London: W. Stansby for H. Fetherstone, 1617 [i.e. 1618]
G8 [Hooker] fol. SR
The Anglican church under Elizabeth I came under attack both from Roman Catholics and from Presbyterians, seeming to undermine its very survival. For Richard Hooker (1551-1600), attacks on the Anglican church threatened the whole order of English society, because public worship determined social behaviour and affected the whole range of common life. His weighty folio Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie is the classic answer to criticism, which within twenty years of its first publication (1593-1597 for the first five books) was already being read as a monument. In it Hooker described and defended Elizabethan Anglicanism, including forms of worship, in greater depth than any previous treatment. While other writers surpassed Hooker in spirituality or in their subtle development of particular themes, Hooker’s work covering eternal, celestial and natural laws remained the one systematic and intelligible justification of the entire range of Anglican belief and worship. It is the first major work in the fields of theology, philosophy and political thought to be written in English, and it added a new dimension to Reformation debate by carrying disputed issues back to first principles. The book was written partly in Watling Street, and Hooker used Archbishop Whitgift’s library at Lambeth Palace.