Law and Revelation: Richard Hooker and His Writings

Richard Hooker is widely regarded as the leading apologist of the Elizabethan age. Much of Anglicanism as we know it today owes its character to the course Hooker deftly charted between Catholic and Protestant claims. His Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity set out the constitution of the Church of England, and represent a philosophical and theological outlook that is characteristic of Anglicanism to this day. He opposed a literal and absolute interpretation of Scripture and instead advocated an appeal that incorporated reason–which remains the response of mainstream Anglicanism to complex ethical and moral questions today. This volume sets Richard Hooker’s life in the context of contemporary parties and opinions within the Elizabethan Church and provides an extensive reader of his original work in the fields of Scripture, reason, tradition, doctrines and the governance of the Church.