it hath with those things, either on which it dependeth, or which depend on it.

The preface is followed by this summary :—

WHAT THINGS ARE HANDLED IN THE BOOKS
FOLLOWING.

The first book, concerning Laws in general.

The second, of the use of Divine Law contained in Scripture, whether that be the only law which ought to serve for our direction in all things without exception.

The third, of Laws concerning Ecclesiastical Polity; whether the form thereof be in Scripture so set down that no addition or change is lawful.

The fourth, of general exceptions taken against the Laws of our Polity, as being Popish and banished out of certain Reformed Churches.

The fifth, of our laws that concern the Public Religious Duties of the Church, and the manner of bestowing that power of order, which enableth men in sundry degrees and callings to execute the same.

The sixth, of the power of Jurisdiction, which the reformed platform claimeth unto lay-elders, with others.

The seventh, of the power of Jurisdiction, and the honour which is annexed thereunto in Bishops.

The eighth, of the power of ecclesiastical dominion or Supreme Authority, which with us the highest governor or Prince hath, as well in regard of domestical jurisdictions as of that other foreignly claimed by the Bishop of Rome.

Richard Hooker opens the first book of his "Ecclesiastical Polity" with observations on the disadvantage in argument at which they are placed who maintain the conservative point of view, and on the fact that he may seem for a time tedious and obscure to many who find difficulty upon unfamiliar ground, since he intends to reason from first causes, holding that way to be best for the ascertainment of truth. Conclusions so arrived at will be surer, and when reached will also help us to understand the first principles more clearly. Do we who maintain Church Law uphold only a vain tradition? Let us seek the truth as to this matter. What are Laws? The just means to an end, subject to their author, God, who is the First Cause of Order and of Law. He uses in all things means towards ends, for the accomplishment of which He limits the use of His infinite power. God's purposes are not always known to us, "howbeit undoubtedly a proper and certain reason there is of every finite work of God, inasmuch as there is a law imposed upon it; which if there were not, it should be infinite, even as the Worker Himself is." God hath made to Himself a law eternal, whereby He worketh all things of which He is the cause and author. "That little thereof which we darkly apprehend, we admire; the rest with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore."

God's law is eternal and immutable; a part of it His promises declare, and all else must be in

Ecclesiastical Polity" (1594).

accord with them. God's eternal purpose, which He keeps, is the first law eternal. The second eternal law is that which man makes for himself in true accord with Reason and Revelation.

Eternal Law is of three kinds, according to the kinds of things that are subject to it: (a) natural law, which orders natural agents; (b) heavenly, observed by the angels; (c) human, "that which, out of the law either of reason or of God, men probably gathering to be expedient, they make it a law."

God's will is fixed in the Law of Nature on which human life depends. But Hooker's philosophy here falters a little, for he sees an occasional swerving which he ascribes to the defect of matter cursed for the sin of man, and he does not point out that some operations may appear only to be irregular till we completely understand the laws that govern them. "But howsoever," Hooker says, "these swervings are now and then incident to the course of nature, nevertheless so constantly the laws of nature are by natural agents observed, that no man denieth but those things which nature worketh are wrought, either always or for the most part, after one and the same manner." What causes this uniform obedience to law? The works of Nature are the will of God. "Those things which Nature is said to do, are by divine art performed, using Nature as an instrument; nor is there any such art or know

To Heavenly Law the angels pay perfect obedience. With intellectual desire to resemble God in goodness and do good to His creatures, especially to Men, in whom they see themselves beneath themselves, the Angels love, adore, and imitate. Individually they praise God; they work together in God's army; as fellow-servants with men they are God's ministers of grace. When Angels fell through pride it was by reflex of their understanding on themselves, and they became dispersed labourers against the law of God. They have been honoured as themselves gods before light came into the world.

The argument next proceeds to its especial topic, Human Law.

Except in God, there is in all things higher possibility that breeds desire towards perfection, which is Goodness, looking to the highest, namely, to that which is nearest God. Everything helps in some way, and is therefore good. Man especially aspires. God is eternal: and man, therefore, seeks continued life, a long personal life and continuance by offspring. God is immutable: and man, therefore, seeks fixity of purpose. God is exact and man, therefore, seeks precision in details. These desires are so bound to us that we hardly observe them. But external perfections of truth and virtue (desired as they become known) are sought more noticeably, and still after the pattern of God.

Angels have all knowledge of which they are capable: Men grow towards it. Of natural agents, living animals may excel men in the lower things of sense, as stones excel animals in firmness and durability; but the soul of Man as he grows in reason reaches beyond sensible things. With the right helps of art and study, men as they might be would excel men as they are, not less than men as they are excel the simpleton. The very first man who took the right way-Aristotle-excelled all before and after him. To the praise of the method of Aristotle Hooker adds his dispraise of the method of Ramus.' Education and instruction make us capable of Law. By reason we attain to knowledge beyond that of the senses. We act sometimes for the goodness we find in the mere stir and change; and sometimes only for the end to be attained. In either case we act freely. We choose that which seems good in our eyes.

Knowledge and Will determine choice. Will seeks the good to which Reason points; Appetite

1 Ramus. Pierre La Ramée, born in 1515, son of a poor labourer, had from childhood an intense desire for knowledge. By working in the day and studying at night, he enabled himself to graduate at the age of twenty-oue, and with an ardent tendency to place reason above mere authority, in graduating maintained as his thesis that "all Aristotle said was false." After a brilliant intellectual career, he perished in the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

that which satisfies the Senses. Affections rise involuntarily at the sight of some things; the Will has power to stay their action. "Appetite is the Will's solicitor, and the Will is Appetite's controller." Reason enough to give Will power over Appetite makes action upon Appetite also voluntary; and this even when, half unobserved, the Appetite assents by not dissenting or using power to prevent.

Children and men without reason are guided by the reason of others. Reason seeks only such good as it judges to be possible. Good may be attainable by ways avoided for unpleasantness, and Evil (never desired for itself) may be sought for some appearance of goodness in the ways to it. Goodness moves only when apparent; while hidden it is neglected. Sensible good is always obvious, and is sought till higher reason comes to show the higher object of desire. In all sin a lesser good is preferred to the greater which reason can make known. The root of this, says Hooker, is the Curse, weakening the instrument, the soul within the flesh. Man seeking the utmost good fails in discernment of it.

We discern by knowledge of causes and by observation of signs. The latter way, though less sure, is easier and fitter for the weakness of the age. A sign of evident goodness is general acceptance. The general and perpetual voice of men is as the sentence of God Himself. For that which all men have at all times learned, Nature herself must needs have taught; and God being the author of Nature, her voice is but His instrument. By her from Him we receive whatsoever in such sort we learn. Much truth is thus open to the common light of reason.

As Hooker's argument advances from stage to stage he inserts little summaries of it at successive resting-places, and we come now to the first of the summaries, which is this:

A Law therefore generally taken, is a directive rule unto goodness of operation. The rule of divine operations outward, is the definitive appointment of God's own wisdom set down within Himself. The rule of natural agents that work by simple necessity, is the determination of the wisdom of God, known to God Himself the principal director of them, but not unto them that are directed to execute the same. The rule of natural agents which work after a sort of their own accord, as the beasts do, is the judgment of common sense or fancy concerning the sensible goodness of those objects wherewith they are moved. The rule of ghostly or immaterial natures, as spirits and angels, is their intuitive intellectual judgment concerning the amiable beauty and high goodness of that object which with unspeakable joy and delight doth set them on work. The rule of voluntary agents on earth is the sentence that Reason giveth concerning the goodness of those things which they are to do. And the sentences which Reason giveth are some more, some less general, before it come to define in particular actions what is good.

We pass then to the next stage of Richard Hooker's argument upon the nature of Law. The main principles of reason are, he says, in themselves apparent. The greater good should be chosen before the lesser: but choice errs where the lesser good is seen, the greater unseen. We seek knowledge for the pre

servation of life, and beyond that also, firstly for its own sake, for the delight in contemplation itself, and secondly for its use in providing rules of action.

We know all things either as they are in themselves, or as they are in mutual relation to one another. The knowledge of what man is in reference to himself, and of other things in relation to man, is at the source of all natural laws which govern human actions. The best things produce the best operations, and considering that all parts of man concur in producing human actions, it cannot be well if the diviner part, the soul, do not direct the baser. "This is therefore the first Law, whereby the highest power of the mind requireth general obedience at the hands of all the rest concurring with it unto action."

So we may seek for the several grand mandates of the understanding part of man which control his Will; whether they import his duty to God or to his fellow-man.

Even the natural man seems to know that there is a God on whom all things depend; who is therefore to be honoured, of whom we ask what we desire, as children of their father, and of whom we learn "what is in effect the same that we read, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind;' which Law our Saviour doth term the First and the Great Commandment."

Touching the next, which as our Saviour addeth is like unto this (he meaneth in amplitude and largeness, inasmuch as it is the root out of which all laws of Duty to Menward have grown, as out of the former all offices of Religion towards God), the like natural inducement hath brought men to know that it is their duty no less to love others than themselves. For seeing those things which are equal must needs all have one measure; if I cannot but wish to receive all good, even as much at every man's hand as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men, we all being of one and the same nature? To have any thing offered them repugnant to this desire must needs in all respects grieve them as much as me: so that if I do harm I must look to suffer; there being no reason that others should show greater measure of love to me than they have by me shewed unto them. My desire therefore to be loved of my equals in nature as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to them-ward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant; as namely, That because we would take no harm, we must therefore do none; That sith we would not be in any thing extremely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid all extremity in our dealings; That from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain; with such like.

sive, declaring only what may be done; or thirdly, admonitory, opening what is most convenient for us to do. For there are degrees of goodness in action, and a Law is properly that of which Reason says that it must be done; and the Law of Reason is that which men have found out for themselves that they are all and always bound to in their actions.

Laws of Reason have these marks: (1) They who keep them act as nature works, in a fit harmony without superfluity and defect. (2) They are investigable by Reason without the aid of Revelation. (3) They are so investigable that the knowledge of them is general; the world has always been acquainted with them. Each particular man may not know them, but he can with natural perfection of wit and ripeness of judgment find them out, and of the general principles of them it is not easy to find men ignorant. "Law Rational, therefore, which men commonly use to call the law of nature, meaning thereby the law which human nature knoweth itself in reason universally bound unto, which also for that cause may most fitly be termed the Law of Reason; this Law," says Hooker, "comprehendeth all those things which men by the light of their natural understanding evidently know, or at leastwise may know, to be beseeming or unbeseeming, virtuous or vicious, good or evil for them to do." All misdeed may be said to be against the Law of Reason, but we mean by it here only the law governing duties which all men by force of natural wit might do, or might understand to be such duties as concern all men. "Do as thou wouldest be done unto," says Saint Augustine, "is a sentence which all nations under heaven are agreed upon. Refer this sentence to the love of God, and it extinguisheth all heinous crimes; refer it to the love of thy Neighbour, and all grievous wrongs it banisheth out of the world." Saint Augustine held, therefore, that by the Law of Reason certain principles were universally agreed upon, and that out of them the greatest moral duties we owe towards God or man may without any great difficulty be concluded.

Why, then, can there be such failure in the knowledge of even principal moral duties, that breach of them is not considered sin? In part this may come of evil custom spreading from the ignorance and wickedness of a few, but partly it comes through want of the grace of God. "For whatsoever we have hitherto taught, or shall hereafter, concerning the force of man's natural understanding, this we always desire withal to be understood: that there is no kind of faculty or power in man or any other creature, which can rightly perform the functions allotted to it, without perpetual aid and concurrence of that supreme cause of all things."

Great good comes to man from observance of the Law of Reason: for we see the whole world and each part thereof so compacted, that as long as each thing performeth only that work which is natural unto it, it thereby preserveth both other things and also itself. Thus righteousness, which is the willing observance of this law, has a Reward attached to it, and sin, which is the wilful transgression of it, a Punishment. Rewards and punishments always

"Take away the will," says the Code of Justinian, "and all things are equal: That which we do not, and would do, is commonly accepted as done." Rewards and punishments are only received at the hands of those who are above us, and have power to examine and judge our deeds. The inward and secret good or evil, which God only knows, God only rewards or punishes, "for which cause, the Roman laws, called the Laws of the Twelve Tables, requiring offices of inward affection which the eye of man cannot reach unto, threaten the neglectors of them with none but divine punishment." In external actions men have authority over one another. How do they acquire it? Here follows that view of the social compact which especially caused John Locke to quote Hooker, and attach to his name again and again the adjective "judicious:"-

The laws which have been hitherto mentioned do bind men absolutely even as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do or not to do. But forasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things needful for such a life as our nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man; therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others. This was the cause of men's uniting themselves at the first in politic societies; which societies could not be without government, nor government without a distinct kind of law from that which hath been already declared. Two foundations there are which bear up public societies: the one, a natural inclination, whereby all men desire sociable life and fellowship; the other, an order expressly or secretly agreed upon touching the manner of their union in living together. The latter is that which we call the Law of a Commonweal, the very soul of a politic body, the parts whereof are by law animated, held together, and set on work in such actions as the common good requireth. Laws politic, ordained for external order and regiment amongst men, are never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience unto the sacred laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man to be in regard of his depraved mind little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide notwithstanding so to frame his outward actions, that they be no hindrance unto the common good for which societies are instituted: unless they do this, they are not perfect. It resteth, therefore, that we consider how nature findeth out such laws of government as serve to direct even nature depraved to a right end.

All men desire to lead in this world a happy life. That life is led most happily, wherein all virtue is exercised without impediment or let. The Apostle, in exhorting men to contentment although they have in this world no more than very bare food and raiment, giveth us thereby to understand that those are even the lowest of things necessary; that if we should be stripped of all those things without which we might possibly be, yet these must be left; that destitution in these is such an impediment, as till it be removed suffereth not the mind of man to admit any other care. For this cause, first God assigned Adam maintenance of life, and then appointed him a law to observe. For this cause, after men began to grow to a number, the first thing we read they gave themselves unto was the tilling of the earth and the feeding of cattle. Having by this mean whereon to live, the prin

cipal actions of their life afterward are noted by the exercise of their religion. True it is, that the kingdom of God must be the first thing in our purposes and desires. But inasmuch as righteous life presupposeth life; inasmuch as to live virtuously it is impossible except we live; therefore the first impediment, which naturally we endeavour to remove, is penury and want of things without which we cannot live. Unto life many implements are necessary; more, if we seek (as all men naturally do) such a life as hath in it joy, comfort, delight, and pleasure. To this end we see how quickly sundry arts mechanical were found out, in the very prime of the world. As things of greatest necessity are always first provided for, so things of greatest dignity are most accounted of by all such as judge rightly. Although, therefore, riches be a thing which every man wisheth, yet no man of judgment can esteem it better to be rich, than wise, virtuous, and religious. If we be both or either of these, it is not because we are so born. For into the world we come as empty of the one as of the other, as naked in mind as we are in body. Both which necessities of man had at the first no other helps and supplies than only domestical; such is that which the Prophet implieth, saying, "Can a mother forget her child?" such as that which the Apostle mentioneth, saying, "He that careth not for his own is worse than an Infidel;" such as that concerning Abraham, “Abraham will command his sons and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord."

But neither that which we learn of ourselves nor that which others teach us can prevail, where wickedness and malice have taken deep root. If, therefore, when there was but as yet one only family in the world, no means of instruction human or divine could prevent effusion of blood; how could it be chosen but that when families were multiplied and increased upon earth, after separation each providing for itself, envy, strife, contention, and violence must grow amongst them? For hath not nature furnished man with wit and valour, as it were with armour, which may be used as well unto extreme evil as good? Yea, were they not used by the rest of the world unto evil; unto the contrary only by Seth, Enoch, and those few the rest in that line? We all make complaint of the iniquity of our times: not unjustly; for the days are evil. But compare them with those times wherein there were no civil societies, with those times wherein there was as yet no manner of public regiment established, with those times wherein there were not above eight persons righteous living upon the face of the earth; and we have surely good cause to think that God hath blessed us exceedingly, and hath made us behold most happy days.

To take away all such mutual grievances, injuries, and wrongs, there was no way but only by growing unto composition and agreement amongst themselves by ordaining some kind of government public, and by yielding themselves subject thereunto; that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govern, by them the peace, tranquillity, and happy estate of the rest might be procured. Men always knew that when force and injury was offered they might be defenders of themselves. They knew that howsoever men may seek their own commodity, yet if this were done with injury unto others it was not to be suffered, but by all men and by all good means to be withstood. Finally they knew that no man might in reason take upon him to determine his own right, and according to his own determination proceed in maintenance thereof, inasmuch as every man is towards himself and them whom he greatly affecteth partial; and therefore that strifes and troubles would be endless, except they gave their com mon consent all to be ordered by some whom they should agree upon without which consent there was no reason that

one man should take upon him to be lord or judge over another. Because, although there be according to the opinion of some very great and judicious men a kind of natural right in the noble, wise, and virtuous, to govern them which are of servile disposition, nevertheless for manifestation of this their right, and men's more peaceable contentment on both sides, the assent of them who are to be governed seemeth necessary.

To fathers within their private families nature hath given a supreme power; for which cause we see throughout the world, even from the foundation thereof, all men have ever been taken as lords and lawful kings in their own houses. Howbeit over a whole grand multitude having no such dependency upon any one, and consisting of so many families as every politic society in the world doth, impossible it is that any should have complete lawful power, but by consent of men, or immediate appointment of God: because not having the natural superiority of fathers, their power must needs be either usurped, and then unlawful; or, if lawful, then either granted or consented unto by them over whom they exercise the same, or else given extraordinarily from God, unto whom all the world is subject. It is no improbable opinion, therefore, which the Arch-philosopher was of, that as the chiefest person in every household was always as it were a king, so when numbers of households joined themselves in civil society together, kings were the first kind of governors amongst them. Which is also (as it seemeth) the reason why the name of Father continued still in them, who of fathers were made rulers; as also the ancient custom of governors to do as Melchisedec, and being kings to exercise the office of priests, which fathers did at the first, grew perhaps by the same occasion.

Howbeit not this the only kind of regiment that hath been received in the world. The inconveniences of one kind have caused sundry other to be devised. So that in a word all public regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have risen from deliberate advice, consultation, and composition between men, judging it convenient and behoveful; there being no impossibility in nature considered by itself, but that men might have lived without any public regiment. Howbeit, the corruption of our nature being presupposed, we may not deny but that the law of nature doth now require of necessity some kind of regiment; so that to bring things unto the first course they were in, and utterly to take away all kind of public government in the world, were apparently to overturn the whole world.

The case of man's nature standing therefore as it doth, some kind of regiment the law of nature doth require; yet the kinds thereof being many, nature tieth not to any one, but leaveth the choice as a thing arbitrary. At the first when some certain kind of regiment was once approved, it may be that nothing was then further thought upon for the matter of governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom and discretion which were to rule; till by experience they found this for all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy did indeed but increase the sore which it should have cured. They saw that to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery. This constrained them to come unto laws, wherein all men might see their duties beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. If things be simply good or evil, and withal universally so acknowledged, there needs no new law to be made for such things. The first kind therefore of things appointed by laws human containeth whatsoever, being in itself naturally good or evil, is notwithstanding more secret than that it can be discerned by every man's present conceit, without some deeper discourse and judgment. In which discourse because

there is difficulty and possibility many ways to err, unless such things were set down by laws, many would be ignorant of their duties which now are not, and many that know what they should do would nevertheless dissemble it, and to excuse themselves pretend ignorance and simplicity, which now they

cannot.

And because the greatest part of men are such as prefer their own private good before all things, even that good which is sensual before whatsoever is most divine; and for that the labour of doing good, together with the pleasure arising from the contrary, doth make men for the most part slower to the one and proner to the other, than that duty prescribed them by law can prevail sufficiently with them: therefore unto laws that men do make for the benefit of men

it hath seemed always needful to add rewards, which may more allure unto good than any hardness deterreth from it, and punishments, which may more deter from evil than any sweetness thereto allureth. Wherein as the generality is natural, Virtue rewardable and vice punishable; so the particular determination of the reward or punishment belongeth unto them by whom laws are made. Theft is naturally punishable, but the kind of punishment is positive, and such lawful as men shall think with discretion convenient by law to appoint.

In laws, that which is natural bindeth universally, that which is positive not so. To let go those kind of positive laws which men impose upon themselves, as by vow unto God, contract with men, or such like; somewhat it will make unto our purpose, a little more fully to consider what things are incident into the making of the positive laws for the government of them that live united in public society. Laws do not only teach what is good, but they enjoin it, they have in them a certain constraining force. And to constrain men unto any thing inconvenient doth seem unreasonable. Most requisite, therefore, it is that to devise laws which all men shall be forced to obey none but wise men be admitted. Laws are matters of principal consequence; men of common capacity and but ordinary judgment are not able (for how should they) to discern what things are fittest for each kind and state of regiment. We cannot be ignorant how much our obedience unto laws dependeth upon this point. Let a man though never so justly oppose himself unto them that are disordered in their ways, and what one amongst them commonly doth not stomach at such contradiction, storm at reproof, and hate such as would reform them? Notwithstanding even they which brook it worst that men should tell them of their duties, when they are told the same by a law, think very well and reasonably of it. For why? They presume that the law doth speak with all indifferency; that the law hath no side-respect to their persons; that the law is as it were an oracle proceeded from wisdom and understanding.

Howbeit laws do not take their constraining force from the quality of such that devise them, but from that power which doth give them the strength of laws. That which we spake before concerning the power of government must here be applied unto the power of making laws whereby to govern; which power God hath over all: and by the natural law, whereunto He hath made all subject, the lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth to exercise the same of himself, and not either by express commission immediately and personally received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny.