted by Hooker, vol. i. p. 238. authority in the former case, is the father of the family; in the latter case, lawful authority can only be exercised by consent of society itself, or by the immediate appointment of God. These are the only two genuine sources of political power which may assume different forms, but in all its forms rests ordinarily on the same ground, the express or implied sanction of the community. A governing power resting on any other ground, save the special one of direct Divine appointment, is most strongly repudiated by Hooker; and here, as has been often pointed out by Mr. Hallam and others, he clearly anticipated the theory of Locke. As the origin of government is thus traced to popular assent, so all laws for its regulation and control have the same rightful source, and no other. The language of Hooker on this subject is so forcible, that it well deserves quotation : "The lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate, of what kind soever, upon earth to exercise the same of himself, and not either by express commission immediately and personally received from God, or else by authority decreed at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny. Laws they are not, therefore, which public approbation hath not made so. But approbation not only they give who personally declare their assent by vow, sign, or act, but also when others do it in their names by right originally at the least derived from them. As in parliaments, councils, and the like assemblies, although we be not personally ourselves present, notwithstanding our assent is by reason of other agents there in our behoof. And what we do by others, no reason but that it should stand as our deed, no less effectually to bind us, than if our selves had done it in person.' Further, as there are laws appropriate to civil societies in themselves, so there are laws appropriate to these societies in their relations to one another, viz., International Laws. And the allusion to them leads him to speak of the necessity and propriety of laws of spiritual commerce between Christian na tions "laws by virtue whereof all churches may enjoy freely the use of those reverent, religious, and sacred consultations which are termed Councils-General." Finally, there are the laws specially revealed by God in Scripture for our spiritual guidance and government-Laws Supernatural to direct and control man in the way of salvation, which he has wholly lost by nature. Under this head Hooker, according to his wont, runs into a general and elevated * Works, vol. i. p. 245, 246. vein of discussion, pertaining to the true and only blessedness of man in communion with God; how man has fallen away from this blessedness through guilt, and how it is restored to him in Christ. He considers the fact of so many laws of reason being republished in Scripture, and dwells upon the advantage of this in brightening our frequently dim natural perceptions, and guiding us in circumstances of particular difficulty. He is thus led to enlarge on the benefit of traditional Divine law, and of Holy Scripture, the perfection of which-wherein nothing is superfluous amid all its variety-he extols in a rich and eloquent passage. Here he brings to a close the course of his general reasoning, and approaches its bearing upon his special subject to which it will be found to have a very intimate relation, far away as it may seem to have begun from it. Having enumerated the various laws that obtain among men, he now enters upon the consideration of their particular force and character. In all these several kinds of laws there are sundry both natural and positive, that is to say, both arising out of the personal and social necessities of human life, and prescribed by external authority for the guidance of that life. They are in error, therefore, who make those laws only to be positive that are of man's invention, attributing mutability to them and to them alone. Certain Divine laws are no less positive and mutable in their nature. The real ground of mutability or immutability in laws, is to be found, in fact, not in their origin, but in their character. They are permanent or changeable, not according as they proceed from God or man, but according as the matter itself is concerning which they were first made. Whether God or man be the maker of them, alteration they so far forth admit as the matter doth exact." This is the point towards which Hooker has been aiming in his extended discussion : Wherefore," he adds, " to end with a general rule concerning all the laws which God hath tied men unto; those laws divine that belong, whether naturally or supernaturally, either to men as men, or to men as they live in public society, or to men as they are of that politic society which is the such variable accident as the state of men, and of Church, without any further respect had unto any societies of men, and of the Church itself in this world is subject unto; all laws that so belong unto men, they belong for ever; yea, although they be positive laws, unless being positive God is, because the subject or matter of laws in genhimself which made them alter them. The reason eral is thus far forth constant; which matter is that for the ordering whereof laws were instituted, and being instituted are not changeable without cause, neither can they have cause of change, when that which gave them their first institution remaineth for ever one and the same. On the ture was maintained to be the sole authority other side, laws that were made for men or socie- not only in matters of faith, but of ecclesities or churches, in regard of their being such as astical order. Its fundamental principle, as they do not always continue, but may perhaps be expressed in the Admonition, was that "those clean otherwise a while after, and so may require to be otherwise ordered than before, the laws of things only are to be placed in the Church God himself which are of this nature, no man en- which the Lord himself in His word comdued with common sense, will ever deny to be of mandeth." On this exclusive scriptural a different constitution from the former, in respect basis the Puritans took their stand, and felt of the one's constancy and the mutability of the themselves firm in the character of the other. And this doth seem to have been the very ground on which they stood. Their percause why St. John doth so peculiarly term the sistent keenness of purpose and stubborndoctrine that teacheth salvation by Jesus Christ, were intended to meet. wright taken the right view in opposition to Evangelium æternum,' an eternal Gospel,' because ness of resolution, as well as impatience of there can be no reason wherefore the publishing zeal, took their rise greatly in the fact that thereof should be taken away, and any other in- they thus supposed themselves in possession stead of it proclaimed, as long as the world doth of the only ground of truth and law in the continue; whereas the whole law of rites and matter at issue. Destitute as the spirit of ceremonies, although delivered with so great Puritanism everywhere is of speculative solemnity, is notwithstanding clean abrogated, breadth and comprehension, and keeping inasmuch as it had but temporary cause of God's their views closely within the limits of ordaining it."* Scripture, they got a certain clearness of In this paragraph lie the germ and ground vision and intensity of aim from the very of the whole reasoning of the Polity. Laws narrowness of their point of observation. are such durably, according to the matter Whitgift had so far in his reply to Cartwhich they concern, whether they proceed immediately from a Divine or human source. them. He contended that while "the subIt is not the mere fact of their revelation in deed be taken out of the word of God," yet stance and matter of government must inScripture which determines their permanent the offices in the Church whereby this obligation. This can only be determined by a consideration of their whole character, and particularly expressed in the Scriptures, but government is wrought are not namely and those circumstances in human life which they in some points left to the discretion and The question of the direct origin of laws liberty of the Church, to be disposed accordwas, in fact, from Hooker's whole point of ing to the state of times, places, and perview an indifferent one. For all law was to sons." He met the Puritan assertion by him only such, as forming an expression of a simple negation; his thoughtful sense and the original Law or Reason of the universe; narrowness of that assertion, and practically⚫ shrewdness enabled him to see beyond the and whether this expression was found directly in Scripture, or in human reason in dealing with it; he felt that thus far it as a question of policy he had no difficulty and life, it did not matter; its sacredness was false and untenable. But he did not was equally the same, as springing out of the Fountain of all light and order. This unity of Nature and Life and Scripture, as 176.-It may be well to add the following emphatic *Quotation from Ad. Whitgift's Works, vol. i. p. all alike true, if not alike important revela- statements from Cartwright:-" And it is no small tions of the Divine will, is really the founda- injury which you do unto the word of God, to pin it tion of Hooker's whole argument, although us but in the principal points of our religion; or as in so narrow room, as that it should be able to direct it is more implied than distinctly asserted though the substance of religion, or some rude and by him. It is this comprehensive and unfashioned matter of building of the Church, were germinant idea underlying its entire scheme uttered in them, and those things were left out that and breathing life into it-inarticulate sometimes, but not the less powerful, that gives to it its great force and mastery. It was on this ground above all that it met Puritanism, and proved its higher spirit and strength against it. According to what we have already seen, it was the great aim of Puritanism in the more radical form into which it passed with Cartwright and others, to enforce its plan of discipline as expressly laid down in Scripture, and alone compatible with it. Scrip *Works, vol. i. p. 274, 275. if there were in the Scriptures only to cover her should pertain to the form and fashion of it; or as nakedness, and not also chains, and bracelets, and rings, and other jewels to adorn her, and set her out." "Is it likely that he who appointed, not only the tabernacle and the temple, but their ornaments, would not only neglect the ornaments of the Church, but that without which it cannot long stand? Shall we conclude that he who remembered the bars there, hath forgotten the pillars here? Or he who there remembered the pins, here forgot the master-builders? get archbishops, if any had been needful? Could he there make mention of the snuffers, to purge the lights, and here pass by the lights themselves?"— Cartwright's Reply, pp. 14-82. Should he there remember the besoms, and here for Whitgift's Works, vol. i. p. 6. see further; he had no philosophic vision | merely what is laid down in Scripture, but of any higher principle on which to meet what in all respects is conformable to right the Puritans, and, while resisting their im- and reason, and the consecrated usage of mediate purpose, to enlarge the sphere of history, springing out of the exercise and moral and political contemplation, and carry development of the Christian consciousness men's minds up to a more catholic unity of in the Church. - truth. It remained for Hooker to do this This vein of thought runs throughout in the whole conception of his work. He the Ecclesiastical Polity, and alone gives saw still more clearly than Whitgift that it coherence. The key to its philosophy. the question confined to the limits of the it is moreover the only principle that conPuritan basis, could only be one of endless nects the several links of its polemic. polemics, while not shrinking from encoun- For having in the first book cleared the tering it on this basis, according to a state- way by showing the sacredness of all true ment that has been often quoted from him ;* laws, whether derived immediately from but not content with a mere negative atti- Scripture or not, he proceeds in the two tude, he sought by the native instinct of his next books to deal with the distinct asmind some loftier and more comprehensive sertions of the Puritans-first, that Scripposition from which he could discharge new ture is the only exclusive rule of human elements of truth into the controversy for life; and, secondly, that in Scripture there its possible settlement. Granting, he virtu- must be of necessity contained a form of ally said, that express Divine laws are our church polity, "the laws whereof may in only warrantable guides in the ordering of nowise be altered." It was necessary for the Church, admitting so far the Puritan him, in the nature of the case, to deal defipostulate, yet laws are Divine not merely nitely with both of these assertions. For because they are found in Scripture. All the first plainly met the whole course of his true laws are no less Divine, as springing preliminary reasoning; and the second leavout of and resting on the same source as ing the general question unsettled as to the those of Scripture-the eternal Divine Law. force and propriety of other laws save those To show this, was the simple and grand ob- given in Scripture, yet left no margin unject of his First Book. For this "he had settled in the particular matter under disturned aside from the beaten path, and cussion. If Scripture contained a definite chosen, though a less easy, yet a more profit- and unalterable church polity, it was of no able way. Lest, therefore," he adds, in avail to show what force and sacredness language that admits of no mistake, "any attached to laws in general. By proving, man marvel whereunto all these things however, that Scripture was not the extend, the drift and purpose of all is this, clusive rule of human action, nor yet neceseven to show in what manner, as every good sarily the exclusive source of church polity, and perfect gift, so this very gift of good as the Puritans contended, he left full room and perfect laws is derived from the Father for his opening argument to tell. The conof lights; to teach men a reason why just troversy expanded beyond the mere limits and reasonable laws are of so great force, of of Scripture, into the broad field of reason, so great use in the world, and to inform national feeling, and historical usage. It their minds with some method of reducing became, in short, a question of what was the laws whereof there is present contro- behoveful and beautiful, and becoming in versy unto their first original causes, that itself, and in all the circumstances of the so it may be in every particular ordinance case; and the remaining books are simply thereby the better discerned, whether the devoted to the elaborate proof against the same be reasonable, just, and righteous, or several assertions of the Puritans, that the no." The particular laws in dispute there- existing order of the Church of England anfore, whether or not they had the express swered to the full conditions thus dictated authority of Scripture, might have a clear by a true expediency, as well as warranted Divine sanction. They might have a valid by apostolical tradition. authority both in their proper substance We have discussed at such length, and and their direct origin, viz., the consent of with so much care, the main trace of Hookreason expressing itself in the national feel-er's argument, not only because it is that ing and will. For the eternal Divine Law which is most important in itself, but beas truly if not as perfectly expresses itself cause it is that which has most living relan this way as in Scripture. The question tion to existing Church questions. It is then came to be in this point of view, not instructive clearly to understand the posi * Whitgift's Works, vol. i. tion taken upon such questions by one so profound in thought, and so reverent in spirit, as Hooker. Of what consequence some in our time have thought his opinions, same basis. Christian expediency became has been strongly displayed by the eager in his hands the true jus divinum, resting ness with which they have sought for corro- not on one-sided interpretations of Scripture, boration of their own in his pages. It is far but on the broad ground of the common from our intention to disturb the expiring Christian sense, verified equally in the light embers of a controversy that has spent it- of Scripture and of Christian history. self, as all wise men saw from the first it could only spend itself, in the hot flame of Romanism on the one hand, or the poor smoke of medieval dilettantism on the other. Yet it may be necessary in contrast to the different extremes of ecclesiastical opinion, somewhat more particularly to consider the views of our author. It is needless to urge in opposition to this certain special statements extracted from the mass of Hooker's work as to the Divine right of Episcopacy, and the special authority of the Christian Ministry. To any one who really understands Hooker's position, there is no inconsistency in such statements. It is at once granted that he contends for the In questions of church government and Divine right of bishops, as he no doubt proauthority it will be plain to a little exami- foundly believed in that right; but he does nation, that there are only two fundamental not contend for it on the ground that this views of a positive character tenable,-the right is expressly revealed and exclusively one of which rests on a basis of theoretical taught in Scripture, so as to be everywhere ecclesiasticism, and the other on a basis of and at all times incumbent on the Church. practical Christian order. The former as- Such a view is not only inconsistent with serts that the government of the Church is explicit statements, but what is far more a polity divinely instituted once for all, and important and satisfactory to every thoughtin its form definitely revealed and establish- ful reader, with the whole conception of his ed. The latter maintains that this govern- general argument. Episcopacy was simply ment is no less divinely instituted, but that to him a true and proper expression of the grounds of its institution are found not Divine order in the Church; whereas the merely in Scripture, but in the Christian rea- Puritans maintained it to be a usurpation or son, and the development of that reason in corruption, he maintained that it rightly the history of the Church. The one, in short, represented the spirit and meaning of the upholds an exclusive jus divinum, the other primitive Apostolical system, and even that rests on what has been called in modern all the variety and grandeur of offices in the language expediency, with which term we Church of England, was only a rightful dehave no quarrel, save that it has been development of that system. This is a clearly graded to base meanings, quite inconsistent rational view, resting on grounds of comwith what we here intend. mon sense and Christian judgment, what in the assent of that reason, as expressed in the "whole church visible," which is declared to be "the" true original subject of all power within the Church. Such a system is utterly at variance with the modern High-Church theory, whose fun Theoretical ecclesiasticism may assume ever we may otherwise think of it. Such a very different, and, in fact, opposite manifes- system of ecclesiastical polity may be well tations. In the sixteenth century its charac- founded or not; but it plainly does not claim teristic manifestation was Puritanism. The to be of exclusive Divine institution, defiPuritans were beyond all question the nitely proclaimed from Heaven, and therechurch theorists of their day. They were fore universally paramount over the conthe assertors of the jus divinum in church science and Christian reason. On the congovernment, and the first Protestant assert- trary, it directly seeks its origin and sanction ors of it. Their very name still bears testimony to this, if their history throughout were not a living witness to it. Their essential belief was that they alone were in possession of the pure truth of God, derived from Scripture on this subject, and their persevering aim was to apply their exclusive view of this truth to the government of the Church of England. It is notorious, +"So perfectly are these things (of faith and and admitted on all hands, that this idea of salvation) taught, that nothing can ever need to be an exclusive Divine right was utterly un-added, nothing ever cease to be necessary; these known to the early defenders of the Church (matters of ecclesiastical polity), on the contrary side, of England. Jewell was contented to occupy the ground of Christian expediency in his Apology; Whitgift, we have seen clearly, took up the same position against the Puritans; and Hooker, only on larger and philosophic principles, has laid down the *Keble's Preface, p. 71, et seq. as being of a far other nature and quality, are not |