HOOKER.

The government of Elizabeth, in the settlement of an ecclesiastical

establishment, had not only to pass through the convulsive transition of

the "old" to the "new religion," as it was called at the time; but

subsequently it was thrown into a peculiar position, equally hateful to

the zealots of two antagonist parties or factions.

The Romanists, who would have disputed the queen's title to the crown,

were securely circumscribed by their minority, or pressed down by the

secular arm; they were silenced by penal statutes, or they vanished in a

voluntary exile; and even their martyrs were only allowed to suffer as

traitors. A more insidious adversary was lurking at home; itself the

child of the Reformation, it had been nourished at the same breast, and

had shared in the common adversity; and this youthful protestantism was

lifting its arm against its elder sister.

A public event, when it becomes one of the great eras of a nation, has

sometimes inspired one of those "monuments of the mind," which take a

fixed station in its literature, addressed to its own, but written for

all times. And thus it happened with the party of the MAR-PRELATES; for

these mean and scandalous satirists, and their abler chiefs, were the

true origin of Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity." The scandalous

pamphlets of the MAR-PRELATES met their fate, crushed by the sharper

levity of more refined wits; the more solemn volumes of their learned

chiefs encountered a master genius, such as had not yet risen in the

nation.

In the state of the language, and the polemical temper of these early

opposite systems of church, and indeed of civil government, it was

hardly to be expected that the vindication of the ruling party should be

the work of an elevated genius. The vernacular style was yet imperfectly

moulded, the ear was not yet touched by modulated periods, nor had the

genius of our writers yet extended to the lucid arrangement of

composition; moreover, none had attained to the philosophic disposition

which penetrates into the foundations of the understanding, and appeals

to the authority of our consciousness. On a sudden appeared this

master-mind, opening the hidden springs of eloquence--the voice of one

crying from the wilderness.

It had been more in the usual course of human affairs, that the whole

controversy of ecclesiastical polity should have remained in the

ordinary hands of the polemics; the cold mediocrity of the Puritan

Cartwright might have been answered by the cold mediocrity of the

Primate Whitgift. Their quarrel had then hardly passed their own times;

and "the admonition," and "the apology," and all "the replies and

rejoinders," might have been equally suffered to escape the record of an

historian.

But such was not the issue of this awful contest; and the mortal

combatants are not suffered to expire, for a master-genius has involved

them in his own immortality.[1]

The purity and simplicity of Izaak Walton's own mind reflected the

perfect image of HOOKER; the individualising touches and the careful

statements in that vital biography seem as if Hooker himself had written

his own life.

We first find our author in a small country parsonage, at

Drayton-Beauchamp, near Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire; where a singular

occurrence led to his elevation to the mastership of the Temple.

Two of his former pupils had returned from their travels--Sir Edwin

Sandys and George Cranmer, men worthy of the names they bore; for the

one became his ardent patron, and the other the zealous assistant in

his great work. Longing to revisit their much-loved tutor, who did not

greatly exceed them in age, they came unexpectedly; and, to their

amazement, surprised their learned friend tending a flock of sheep, with

a Horace in his hand. His wife had ordered him to supply the absence of

the servant. When released, on returning to the house, the visitors

found that they must wholly furnish their own entertainment--the lady

would afford no better welcome; but even the conversation was

interrupted by Hooker being called away to rock the cradle. His young

friends reluctantly quit his house to seek for quieter lodgings,

lamenting that his lot had not fallen on a pleasanter parsonage, and a

quieter wife to comfort him after his unwearied studies. "I submit to

God's will while I daily labour to possess my soul in patience and

peace," was the reply of the philosophic man who could abstract his mind

amid the sheep, the cradle, and the termagant.

The whole story of the marriage of this artless student would be

ludicrous, but for the melancholy reflection that it brought waste and

disturbance into the abode of the author of the "Ecclesiastical Polity."

According to the statutes of his college he had been appointed to preach

a sermon at Paul's-cross: he arrived from Oxford weary and wet, with a

heavy cold; faint and heartless, he was greatly agitated lest he should

not be able to deliver his probationary sermon; but two days' nursing by

the woman of the lodgings recovered our young preacher. She was an

artful woman, who persuaded him that his constitutional delicacy

required a perpetual nurse; and for this purpose offered, as he had no

choice of his own, to elect for him a wife. On his next arrival she

presented him with her daughter. There was a generosity in his gratitude

for the nursing him for his probationary sermon, which only human beings

wholly abstracted from the concerns of daily life could possibly

display. He resigned the quiet of his college to be united to a female

destitute alike of personal recommendations and of property. As an

apology for her person, he would plead his short-sightedness; and for

the other, that he never would have married for any interested motive.

Thus, the first step into life of a very wise man was a folly which was

to endure with it. The wife of Hooker tyrannized over his days, and at

last proved to be a traitress to his fame.

The mastership of the Temple was procured for the humble rector of

Drayton-Beauchamp by the recommendation of his affectionate Edwin

Sandys. But not without regret did this gentle spirit abandon the lowly

rectory-house for "the noise" of the Temple-hall. Hooker required for

his happiness neither elevation nor dignities, but solely a spot wherein

his feeble frame might repose, and his working mind meditate; solitude

to him was a heaven, notwithstanding his eternal wife Joan!

Hooker might have looked on the Temple as a vignette represents the

greater picture. The Temple was a copy reduced of the kingdom, with the

same passions and the same parties. What had occurred between the

Archbishop Whitgift and the Puritan Cartwright, was now opened between

the lecturer and the master of the Temple.

The Evening Lecturer at the Temple was Walter Travers--an eminent man,

of insinuating manners and of an irreproachable life. He had been nursed

in the presbytery of Geneva, and was the correspondent of Beza in the

French, and of Knox in the Scottish Church; above all, Travers was the

firm associate of Cartwright, and the consulted oracle of the English

dissenters. He ruled over an active party of the younger members, and,

by insensible innovations, appears to have there established the new

ecclesiastical commonwealth, which at first consisted of the most

trivial innovations in ceremonies and the most idle distinctions.

Travers was looking confidently to the mastership, when the appointment

of Hooker crossed his ambitious hopes.

With the disciples of parity, a free election, and not a royal

appointment, was a first state principle. To preserve the formality,

since he could not yet possess the reality, Travers suggested to the new

master of the Temple that he should not make his appearance till Travers

had announced his name to the body of the members, and then he would be

admitted by their consent. To this point in "the new order of things,"

the sage Hooker returned a reasonable refusal. "If such custom were here

established, I would not disturb the order; but here, where it never

was, I might not of my own head take upon me to begin it." The

formality required was, in fact, a masked principle, which cast a doubt

on his right and on the authority which had granted it. "You conspire

against me," exclaimed the nonconformist, "affecting superiority over

me;" and condensing all the bitterness of his mingled religion and

politics, he reproached Hooker that "he had entered on his charge by

virtue _only of an human creature_, and not by the _election of the

people_." With TRAVERS the people were more than "human creatures;" the

voice of the people was a revelation of Heaven; this sage probably

having first counted his votes. These were the inconveniences of a

transition to a new political system; the parties did not care to

understand one another. These two good men, for such they were, now

brought into collision, bore a mutual respect, connected too by blood

and friendly intercourse. But in a religious temper or times, while men

mix their own notions with the inscrutable decrees of Heaven, who shall

escape from the torture of insolvable polemics? Abstruse points of

scholastic theology opened the rival conflict. A cry of unsound doctrine

was heard. "What are your grounds?" exclaimed TRAVERS. "The words of St.

Paul," replied HOOKER. "But what author do you follow in expounding St.

Paul?" Hooker laid a great stress on reason on all matters which allowed

of the full exercise of human reason. Two opposite doctrines now came

from the same pulpit! The morning and the evening did not seem the same

day. The son of Calvin thundered his shuddering dogmas; the child of

Canterbury was meek and merciful. If one demolished an unsound doctrine,

it was preached up again by the other. The victor was always to be

vanquished, the vanquisher was always to be victor. The inner and the

outer Temple appeared to be a mob of polemics.

Travers was silenced by "authority." He boldly appealed to her majesty

and the privy council, where he had many friends. His petition argued

every point of divinity, while he claimed the freedom of his ministry.

But there stood Elizabeth's "black husband," as the virgin queen deigned

in her coquetry to call the archbishop. The party of Travers circulated

his petition, which was cried up as unanswerable; it was carried in

"many bosoms:" Hooker was compelled to reply; and the churchmen

extolled "an answer answerless:" the buds of the great work appear among

these sterile leaves of controversy.[2]

The absence of Travers from the Temple seemed to be more influential

than even his presence. He had plenteously sown the seeds of

nonconformity, and the soil was rich. Hooker had foreseen the far-remote

event; "Nothing can come of contention but the mutual waste of the

parties contending, till a common enemy dance in the ashes of them

both." It must be confessed that Hooker had a philosophical genius.

It was amid the disorders around him that the master of the Temple

meditated to build up the great argument of polity, drawn from the

nature of all laws, human and divine. The sour neglect and systematic

opposition of the rising party of the dissenters had outwearied his

musings. Clinging to the great tome which was expanding beneath his

hand, the studious man entreated to be removed to some quieter place. A

letter to the primate on this occasion reveals, in the sweetness of his

words, his innate simplicity. He tells that when he had lost the freedom

of his cell at college, yet he found some degree of it in his quiet

country parsonage: but now he was weary of the noise and opposition of

the place, and God and nature did not intend him for contention, but for

study and quietness. He had satisfied himself in his studies, and now

had begun a treatise in which he intended the satisfaction of others: he

had spent many thoughtful hours, and he hoped not in vain; but he was

not able to finish what he had begun, unless removed to some quiet

country parsonage, where he might see God's blessings spring out of our

mother earth, and "eat his own bread in peace and privacy."

The humble wish was obtained, and the great work was prosecuted.

In 1594, four books of the "Ecclesiastical Polity" were published, and

three years afterwards the fifth. These are for ever sanctioned by the

last revisions of the author. The intensity of study wore out a frame

which had always been infirm; and his premature death left his

manuscripts roughly sketched, without the providence of a guardian.

These unconcocted manuscripts remained in the sole custody of the widow.

Strange rumours were soon afloat, and transcripts from Hooker's papers

got abroad, attesting that in the termination of the "Ecclesiastical

Polity," the writer had absolutely sided with the nonconformists. The

great work, however, was appreciated of such national importance, that

it was deemed expedient to bring it to the cognizance of the privy

council, and the widow was summoned to give an account of the state of

these unfinished manuscripts. Consonantly with her character, which we

have had occasion to observe, in the short interval of four months which

had passed since the death of Hooker, this widow had become a wife. She

had at first refused to give any account of the manuscripts; but now, in

a conference with the archbishop, she confessed that she had allowed

certain puritanic ministers "to go into Hooker's study and to look over

his writings; and further, that they burned and tore many, assuring her

that these were writings not fit to be seen." There never was an

examination by the privy council, for the day after her confession this

late widow of Hooker was found dead in her bed. A mysterious

coincidence! The suspected husband was declared innocent, so runs the

tale told by honest Izaac Walton.

These manuscripts were now delivered up to the archbishop, who placed

them in the hands of the learned Dr. Spenser to put into order; he was

an intimate friend of Hooker, and long conversant with his arguments.

However, as this scholar was deeply occupied in the translation of the

Bible, he entrusted the papers to a student at Oxford, Henry Jackson, a

votary of the departed genius.

On the decease of Dr. Spenser, the manuscripts of Hooker were left as "a

precious legacy" to Dr. King, bishop of London, in 1611. They were

resigned with the most painful reluctance by the speculative and

ingenious student to whom they had been so long entrusted, that he

looked on them with a parental eye, having transcribed them and put many

things together according to his idea of the system of Hooker.[3] During

the time the manuscripts reposed in the care of the bishop of London, an

edition of the five books of the "Ecclesiastical Polity," with some

tractates and sermons, was published in 1617;[4] had Dr. King thought

that these manuscripts were in a state fitted for publication, he would

have doubtless completed that edition. He died in 1621, and the

manuscripts were claimed by Archbishop Abbot for the Lambeth library.

Again, in 1632, the five undoubted genuine books were reprinted. Laud,

then archbishop of Canterbury, attracted probably by this edition,

examined the papers--he was startled by some antagonist principles, and

left the phantom to sleep in its darkness; whether some doctrines which

broadly inculcate _jure divino_ were touches from the Lambeth quarter,

or whether the interpolating hand of some presbyter had insidiously

turned aside the weapon, the conflicting opinions could not be those of

the judicious Hooker.

But their fate and their perils had not yet terminated; the episcopalian

walls of Lambeth were no longer an asylum, when the manuscripts of

Hooker were to be grasped by the searching hands and heads of Prynne and

Hugh Peters, by a vote of the Commons! At this critical period the sixth

and eighth books were given to the world, announced as "a work long

expected, and now published according to the most authentique copies."

We are told of six transcripts with which this edition was collated. It

is perplexing to understand when these copies got forth, and how they

were all alike deficient in the seventh book, which the setter forth of

this edition declares to be irrecoverable. After the Restoration, Dr.

Gauden made an edition of Hooker; in the dedication to the king he

offers the work as "now augmented and I hope completed, with the three

last books, so much desired and so long concealed." This remarkable

expression indicates some doubt whether he possessed the perfect copies,

nor does he inform us of the manner in which he had recovered the lost

seventh book. The recent able editor of the works of Hooker favours its

genuineness by internal evidence, notwithstanding it bears marks of

hasty writing; but he irresistibly proves that the sixth book is wholly

lost, that which is named the sixth being never designed as a part of

the "Ecclesiastical Polity."

Both the great parties are justly entitled to suspect one another; a

helping hand was prompt to twist the nose of wax to their favourite

shape; and the transcripts had always omissions, and we may add,

commissions. Some copies of the concluding book asserted that "Princes

on earth are only accountable to Heaven," while others read "to the

people." We perceive the facility of such slight emendations, and may be

astonished at their consequences; but we need not question the hands

which furnished the various readings. When we recollect the magnificent

entrance into the work, we must smile at the inconclusive conclusion,

the small issue from so vast an edifice. "Too rigorous it were that the

breach of human law should be held a deadly sin. A mean there is between

extremities, _if so be that we can find it out_." Never was the _juste

milieu_ suggested with such hopeless diffidence. Such was not the tone,

nor could be the words, of our eloquent and impressive HOOKER. From the

first conception of his system, his comprehensive intellect had surveyed

all its parts, and the intellectual architecture was completed before

the edifice was constructed. This admirable secret in the labour of a

single work, on which many years were to be consumed, our author has

himself revealed to us; a secret which may be a lesson. "I have

endeavoured that every former part might give strength unto all that

follow, and every latter bring some light unto all before; so that if

the judgments of men do but hold themselves in suspense, as touching the

first more general meditations, till in order they have perused the rest

that ensue, what may seem dark at the first will afterwards be found

more plain, even as the latter particular decisions will appear, I doubt

not, more strong, when the other have been read before."[5] Here we have

an allusion to a noble termination of his system.

This great work of Hooker strictly is theological, but here it is

considered simply as a work of literature and philosophy. The first book

lays open the foundations of law and order, to escape from "the mother

of confusion which breedeth destruction. The lowest must be knit to the

highest." We may read this first book as we read the reflections of

Burke on the French revolution; where what is peculiar, or partial, or

erroneous in the writer does not interfere with the general principles

of the more profound views of human policy. And it is remarkable that

during the anarchical misrule of France, when all governments seemed

alike unstable, some one who had not wholly lost his senses among those

raving politicians, published separately this _first book of

Ecclesiastical Polity_; a timely admonition, however, alas! timeless! I

was not surprised to find classed among "Legal Bibliography" the works

of Hooker.

The fate of those controversies which in reality admit of no argument,

is singularly exemplified in the history of this great work. These are

the controversies where the parties apparently going the same course,

and intent on the same object, but impelled by opposite principles, can

never unite; like two parallel lines, they may run on together, but

remain at the same distance, though they should extend themselves to

infinity. Opposite propositions are assigned by each party, or from the

same premises are educed opposite inferences. In the present case both

parties inquired after a model for church-government; there was none!

Apostolical Christianity had hardly left the old synagogue. Hooker

therefore asserted that the form of church-government was merely a human

institution regulated by laws; and that laws were not made for private

men to dispute, but to obey. The nonconformist urged the Protestant

right of private judgment and a satisfied conscience. Hooker, alarmed at

this irruption of schisms, to maintain established authority, or rather

supremacy, was driven to take refuge in the very argument which the

Romanist used with the Protestant.

The elaborate preface of Hooker is a tract of itself; it is the secret

history of nonconformity, and of the fiery Calvin. Yet was it from

positions here laid down that James the Second declared that it was one

of the two books which sent him back to the fold of Rome. It is not

therefore surprising that when a part was eagerly translated by an

English Romanist to his Holiness, who had declared that "he had never

met with an English book whose writer deserved the name of an

author!"--so low then stood our literature in the eyes of the

foreigner,--that the Pope perceived nothing anti-papal in the eloquent

advocate of established authority, while he was deeply struck at the

profundity of the genius of "a poor obscure English priest;" and the

bishop of Rome exclaimed, "There is no learning that this man has not

searched into; nothing too hard for his understanding, and his books

will get reverence by age." Our James the First, who it must be allowed

was no ordinary judge of polemics, on his arrival in England inquired

after Hooker, and was informed that his recent death had been deeply

lamented by the queen. "And I receive it with no less sorrow," observed

the new English monarch, "for I have received more satisfaction in

reading a leaf in Mr. Hooker than I have had in large treatises by many

of the learned: many others write well, but yet in the next age they

will be forgotten."

The attestations of his Holiness and our James the First, to some of my

readers, may appear very suspicious. They are, however, prophetic; and

this is an evidence that the "Ecclesiastical Polity" must contain

principles more deeply important than those which might more

particularly have been grateful to these regal critics. Our sage, it is

true, has not escaped from a severer scrutiny, and has been taxed as

"too apt to acquiesce in all ancient tenets." What was transitory, or

what was partial, in this great work, may be subtracted without injury

to its excellence or its value. Hooker has written what posterity reads.

The spirit of a later age, progressive in ameliorating the imperfect

condition of all human institutions, must often return to pause over

the first book of "Ecclesiastical Polity," where the master-genius has

laid the foundations and searched into the nature of all laws whatever.

HOOKER is the first vernacular writer whose classical pen harmonised a

numerous prose. While his earnest eloquence, freed from all scholastic

pedantry, assumed a style stately in its structure, his gentle spirit

sometimes flows into natural humour, lovely in the freshness of its

simplicity.