"this Church, by daily prayer to God: which we promise (as God "shall offer opportunity, and give us to discern it so expedient) by "humble suite unto her Majesty's honourable Council and the parlia"ment, and by all other lawful and convenient meanes, to further and “advance, so far as the laws and peace and the present estate of our "Church will suffer it and not enforce to the contrary. We promise "to guide ourselves and to be guided by it, and according to it. "For more especial declaration of some points more important and necessary we promise uniformity, to follow such order when we preach the Word of God as in the book by us is set down in the Chapters of the Office of Ministers of the Word, of preaching or sermons, of Sacraments, of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. "Further also we promise to follow the order set down in the 'Chapters of the meetings as far as it concerneth the Ministers of the "Worde. For which purpose we promise to meet every six weeks "together in classical conference with such of the brethren here "assembled as for their neighbourhood may fit us best: and such "other as by their advise we shall be desired to join with us. "The like we promise for provincial meetings every half year from "our Conference to send unto them, as is set down in the Chapter "concerning the provinces and the Conference belonging unto them, "being divided according to the order following. "Likewise also that we will attend the general assembly every year "and at all parliaments, and as often as by order it shall be thought "good to be assembled 1." Such were the principles, purposes, and methods of the Puritans who, at the time when Hooker entered the field of controversy and was writing his great book, were working to bring the Church of England into conformity with themselves without separating themselves from it. The plan which has been here shown was definite and systematic, and the range over which it was being pursued is indicated by the fact that “above "500, all beneficed in the Church of England," "subscribed or "declared their approbation of the Book of Discipline"; though this number seems to give a very inadequate idea of the actual extent of the movement among the beneficed clergy 3. And 1 A form of assent almost exactly identical with this is given by P. L. in the Preface to the 1872 edition of the Directory. 2 For further illustration of the plan pursued cf. Strype's Life of Whitgift, Bk. III. ch. xxi; Bk. IV. ch. i. & vi. 3 Neal, i. 423, and note. meanwhile a less formal but perhaps not less effective propagation of the cause was going on all over England, among those who saw the discreditable blemishes and abuses of the existing state of things, who knew the imminent peril of papal aggression, and who welcomed sincerely, if hastily, the promise of a discipline which should make clergymen do their duty, and clear the Church of scandals, and erect, far away from all that was touched with the associations of the unreformed Church, a strong and plain and defiant barrier against the dreaded enemy of English liberty. Hooker, in the third chapter of his Preface, lets his humour have some play, within the bounds of charity, in describing "by what means so many of the people are trained "unto the liking of that discipline," and the especial labour that "hath been bestowed to win and retain towards this cause "them whose judgements are commonly weakest by reason of "their sex," and who showed themselves especially apt "to "serve as instruments and helps in the cause. Apter they are," he says, "through the eagerness of their affection, that maketh "them, which way soever they take, diligent in drawing their "husbands, children, servants, friends and allies the same way; "apter through that natural inclination unto pity, which breedeth "in them a greater readiness than in men to be bountiful "towards their preachers who suffer want; apter through sundry opportunities, which they especially have, to procure encourage"ments for their brethren; finally, apter through a singular "delight which they take in giving very large and particular 'intelligence, how all near about them stand affected as con"cerning the same cause1." Nor can the movement have failed to draw strength from the hardships and sufferings which many were willing to face for its sake; that stamp of failure which is on the policy of persecution2 is to be traced in the disadvantage and precariousness which every approach to it involves; and the severity used against the Puritans was exposed to the more contempt and hatred because some of those who wielded it had themselves approved and followed the very ways they now prohibited. Several members of the Privy Council, with motives as diverse as those likely to actuate Burghley on the one hand and Leicester 1 Hooker's Works, vol. i. pp. 143, 152, 153. 2 Cf. R. W. Church, The Oxford Movement, ch. ix, ad fin. on the other1, showed some favour to the movement, or at least opposed the measures taken to repress it; while others probably were preoccupied with that cloud of fear which hung over men's minds until the great relief came with the defeat of the Armada in 1588. But nothing, surely, can have contributed so much to the opportunities, the power, the zeal, the hopes of Puritans as did the neglect of duty in the Church. At such a time ignorance and inability among the clergy were serious enough, but avarice and plain indifference to the meaning of a spiritual charge were far worse; and it would have been strange if any man who was wholly possessed with the truth of his message and really bent on winning souls to God had failed to carry all before him in a parish whose minister could only struggle through the service, never preached, but read, perhaps four purchased sermons in the course of the year, or, it may be, had never resided in the place at all, and, had he done so, might only have made matters worse by the example of his vicious life. These were the causes which gave the Puritan appeal a strength that even the ribald violence of some among its supporters could not countervail; these were the causes which were storing more and more force behind the agitation, and behind the petitions which from time to time were made to the Queen, the Privy Council, and the Parliament-petitions which were sure to find sympathy and support in the last-named body. It should be realized and remembered that the attack against which Hooker had to defend the Church was no desultory firing of criticisms at an impregnable position, no unpromising and baseless project of impossible reforms, no clamour sure to pass away when its first vehemence had abated, and men could see how things really stood; it was the determined and confident and increasing pressure of a system which had effected at Geneva one of the most remarkable achievements in that eventful age; and it was directed against a position imperfectly understood, timorously maintained, compromised by wrong methods of defence, and betrayed by many whom there was not strength to punish or eject. What the Puritans intended has been shown; how near they seemed to success may be gathered from the sound of grave foreboding in the words with which Hooker--no distrustful 1 Cf. Hooker, Dedication of Bk. V, § 8, with Keble's note. or faint-hearted champion for the truth's sake--begins his work: Though for no other cause, yet for this; that posterity may "know we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream, there shall be for men's information extant thus much concerning the present state of the Church "of God established amongst us, and their careful endeavour "which would have upheld the same1." 1 Hooker's Works, vol. i. p. 125. CHAPTER III. The Life of Hooker. It was as Master of the Temple, with Walter Travers holding the office of Reader, that Hooker found himself brought into prominence among those who were upholding the established order of the Church of England against the Puritan movement1. It was a curious coincidence of events that had led to his coming out of a remote little parish in Buckinghamshire to a conspicuous and important post in London; but his temperament and training were no ill equipment for the dangers of both publicity and controversy. For (as has been said before) he sincerely disliked both. He was a patient, thorough student, and he had had good opportunities of study, under conditions which had taught him. to respect those from whom he differed. The singular promise of his early boyhood had won him friends whose generosity enabled him first to stay on at Exeter High School 2, when his parents, Roger and Joan Hooker, were minded to make him an apprentice; and then, in 1568, when he was about fifteen, to go up to Corpus Christi College at Oxford. Those who so helped him must be named with honour: they were his schoolmaster; his uncle, John Hooker, Chamberlain of Exeter; Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury; Dr. Cole, President of Corpus Christi College; and Robert Nowell, a great lawyer in London, who had the happiness of also helping Edmund Spenser, and Lancelot Andrewes. He probably matriculated at Corpus as a Chorister, 1 Cf. Walton's Life of Hooker; Hooker's Works, vol. i. p. 32; though perhaps Walton somewhat overstates Hooker's previous exemption from the controversy. 2 Cf. H. Newport, Exeter Grammar School, p. 8. 3 Probably, Mr. Williams; cf. H. Newport, Exeter Grammar School, Cf. The Spending of the Money of Robert Nowell: edited by Dr. Grosart from one of the Towneley Hall MSS., and cited by Dr. Fowler, History of Corpus Christi College, where the difficult points in regard |