Private opinion subject to the wider Church

“And … men’s private fancies must give place to the higher judgment of that Church which is in authority a mother over them.”

“Thus by following the law of private reason, where the law of public should take place, they breed disturbance.”

Hooker says that if we wish to live in a society, private judgement must give way to the agreed laws of the community we live in, or common life is impossible.  Applying this to the church, private opinions about the way we regulate and govern it must submit to the judgement of the church community.

“Because except our own private and but probable resolutions be by the law of public determinations overruled, we take away all possibility of sociable life in the world.”

Hooker’s appeal to the Puritans

The best and safest way for you therefore, my dear brethren,

is, to call your deeds past to a new reckoning, to reexamine the cause ye have taken in

hand, and to try it even point by point, argument by argument, with all the diligent

exactness ye can;

to lay aside the gall of that bitterness wherein your minds have

hitherto over-abounded, and with meekness to search the truth.

Think ye are men, deem it not impossible for you to err; sift unpartially your own

hearts, whether it be force of reason or vehemency of affection, which hath bred and

still doth feed these opinions in you. If truth do any where manifest itself, seek not to

smother it with glosing delusions, acknowledge the greatness thereof, and think it

your best victory when the same doth prevail over you.

Richard Hooker

I have this week discovered Richard Hooker.  His Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the title notwithstanding, is really an Anglican work of theology comparable to modern works that attempt to cover the whole body of divinity, albeit in the style of the sixteen hundreds.  It is really, really good, even excellent.

Hooker is not light reading.  It takes time to adjust to his style, and even then he gives the reader so much to think about that it is taking me a week to cover even a small amount – and I am not a slow reader.  His response to the Puritans’ objections to the BCP and vestments is eye-poppingly revelatory.  How I wish that I had read him earlier.

The immediate impact is to make me value the Anglican Reformation more than I already did.

Weakness of understanding

The WCF acknowledges the reality that Ministers have differing degrees of ability in their understanding of scripture.  Not everybody has a full, or indeed, a nearly full, grasp of the scriptures.  This means that there has to be some leeway given to Ministers of the Gospel doctrinally.  The essentials of soteriology, the sacraments, and the Trinity must be in place, but on many other issues freedom must be granted.