By Emma Laws, Exeter Cathedral Librarian
Richard Hooker, born in Heavitree on the outskirts of Exeter in either 1553 or 1554, was one of the most important English theologians of the 16th century. His statue takes pride of place on the Cathedral Green – a popular place to perch and eat lunch if you can keep an eye on the seagulls.
Hooker is seen by many as treading a middle way between Protestantism and Catholicism, arriving at a new Anglicanism. His best-known work, and one of the most influential publications of the 16th century, is Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, the first five books of which were published between 1594 and 1597 during his lifetime and the remaining three books after his death in 1600. It is generally thought to be the first great work of philosophy and theology to be written in English – but don’t imagine it’s an easy read: the first page and a half contains just two extremely long sentences and the book continues in a similar fashion.
However, for those who could read it, it contained important information about faith and salvation. Hooker had comforting words for those who did not accept the thinking of the new Church of England:
“Thou holdest the foundation of Christian faith, though it be but by a slender thread; thou holdest Christ, though but by the hem of his garment, why shouldst thou not hope that virtue may passe from Christ to save thee?… But be of good cheere, thou hast not to doe with a captious Sophister, but with a mercifull God, who will justifie thee for that thou holdest, and not take the advantage of doubtfull construction to condemne thee.”
Ultimately, Hooker asks us to underpin faith with wisdom:
“wisdome hath diversly imparted her treasures unto the World. As her wayes are of sundry kinds, so her manner of teaching is not meerely one and the same. Some things shee openeth by the Sacred Bookes of Scripture; some things by the glorious workes of nature: with some things shee inspireth them from above by spirituall influence; in some things shee leadeth and traineth them onely by worldly experience and practice.”
He also reminds us of the great leveller: “there neither is, not ever was any meer naturall man absolutely righteous in himselfe, that is to say voide of all unrighteousnesse, of all sinne.”
The Cathedral Library has recently received a donation of the 1617 [i.e. 1618] edition of Hooker’s Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, complete with the magnificent pictorial title-page engraved by William Hole depicting the figure of Charity on the left, Justice on the right, and, significantly, beneath all, the seated figure of Hope.