Richard Hooker wrote, "What Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience are due; the next whereunto, is what any man can necessarily conclude by force of Reason; after this, the voice of the church succeedeth." (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity 5,8,2)
Richard Hooker (1554-1600) wrote Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity to stake out a middle course between Calvinism on the one hand and the Roman Catholicism on the other. Hooker was unsparing in his censure of Rome, yet his contemporary, Pope Clement VIII (died 1605), said of Hooker's book: "It has in it such seeds of eternity that it will abide until the last fire shall consume all learning."Hooker's book set a path for historic Anglicanism. He wrote with the rationality and seasoned reasoning of a lawyer. The Anglican Way relies on the faculty of reason in opposition to sensation and emotion. It is a reasonable faith that finds expression in the works of great thinkers such as Anselm of Canterbury, Richard Hooker, and John Keble. Empiricism flourished in the British Isles among members of the Church of England, and though British Empiricism took an anti-Church turn, it owes much to the Anglican intellectual environment.
In our day, many Anglicans, Protestants, and Roman Catholics have become unhitched to the core doctrines of the received tradition that we call "Christianity." Reading Hooker, as challenging as that may be for modern readers, is a grounding experience.
In this video, Dr Andrea Russell (University of Nottingham) explains why Hooker's book is still important today. It is about how we discern God's presence in the world and how Scripture is our authority.
Related reading: Review of Charles Erlandson's Book "Orthodox Anglican Identity"; Richard Hooker, Doctor of the Church
The Eucharist is our offering of thanksgiving for the completed work of Jesus Christ. At the consecration His presence as the risen and glorified Lord is real. We do not receive the body and blood of one dying on the cross. We receive the body and blood of the immortal one which has power to make us immortal, to deliver us unto eternal life.
ReplyDeleteThis is the Anglican understanding of Real Presence. It is less mystical than the Roman view of transubstantiation. The British Isles have given the world many outstanding thinkers. They tend to be people of reason and great observers of the world and human conduct.