“The Cause of Writing This General Discourse Concerning Laws”

Chapter 1 of Book 1 in

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

By Richard Hooker

1594

[Hooker, Richard. “Concerning Laws and Their Several Kinds in General.” Book 1 in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. In Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Arranged by the Rev. John Keble MA. 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). 3 vols. Vol. 1. The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/921. In the public domain. Some modernized vocabulary and contructions have been substituted in the text by the Witherspoon Institute.]

Within the text, numbers within brackets indicate the page divisions of the 1888 edition from which this text was taken; prose within text are insertions of the Witherspoon Institute to supply words required by modern English usage. In places the Witherspoon Institute has modernized archaic or obsolete vocabulary or constructions in Hooker’s text. In cases where the changes are very basic and risk no alteration to the original meaning of the text (such as changing “whereof” to “of which”  and “saith” to “says”) there is no notation in the text; changes to more substantive vocabulary are noted with footnotes that show the original word that Hooker used.

Within the footnotes, text not within brackets are Hooker’s original notes; text within single brackets is supplied by the Witherspoon Institute; text within double brackets (that is, [[ ]] ) is supplied by the editors of the 1888 edition. 

Chapter 1: The cause of writing this general Discourse concerning Laws.

. . .

[3.] The Laws of the Church, whereby for so many ages together we have been guided in the exercise of Christian religion and the service of the true God, our rites, customs, and orders of ecclesiastical government, are called in question: we are accused as men that will not have Christ Jesus to rule over them, but have wilfully cast his statutes behind their backs, hating to be reformed and made subject to the sceptre of his discipline. Behold therefore we offer the laws whereby we live to the general trial and judgment of the whole world; heartily beseeching Almighty God, whom we desire to serve according to his own will, that both we [200] and others (all kind of partial affection being clean laid aside) may have eyes to see and hearts to embrace the things that in his sight are most acceptable.

And because the point about which we strive is the quality of our laws, our first entrance hereinto cannot better be made, than with consideration of the nature of law in general, and of that law which gives life to all the rest, which are commendable, just, and good; namely the law whereby the Eternal himself does work. Proceeding from hence to the law, first of Nature, then of Scripture, we shall have the easier access to those things which come after to be debated, concerning the particular cause and question which we have in hand.

“Of That Law Which God from before the Beginning Has Set for Himself to Do All Things By”

Chapter 2 of Book 1 in

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

By Richard Hooker

1594

[Hooker, Richard. “Concerning Laws and Their Several Kinds in General.” Book 1 in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. In Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Arranged by the Rev. John Keble MA. 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). 3 vols. Vol. 1. The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/921. In the public domain. Some modernized vocabulary and contructions have been substituted in the text by the Witherspoon Institute.]

Within the text, numbers within brackets indicate the page divisions of the 1888 edition from which this text was taken; prose within text are insertions of the Witherspoon Institute to supply words required by modern English usage. In places the Witherspoon Institute has modernized archaic or obsolete vocabulary or constructions in Hooker’s text. In cases where the changes are very basic and risk no alteration to the original meaning of the text (such as changing “whereof” to “of which”  and “saith” to “says”) there is no notation in the text; changes to more substantive vocabulary are noted with footnotes that show the original word that Hooker used.

Within the footnotes, text not within brackets are Hooker’s original notes; text within single brackets is supplied by the Witherspoon Institute; text within double brackets (that is, [[ ]] ) is supplied by the editors of the 1888 edition. 

Chapter 2: Of that law which God from before the beginning has set for himself to do all things by.

[1.] All things that are, have some operation not violent or by chance[1]. Neither does anything ever begin to exercise the same, without some fore-conceived end for which it works. And the end which it works for is not obtained, unless the work be also fit to obtain it by. For unto every end every operation will not serve. That which does assign to each thing the kind, that which does moderate the force and power, that which does appoint the form and measure, of working, the same we term a Law. So that no certain end could ever be attained, unless the actions by which it is attained were regular; that is to say, made suitable, fit and correspondent to their end, by some canon, rule or law. This thing does first take place in the works even of God himself.

[2.] All things therefore do work after a sort, according to law: all other things according to a law, of which some superior, to whom they are subject, is author; only the works and operations of God have Him both for their worker, and for the law by which they are wrought. The being of God is a kind of law to his working: for that perfection which God is, gives perfection to that which he does. Those natural, necessary, and internal operations of God, the Generation of the Son, the Proceeding of the Spirit, are outside the compass of my present intent: which is to touch only such operations as have their beginning and being by a voluntary purpose, with which God has eternally decreed when and how they should be. This eternal decree is that which we term an eternal law.

[201]

. . .

[3.] The wise and learned among the very heathens themselves have all acknowledged some First Cause, upon which originally the being of all things depends. Neither have they otherwise spoken of that cause than as an Agent, which knowing what and why it works, observes in working a most exact order or law. This much is signified by that which Homer mentions, Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή (Jupiter’s counsel was accomplished). Thus [202] much acknowledged by Mercurius Trismegistus, Τὸν πάντα κόσμον ἐποίησεν ὁ δημιουργὸς οὐ χερσὶν ἀλλὰ λόγῳ (The Creator made the whole world not by hands but by reason). This much is confessed by Anaxagoras and Plato, terming the Maker of the world an intellectual Worker. Finally the Stoics, although imagining the first cause of all things to be fire, held nevertheless, that the same fire having art, did ὁδῷ βαδίζειν ἐπὶ γενέσει κόσμου (proceed by a certain and a set Way in the making of the world). They all confess therefore in the working of that first cause, that Counsel is used, Reason followed, a Way observed; that is to say, constant Order and Law is kept; of which this cause must necessarily be the author for itself. Otherwise it would have some worthier and higher being to direct it, and so could not itself be the first. Being the first, it can have no other than itself to be the author of that law which it willingly works by.

God therefore is a law both to himself, and to all other things besides. To himself he is a law in all those things, of which our Saviour speaks, saying, “My Father works as yet, so I” (John 5:17). God works nothing without cause. All those things which are done by him have some end for which they are done; and the end for which they are done is a reason of his will to do them. His will would not have inclined to create woman, unless he had seen it could not be well if she were not created. Non est bonum, “It is not good man should be alone; therefore let us make a helper for him” (Gen. 2:18). That and nothing else is done by God, which would not be as good to leave undone.

If therefore it be demanded, why God having infinite power and ability, the effects notwithstanding of that power are all so limited as we see they are: the reason for this is the end which he has proposed, and the law by which his wisdom has stinted the effects of his power in such sort, that it does not work infinitely, but correspondently to that end for which it works, even “all things χρηστῶς, [203] in most decent and comely sort,” all things in “Measure, Number, and Weight” (Wis. 8:1, 11:20).

[4.] The general end of God’s external working is the exercise of his most glorious and most abundant power[2]. Which abundance does show itself in variety, and for that cause this variety is oftentimes in Scripture expressed by the name of riches (Eph. 1:7; Phil. 4:19; Col. 2:3). “The Lord has made all things for his own sake” (Prov. 16:4). Not that anything is made to be beneficial to him, but all things for him to show beneficence and grace in them.

The particular drift of every act proceeding externally from God we are not able to discern, and therefore cannot always give the proper and certain reason of his works. Nevertheless undoubtedly there is a proper and certain reason for 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.

[5.] They err therefore who think that there is no reason of the will of God to do this or that besides his will. Many times [there is] no reason known to us; but that there is no reason thereof I judge it most unreasonable to imagine, inasmuch as he works all things κατὰ τὴν βουλὴν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ, not only according to his own will, but “the Counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11). And whatsoever is done with counsel or wise resolution has of necessity some reason why it should be done, even though that reason be to us in some things so secret, that it forces the mind[3] of man to stand, as the blessed Apostle himself does, amazed thereat: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments,” etc. (Rom. 11:33). That law eternal which God himself has made for himself, and by which he works all things of which he is the cause and author; that law in the admirable frame of which shines with most perfect beauty the countenance of that wisdom which has testified concerning herself, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, even before his works of old I was set up” (Prov. 8:22); that law, which has been the pattern to make, and is the card[4] [204] to guide the world by; that law which has been of God and with God everlastingly; that law, the author and observer of which is one only God to be blessed forever: how should either men or angels be able perfectly to behold? The book of this law we are neither able nor worthy to open and look into. That little of it which we darkly apprehend we admire, the rest with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore.

[6.] Seeing therefore that according to this law He works, “of whom, through whom, and for whom, are all things” (Rom. 11:36); although there seem to us to be confusion and disorder in the affairs of this present world: “Tamen quoniam bonus mundum rector temperat, recte fieri cuncta ne dubites:” “let no man doubt but that every thing is well done, because the world is ruled by so good a guide,”[5] as transgresses not His own law, than which nothing can be more absolute, perfect, and just.

The law whereby He works is eternal, and therefore can have no show or colour of mutability: for which cause, a part of that law being opened in the promises which God has made (because his promises are nothing else but declarations of what God will do for the good of men), touching those promises the Apostle has witnessed, that God may as possibly “deny himself” (2 Tim. 2:13) and not be God, as fail to perform them. And concerning the counsel of God, he terms it likewise a thing “unchangeable” (Heb. 4:17); the counsel of God, and that law of God of which now we speak, being one.

Nor is the freedom of the will of God any whit abated, impeded[6] or hindered, by means of this; because the imposition of this law upon himself is his own free and voluntary act.

This law therefore we may name eternal, being “that order which God before all ages has set down with himself, for himself to do all things by.”

“The Law Which Natural Agents Have Given Them to Observe, and Their Necessary Manner of Keeping It”

Chapter 3 of Book 1 in

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

By Richard Hooker

1594

[Hooker, Richard. “Concerning Laws and Their Several Kinds in General.” Book 1 in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. In Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Arranged by the Rev. John Keble MA. 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). 3 vols. Vol. 1. The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/921. In the public domain. Some modernized vocabulary and contructions have been substituted in the text by the Witherspoon Institute.]

Within the text, numbers within brackets indicate the page divisions of the 1888 edition from which this text was taken; prose within text are insertions of the Witherspoon Institute to supply words required by modern English usage. In places the Witherspoon Institute has modernized archaic or obsolete vocabulary or constructions in Hooker’s text. In cases where the changes are very basic and risk no alteration to the original meaning of the text (such as changing “whereof” to “of which”  and “saith” to “says”) there is no notation in the text; changes to more substantive vocabulary are noted with footnotes that show the original word that Hooker used.

Within the footnotes, text not within brackets are Hooker’s original notes; text within single brackets is supplied by the Witherspoon Institute; text within double brackets (that is, [[ ]] ) is supplied by the editors of the 1888 edition. 

Chapter 3: The law which natural agents have given them to observe, and their necessary manner of keeping it.

[1.] I am not ignorant that by “law eternal” the learned for the most part do understand the order, not which God has eternally purposed himself in all his works to observe, [205] but rather that which with himself he has set down as expedient to be kept by all his creatures, according to the several conditions with which he has endowed them. They who thus are accustomed to speak apply the name of Law only to that rule of working which superior authority imposes; whereas we somewhat more enlarging the sense of it term any kind of rule or canon, by which actions are framed, a law. Now that law which, as it is laid up in the bosom of God, they call Eternal, receives according to the different kinds of things which are subject to it different and sundry kinds of names. That part of it which orders natural agents we call usually Nature’s law; that which Angels do clearly behold and without any swerving observe is a law Celestial and heavenly; the law of Reason, that which binds creatures reasonable in this world, and with which by reason they may most plainly perceive themselves bound; that which binds them, and is not known but by special revelation from God, Divine law; Human law, that which out of the law either of reason or of God men gathering to be probably expedient, they make it a law. All things therefore, which are as they ought to be, are conformed to this second law eternal; and even those things which to this eternal law are not conformable are notwithstanding in some sort ordered by the first eternal law. For what good or evil is there under the sun, what action correspondent or repugnant to the law which God has imposed upon his creatures, but in or upon it God does work according to the law which he himself has eternally purposed to keep; that is to say, the first law eternal? So that a twofold law eternal being thus made, it is not hard to conceive how they both take place in all things.[1]

[206]

[2.] Wherefore to come to the law of nature: although by it we sometimes mean that manner of working which God has set for each created thing to keep; yet inasmuch as those things are termed most properly natural agents, which keep the law of their kind unwittingly, as the heavens and elements of the world, which cannot do otherwise than they do; and inasmuch as we give to intellectual natures the name of Voluntary agents, that so we may distinguish them from the other; expedient it will be, that we sever the law of nature observed by the one from that which the other is tied to. Touching the former, their strict keeping of one tenure, statute, and law, is spoken of by all, but has in it more than men have as yet attained to know, or perhaps ever shall attain, seeing the travail of wading herein is given of God to the sons of men, that perceiving how much the least thing in the world has in it more than the wisest are able to reach to, they may by this means learn humility. Moses, in describing the work of creation, attributes speech to God: “God said, Let there be light: let there be a firmament: let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place: let the earth bring forth: let there be lights in the firmament of heaven.” Was only this the intent of Moses, to signify the infinite greatness of God’s power by the easiness of his accomplishing such effects, without travail, pain, or labour? Surely it seems that Moses had herein besides this a further purpose, namely, first to teach that God did not work as a [207] necessary but a voluntary agent, intending beforehand and decreeing with himself that which did outwardly proceed from him: secondly, to show that God did then institute a natural law to be observed by creatures, and therefore according to the manner of laws, the institution of it is described, as being established by solemn injunction. His commanding those things to be which are, and to be in such sort as they are, to keep that tenure and course which they do, imports the establishment of nature’s law. This world’s first creation, and the preservation since of things created, what is it but only so far forth a manifestation by execution, what the eternal law of God is concerning things natural? And as it comes to pass in a kingdom rightly ordered, that after a law is once published, it presently takes effect far and wide, all states framing themselves to it; even so let us think it fares in the natural course of the world: since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of his law upon it, heaven and earth have hearkened to his voice, and their labour has been to do his will: He “made a law for the rain” [Job 28:26]; He gave his “decree to the sea, that the waters should not pass his commandment” [Jer. 5:22]. Now if nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether though it were but for a while the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, of which all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular rotation[2] turn themselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now as a giant does run his unwearied course (Ps. 19:5), should as it were through a languishing faintness begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be deprived[3] of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away as children at the withered breasts of their mother no longer [208] able to yield them relief: what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve? See we not plainly that obedience of creatures to the law of nature is the stay of the whole world?

[3.] Notwithstanding[,] with nature it comes sometimes to pass as with art. Let Phidias[4] have rude and obstinate stuff to carve, though his art do that it should, his work will lack that beauty which otherwise in fitter matter it might have had. He that strikes an instrument with skill may cause notwithstanding a very unpleasant sound, if the string on which he strikes chance to be incapable of harmony. In the matter of which things natural consist, that of Theophrastus takes place, Πολὺ τὸ οὐχ ὑπακοῦον οὐδὲ δεχόμενον τὸ εὖ. “Much of it is oftentimes such as will by no means yield to receive that impression which would be best and most perfect.”[5] Which defect in the matter of things natural, they who gave themselves to the contemplation of nature among the heathen observed often: but the true original cause of it, divine malediction, laid for the sin of man upon these creatures which God had made for the use of man, this being an article of that saving truth which God has revealed to his Church, was above the reach of their merely natural [209] capacity and understanding. But however 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 denies that those things which nature works are wrought, either always or for the most part, after one and the same manner.[6]

[4.] If here it be demanded what that is which keeps nature in obedience to her own law, we must have recourse to that higher law of which we have already spoken, and because all other laws do depend on it, from thence we must borrow so much as shall be necessary for brief resolution in this point. Although we are not of opinion therefore, as some are, that nature in working has before her certain exemplary drafts or patterns, which subsisting in the bosom of the Highest, and being thence discovered, she fixes her eye upon them, as travellers by sea upon the pole-star of the world, and that according to them she guides her hand to work by imitation: although we rather embrace the oracle of Hippocrates, that “each thing both in small and in great fulfills the task which destiny has set down;” and concerning the manner of executing and fulfilling the same, “what they do they know not, yet is it in show and appearance as though they did know what they do; and the truth is they do not discern the things which they look on:” nevertheless, inasmuch as the works of nature are no less exact, than if she did both behold and study how to express some absolute shape or mirror always present before her; yea, such her dexterity and skill appears, that no intellectual creature in the world could by [mental] capacity do that which nature does without [mental] capacity and knowledge; it cannot be that nature has not some director of infinite knowledge to guide her in all her ways. Who [is] the guide of nature, but only the God of nature? “In him we live, move, and are” (Acts 17:28). Those things which nature is said to do, are by divine art performed, [210] using nature as an instrument; nor is there any such art or knowledge divine in nature herself working, but in the Guide of nature’s work.

Whereas therefore natural things which are not in the number of voluntary agents, (for of such only we now speak, and of no other,) do so necessarily observe their certain laws, that as long as they keep those forms[7] which give them their being, they cannot possibly be apt or inclinable to do otherwise than they do; seeing the kinds of their operations are both constantly and exactly fashioned[8] according to the several ends for which they serve, they themselves in the meanwhile, though doing that which is fit, yet knowing neither what they do, nor why: it follows that all which they do in this sort proceeds originally from some such agent, as knows, appoints, holds up, and even actually fashions the same.

The manner of this divine efficiency, being far above us, we are no more able to conceive by our reason than unreasonable creatures by their sense are able to apprehend after what manner we dispose and order the course of our affairs. Only thus much is discerned, that the natural generation and process of all things receives order of proceeding from the settled stability of divine understanding. This appoints to them their kinds of working; the disposition of which in the purity of God’s own knowledge and will is rightly termed by the name of Providence. The same being referred to the things themselves here disposed by it, was wont by the ancient to be called natural Destiny. That law, the performance of which we behold in natural things, is as it were a prototypical[9] or an original draft written in the bosom of God himself; whose Spirit when he executes the same uses every particular nature, every mere natural agent, only as an instrument created at the beginning, and ever since the beginning used, to work his own will and pleasure with. Nature therefore is nothing else but God’s instrument:[10] in the course of which [pseudo-]Dionysius [the Areopagite] perceiving [211] some sudden disturbance is said to have cried out, “Aut Deus naturæ patitur, aut mundi machina dissolvetur:” “either God does suffer impediment, and is by a greater than himself hindered; or if that be impossible, then has he determined to make a present dissolution of the world; the execution of that law beginning now to stand still, without which the world cannot stand.”

This workman, whose servitor nature is, being in truth but only one, the heathens imagining to be more, gave him in the sky the name of Jupiter, in the air the name of Juno, in the water the name of Neptune, in the earth the name of Vesta and sometimes of Ceres, the name of Apollo in the sun, in the moon the name of Diana, the name of Æolus and divers other in the winds; and to conclude, even so many guides of nature they dreamed of, as they saw there were kinds of natural things in the world. These they honoured, as having power to work or cease accordingly as men deserved of them. But to us there is one only Guide of all agents natural, and he both the Creator and the Worker of all in all, alone to be blessed, adored and honoured by all forever.

[5.] That which hitherto has been spoken concerns natural agents considered in themselves. But we must further remember also, (which thing to touch in a word shall suffice,) that as in this respect they have their law, which law directs them in the means by which they tend to their own perfection: so likewise another law there is, which touches them as they are sociable parts united into one body; a law which binds them each to serve another’s good, and all to prefer the good of the whole before whatever their own particular; as we plainly see they do, when natural things in that regard forget their ordinary natural wont; that which is heavy mounting sometime upwards of [212] its own accord, and forsaking the centre of the earth which to itself is most natural, even as if it did hear itself commanded to let go the good it privately wishes, and to relieve the present distress of nature in common.

“The Law Whereby Man Is in His Actions Directed to the Imitation of God”

Chapter 5 of Book 1 in

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

By Richard Hooker

1594

[Hooker, Richard. “Concerning Laws and Their Several Kinds in General.” Book 1 in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. In Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Arranged by the Rev. John Keble MA. 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). 3 vols. Vol. 1. The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/921. In the public domain. Some modernized vocabulary and contructions have been substituted in the text by the Witherspoon Institute.]

Within the text, numbers within brackets indicate the page divisions of the 1888 edition from which this text was taken; prose within text are insertions of the Witherspoon Institute to supply words required by modern English usage. In places the Witherspoon Institute has modernized archaic or obsolete vocabulary or constructions in Hooker’s text. In cases where the changes are very basic and risk no alteration to the original meaning of the text (such as changing “whereof” to “of which”  and “saith” to “says”) there is no notation in the text; changes to more substantive vocabulary are noted with footnotes that show the original word that Hooker used.

Within the footnotes, text not within brackets are Hooker’s original notes; text within single brackets is supplied by the Witherspoon Institute; text within double brackets (that is, [[ ]] ) is supplied by the editors of the 1888 edition. 

[215]

. . .

Chapter 5: The law whereby man is in his actions directed to the imitation of God

[1.] God alone excepted, who actually and everlastingly is whatever he may be, and which cannot hereafter be that which now he is not; all other things besides are somewhat in possibility, which as yet they are not in act. And for this cause there is in all things an appetite or desire, whereby they incline to something which they may be; and when they are it, they shall be more perfect than now they are. All which perfections are contained under the general name of Goodness. And because there is not in the world anything by which another may not some way be made the more perfect, therefore all things that are, are good.

[2.] Again, since there can be no goodness desired which proceeds not from God himself, as from the supreme cause of all things; and every effect does after a sort contain, at leastwise resemble, the cause from which it proceeds: all things in the world are said in some sort to seek the highest, and to covet more or less the participation of God himself.[1] Yet this does nowhere so much appear as it does in man, because there are so many kinds of perfections which man seeks. The first degree of goodness is that general perfection which all things do seek, in desiring the continuance of their being. All things therefore coveting as much as may be to be like unto God in being always, that which cannot to this [216] attain personally does seek to continue itself another way, that is by offspring and propagation. The next degree of goodness is that which each thing covets by affecting resemblance with God in the constancy and excellency of those operations which belong to their kind. The immutability of God they strive to, by working either always or for the most part after one and the same manner; his absolute exactness they imitate, by tending to that which is most exquisite in every particular. Hence have risen a number of axioms in philosophy, showing how “the works of nature do always aim at that which cannot be bettered.” [2]

[3.] These two kinds of goodness rehearsed are so nearly united to the things themselves which desire them, that we scarcely perceive the appetite to stir in reaching forth her hand towards them. But the desire of those perfections which grow externally is more apparent; especially of such as are not expressly desired unless they be first known, or such as are not for any other cause than for knowledge itself desired. Concerning perfections in this kind; that by proceeding in the knowledge of truth, and by growing in the exercise of virtue, man among the creatures of this inferior world aspires to the greatest conformity with God; this is not only known to us, whom he himself has so instructed,[3] but even they do acknowledge, who among men are not judged the nearest to him. With Plato what one thing [is] more usual, than to excite men to the love of wisdom, by showing how much wise men are thereby exalted above men; how knowledge does raise them up into heaven; how it makes them, though not gods, yet as gods, high, admirable, and divine? And Mercurius Trismegistus speaking of the virtues of a righteous soul, “Such spirits” (says he) “are never cloyed with praising and speaking well of all men, with doing good to everyone by word and deed, because they study to conform[4] themselves according to the pattern of the Father of spirits.”[5]

“Men’s First Beginning to Grow to the Knowledge of That Law Which They Are to Observe”

Chapter 6 of Book 1 in

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

By Richard Hooker

1594

[Hooker, Richard. “Concerning Laws and Their Several Kinds in General.” Book 1 in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. In Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Arranged by the Rev. John Keble MA. 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). 3 vols. Vol. 1. The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/921. In the public domain. Some modernized vocabulary and contructions have been substituted in the text by the Witherspoon Institute.]

Within the text, numbers within brackets indicate the page divisions of the 1888 edition from which this text was taken; prose within text are insertions of the Witherspoon Institute to supply words required by modern English usage. In places the Witherspoon Institute has modernized archaic or obsolete vocabulary or constructions in Hooker’s text. In cases where the changes are very basic and risk no alteration to the original meaning of the text (such as changing “whereof” to “of which”  and “saith” to “says”) there is no notation in the text; changes to more substantive vocabulary are noted with footnotes that show the original word that Hooker used.

Within the footnotes, text not within brackets are Hooker’s original notes; text within single brackets is supplied by the Witherspoon Institute; text within double brackets (that is, [[ ]] ) is supplied by the editors of the 1888 edition. 

[217]

Chapter 6: Men’s first beginning to grow to the knowledge of that law which they are to observe.  

[1.] In the matter of knowledge, there is between the angels of God and the children of men this difference: angels already have full and complete knowledge in the highest degree that can be imparted to them; men, if we view them [when they are newborns][1], are at the first without understanding or knowledge at all.[2] Nevertheless from this utter vacuity they grow by degrees, till they come at length to be even as the angels themselves are. That which agrees to the one now, the other shall attain to in the end; they are not so far disjoined and severed, but that they come at length to meet. The soul of man being therefore at the first as a book, wherein nothing is and yet all things may be imprinted; we are to search by what steps and degrees it rises to perfection of knowledge.

[2.] To that which has been already set down concerning natural agents this we must add, that although therein we have comprised as well creatures living as void of life, if they be in degree of nature beneath men; nevertheless a difference we must observe between those natural agents that work altogether unwittingly, and those which have though weak yet some understanding what they do, as fishes, fowls, and beasts have. Beasts are in sensible capacity as developed[3] even as men themselves, perhaps more developed. For as stones, though in dignity of nature inferior to plants, yet exceed them in firmness of strength or durability of being; and plants, though beneath the excellency of creatures endowed with sense, yet exceed them in the faculty of vegetation and of fertility: so beasts, though otherwise behind men, may notwithstanding in actions of sense and phantasy[4] go beyond them; because the endeavours of nature, when it has a higher perfection to seek, are in lower the more remiss, not esteeming thereof so much as those things do, which have no better proposed to them.

[3.] The soul of man therefore being capable of a more divine perfection, has (besides the faculties of growing to sensible knowledge which is common to us with beasts) a further ability, of which in them there is no show at all, the ability of reaching higher than to sensible things.[5] Till [218] we grow to some ripeness of years, the soul of man does only store itself with concepts[6] of things of inferior and more open quality, which afterwards do serve as instruments to that which is greater; in the meanwhile above the reach of meaner creatures it ascends not. When once it comprehends anything above this, as the differences of time, affirmations, negations, and contradictions in speech, we then count it to have some use of natural reason. To which if afterwards there might be added the right helps of true art and learning (which helps, I must plainly confess, this age of the world, carrying the name of a learned age, does neither much know nor greatly regard), there would undoubtedly be almost as great difference in maturity of judgment between men inured with them, and that which now men are, as between men that are now and innocents. Which speech if any condemn, as being over hyperbolical, let them consider but this one thing. No art is at the first finding out so perfect as industry may after make it. Yet the very first man that to any purpose knew the way we speak of[7] and followed it, has alone thereby performed more very near in all parts of natural knowledge, than since then in any one part thereof the whole world besides has done.

[4.] In the poverty of that other new devised aid[8] two [219] things there are notwithstanding singular. Of marvellous quick dispatch it is, and does show them that have it as much almost in three days, as if it dwell threescore years with them. Again, because the curiosity of man’s mind[9] does many times with peril wade farther in the search of things than would be convenient; the same is thereby restrained to such generalities as everywhere offering themselves are apparent to men of the weakest intelligence[10] that need be. So as following the rules and precepts thereof, we may define it to be, an Art which teaches the way of speedy discourse, and restrains the mind of man that it may not wax over-wise.

[5.] Education and instruction are the means, the one by use, the other by precept, to make our natural faculty of reason both the better and the sooner able to judge rightly between truth and error, good and evil. But at what time a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of reason, as suffices to make him capable of those Laws, whereby he is then bound to guide his actions; this is a great deal more easy for common sense to discern, than for any man by skill and learning to determine; even as it is not in philosophers, who best know the nature both of fire and of gold, to teach what degree of the one will serve to purify the other, so well as the artisan, who does this by fire, discerns by sense when the fire has that degree of heat which suffices for his purpose.

“Of Man’s Will, Which Is the Thing that Laws of Action Are Made to Guide”

Chapter 7 of Book 1 in

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

By Richard Hooker

1594

[Hooker, Richard. “Concerning Laws and Their Several Kinds in General.” Book 1 in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. In Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Arranged by the Rev. John Keble MA. 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). 3 vols. Vol. 1. The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/921. In the public domain. Some modernized vocabulary and contructions have been substituted in the text by the Witherspoon Institute.]

Within the text, numbers within brackets indicate the page divisions of the 1888 edition from which this text was taken; prose within text are insertions of the Witherspoon Institute to supply words required by modern English usage. In places the Witherspoon Institute has modernized archaic or obsolete vocabulary or constructions in Hooker’s text. In cases where the changes are very basic and risk no alteration to the original meaning of the text (such as changing “whereof” to “of which”  and “saith” to “says”) there is no notation in the text; changes to more substantive vocabulary are noted with footnotes that show the original word that Hooker used.

Within the footnotes, text not within brackets are Hooker’s original notes; text within single brackets is supplied by the Witherspoon Institute; text within double brackets (that is, [[ ]] ) is supplied by the editors of the 1888 edition. 

Chapter 7: Of man’s Will, which is the thing that Laws of action are made to guide 

By reason man attains to the knowledge of things that are and are not sensible. It remains therefore that we search how man attains to the knowledge of such things unsensible as are to be known that they may be done. Seeing then that nothing can move unless there be [220] some end, the desire of which provokes to motion; how should that divine power of the soul, that “spirit of our mind” (Eph. 4:23) as the apostle terms it, ever stir itself to action, unless it have also the like spur? The end for which we are moved to work, is sometimes the goodness which we conceive of the very working itself, without any further respect at all; and the cause that procures action is the mere desire of action, no other good besides being thereby intended. Of certain turbulent minds[1] it is said, “Illis quieta movere magna merces videbatur:” they thought the very disturbance of things established a hire sufficient to set them on work.[2] Sometimes that which we do is referred to a further end, without the desire of which we would leave the same undone; as in the actions of them that gave alms to purchase thereby the praise of men.[3]

[2.] Man in perfection of nature being made according to the likeness of his Maker resembles him also in the manner of working: so that whatever we work as men, the same we do wittingly work and freely; neither are we according to the manner of natural agents any way so tied, that it is not in our power to leave the things we do undone. The good which either is gotten by doing, or which consists in the very doing itself, causes not action, unless apprehending it as good we so like and desire it: that we do to any such end, the same we choose and prefer instead of leaving it undone[4]. Choice there is not, unless the thing which we take be so in our power that we might have refused and left it. If fire consume the stubble, it chooses not so to do, because the nature of it is such that it can do no other. To choose is to will one thing before another. And to will is to bend our souls to the having or doing of that which they see to be good. Goodness is seen with the eye of the understanding. And the light of that eye, is reason. So that two principal fountains there are of human action, Knowledge and Will; which Will, in things tending towards any end, is termed Choice. Concerning Knowledge, “Behold, (says Moses,) I have set before you this day good and evil, life and death.” Concerning Will, he adds [221] immediately, “Choose life;” that is to say, the things that tend to life, them choose. (Deut. 30:19)

[3.] But of one thing we must have special care, as being a matter of no small moment; and that is, how the Will, properly and strictly taken, as it is of things which are referred to the end that man desires, differs greatly from that inferior natural desire which we call Appetite. The object of Appetite is whatever sensible good may be wished for; the object of Will is that good which Reason does lead us to seek. Affections, as joy, and grief, and fear, and anger, with such like, being as it were the sundry fashions and forms of Appetite, can neither rise at the thought[5] of a thing indifferent, nor yet choose but rise at the sight of some things. Wherefore it is not altogether in our power, whether we will be stirred with affections or no: whereas actions which issue from the disposition of the Will are in the power thereof to be performed or stayed. Finally, Appetite is the Will’s solicitor, and the Will is Appetite’s controller; what we covet according to the one by the other we often reject; neither is any other desire termed properly Will, but that where Reason and Understanding, or the show of Reason, prescribes the thing desired.

It may be therefore a question, whether those operations of men are to be counted voluntary, in which that good which is sensible provokes Appetite, and Appetite causes action, Reason being never called to counsel; as when we eat or drink, and betake ourselves to rest, and such like. The truth is, that such actions in men having attained to the use of Reason are voluntary. For as the authority of higher powers has force even in those things, which are done without their knowledge[6], and are of so mean reckoning that to acquaint them therewith is not necessary; in like sort, voluntarily we are said to do that also, which the Will if it wished[7] might hinder from being done, although about the doing thereof we do not expressly use our reason or understanding, and so immediately apply our wills thereto. In cases therefore of such facility, the Will does yield her assent as it were with a kind of silence, by not dissenting; in which respect her force is not so apparent as in express mandates or prohibitions, especially upon advice and consultation going before.

[222]

[4.] Where understanding therefore is necessary[8], in those things Reason is the director of man’s Will by discovering in action what is good. For the Laws of well-doing are the dictates of right Reason. Children, which are not as yet come to those years at which they may have; again, innocents, which are excluded by natural defect from ever having; thirdly, madmen, which for the present cannot possibly have the use of right Reason to guide themselves, have for their guide the Reason that guides other men, which are tutors over them to seek and to procure their good for them. In the rest there is that light of Reason, by which good may be known from evil, and which when it discovers good rightly terms it right[9].

[5.] The Will notwithstanding does not incline to have or do that which Reason teaches to be good, unless the same does also teach it to be possible. For although the Appetite, being more general, may wish anything which seems good, be it never so impossible;[10] yet for such things the reasonable Will of man does never seek. Let Reason teach impossibility in anything, and the Will of man does let it go; a thing impossible it does not affect, the impossibility thereof being manifest.

[6.] There is in the Will of man naturally that freedom, by which it is apt to take or refuse any particular object whatever being presented to it. Whereupon it follows, [223] that there is no particular object so good, [that] it may [not] have the show of some difficulty or unpleasant quality annexed to it, in respect of which the Will may shrink and decline it; contrariwise (for so things are blended) there is no particular evil which has not some appearance of goodness by which to insinuate itself. For evil as evil cannot be desired: if that be desired which is evil, the cause is the goodness which is or seems to be joined with it.[11] Goodness does not move by being, but by being apparent; and therefore many things are neglected which are most precious, only because the value of them lies hid. Sensible Goodness is most apparent, near, and present; which causes the Appetite to be therewith strongly provoked. Now pursuit and refusal in the Will do follow, the one the affirmation the other the negation of goodness, which the understanding apprehends, grounding itself upon sense, unless some higher Reason do chance to teach the contrary. And if Reason have taught it rightly to be good, yet not so apparently that the mind receives it with utter impossibility of being otherwise, still there is place left for the Will to take or leave. Whereas therefore among so many things as are to be done, there are so few, the goodness of which Reason in such sort does or easily can discover, we are not to marvel at the choice of evil even then when the contrary is probably known. Hereby it comes to pass that custom inuring the mind by long practice, and so leaving there a sensible impression, prevails more than reasonable [224] persuasion in whatever way. Reason therefore may rightly discern the thing which is good, and yet the Will of man not incline itself thereto, as oft as the prejudice of sensible experience does oversway.

[7.] Nor let any man think that this does make anything for the just excuse of iniquity. For there was never sin committed, in which a less good was not preferred before a greater, and that willfully; which cannot be done without the singular disgrace of Nature, and the utter disturbance of that divine order, by which the preeminence of highest acceptance[12] is by the best things worthily challenged. There is no good which concerns us but has evidence enough for itself, if Reason were diligent to search it out. Through neglect thereof, abused we are with the show of that which is not; sometimes the subtilty of Satan inveigling us as it did Eve,[13] sometimes the hastiness of our Wills preventing the more considerate advice of sound Reason, as in the Apostles,[14] when they no sooner saw what they liked not, but they forthwith were desirous of fire from heaven; sometimes the very custom of evil making the heart obdurate against whatever instructions to the contrary, as in them over whom our Saviour spoke weeping, “O Jerusalem, how often, and thou wouldest not!” (Matt. 23:37). Still therefore that with which we stand blameable, and can no way excuse it, is, In doing evil, we prefer a less good before a greater, the greatness whereof is by reason investigable and may be known. The search of knowledge is a thing painful; and the painfulness of knowledge is that which makes the Will so hardly inclinable thereto. The root of this, divine malediction; by which the instruments being weakened with which the soul (especially in reasoning) does work, it prefers rest in ignorance before wearisome labour to know.[15] For a spur of diligence therefore we have a natural thirst after knowledge ingrafted in us. But by reason of that original weakness in the instruments, without which the understanding part is not [225] able in this world by discourse to work, the very thought[16] of painfulness is as a bridle to stay us. For which cause the Apostle, who knew right well that the weariness of the flesh is a heavy clog to the Will, strikes mightily upon this key, “Awake thou that sleepest; Cast off all which presses down; Watch; Labour; Strive to go forward, and to grow in knowledge.”[17]

“Of the Natural Way of Finding out Laws by Reason to Guide the Will to That Which Is Good”

Chapter 8 of Book 1 in

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

By Richard Hooker

1594

[Hooker, Richard. “Concerning Laws and Their Several Kinds in General.” Book 1 in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. In Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Arranged by the Rev. John Keble MA. 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). 3 vols. Vol. 1. The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/921. In the public domain. Some modernized vocabulary and contructions have been substituted in the text by the Witherspoon Institute.]

Within the text, numbers within brackets indicate the page divisions of the 1888 edition from which this text was taken; prose within text are insertions of the Witherspoon Institute to supply words required by modern English usage. In places the Witherspoon Institute has modernized archaic or obsolete vocabulary or constructions in Hooker’s text. In cases where the changes are very basic and risk no alteration to the original meaning of the text (such as changing “whereof” to “of which”  and “saith” to “says”) there is no notation in the text; changes to more substantive vocabulary are noted with footnotes that show the original word that Hooker used.

Within the footnotes, text not within brackets are Hooker’s original notes; text within single brackets is supplied by the Witherspoon Institute; text within double brackets (that is, [[ ]] ) is supplied by the editors of the 1888 edition. 

Chapter 8: Of the natural way of finding out Laws by Reason to guide the Will to that which is good. 

[1.] Wherefore to return to our former intent of discovering the natural way, by which rules have been found out concerning that goodness by which the Will of man ought to be moved in human actions; as everything naturally and necessarily does desire the utmost good and greatest perfection of which Nature has made it capable, even so [does] man. Our felicity therefore being the object and accomplishment of our desire, we cannot choose but wish and covet it. All particular things which are subject to action, the Will does so far forth incline to, as Reason judges them the better for us, and consequently the more helpful for[1] our bliss. If Reason [should] err, we fall into evil, and are so far forth deprived of the general perfection we seek. Seeing therefore that for the framing of men’s actions the knowledge of good from evil is necessary, it only remains that we search how this may be had. Neither must we suppose that one needs one rule to know the good and another the evil by. For he that knows what is straight does precisely[2] thereby discern what is crooked, because the absence of straightness in bodies capable thereof is crookedness.[3] Goodness in actions is like [] straightness; wherefore that which is done well we term right. For as the straight way is most acceptable to him that travels, because by it he comes soonest to his journey’s end; so in action, that which does lie the most directly[4] between us and the end we desire must necessarily be the fittest for our use. Besides which fitness for use, there is also in rectitude, beauty; as contrariwise in obliquity, deformity. And that which is good in the actions of men, does not only delight as profitable, but as amiable also. In which consideration the Greeks most divinely have given to the active perfection of [226] men a name expressing both beauty and goodness (kalokagathia), because goodness in ordinary speech is for the most part applied only to that which is beneficial. But we in the name of goodness do here imply both.

[2.] And of discerning goodness there are but these two ways[:] the one the knowledge of the causes by which goodness is made good[5]; the other the observation of those signs and tokens, which being annexed always to goodness, argue that where they are found, there also goodness is, although we know not the cause by force of which it is there. The former of these is the most sure and infallible way, but so hard that all shun it, and would rather walk as men do in the dark by haphazard, than tread such long and intricate mazes for knowledge’[s] sake. As therefore physicians are many times forced to leave [aside] such methods of curing as [they] themselves know to be the fittest, and being overruled by their patients’ impatience are obliged[6] to try the best they can, in taking that way of cure which the cured will yield to; in like sort, considering how the case does stand with this present age full of tongue and weak of brain, behold we yield to the stream thereof; into the causes of goodness we will not make any careful[7] or deep inquiry; to touch them now and then it shall be sufficient, when they are so near at hand that easily they may be conceived without any far-removed discourse: that way we are contented to prove, which being the worse in itself, is notwithstanding now by reason of common imbecility the fitter and likelier to be brooked.

[3.] Signs and tokens to know good by are of sundry kinds; some more certain and some less. The most certain token of evident goodness is, if the general persuasion of all men do so account it. And therefore a common received error is never utterly overthrown, till such time as we go from signs to causes, and show some manifest root or source of the error[8] common to all [men], by which it may clearly appear how it has come to pass that so many have been mistaken[9]. In which case surmises and slight probabilities will not serve, because the universal consent of men is the most perfect and strongest in this kind [of sign], which [kind] comprehends [227] only the signs and tokens of goodness. Chance things[10] do vary, and that which a man does but chance to think well of cannot afterward[11] have the like probability[12]. Wherefore although we know not the cause, yet thus much we may know[:] that some necessary cause there is, whenever the judgments of all men generally or for the most part run one and the same way, especially in matters of natural discourse. For of things necessarily and naturally done there is no more affirmed but this, “They keep either always or for the most part one manner[13].”[14] The general and perpetual voice of men is as the sentence of God himself.[15] For that which all men have at all times learned, Nature herself must necessarily have taught;[16] and God being the author of Nature, her voice is but his instrument. By her from Him we receive whatever we learn in this way.[17] Infinite duties there are, the goodness of which is by this rule sufficiently manifested, [even if] we had no other warrant besides to approve them. The Apostle St. Paul [when speaking] concerning the heathen says of them, “They are a law unto themselves” (Rom. 2:14). His meaning is, that by force of the light of Reason, with which God illuminates every one which comes into the world, men are enabled to know truth from falsehood, [228] and good from evil, [and] do thereby learn in many things what the will of God is; which will [he] himself does not reveal by any extraordinary means to them, but they by natural discourse attain the knowledge thereof, [and] seem the makers of those Laws which indeed are his, and they [are] but only the finders of them out.

[4.] A law therefore generally taken, is a directive rule to goodness of operation. The rule of outward divine operations, 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 to 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 [the][18] common sense or phantasy[19] concerning the sensible goodness of those objects wherewith they are moved. The rule of spiritual[20] 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 does set them on work. The rule of voluntary agents on earth is the sentence that Reason gives concerning the goodness of those things which they are to do. And the sentences which Reason gives are some more some less general, before it come to define in particular actions what is good.

[5.] The main principles of Reason are in themselves apparent. For to make nothing evident of itself to man’s understanding would be to take away all possibility of knowing anything. And herein that of Theophrastus is true, “They that seek a reason of all things do utterly overthrow Reason.”[21] In every kind of knowledge some such grounds there are, as that being proposed the mind does presently embrace them as free from all possibility of error, clear and manifest without proof. In which kind more general axioms or principles are such as this, “that the greater good is to be chosen before the less.” If therefore it should be demanded what reason there is, why the Will of Man, which does necessarily shun harm and covet whatever [229] is pleasant and sweet, should be commanded to count the pleasures of sin gall, and notwithstanding the bitter accidents with which virtuous actions are compassed, yet still to rejoice and delight in them: surely this could never stand with Reason, unless wisdom that thus prescribes grounds her laws upon an infallible rule of comparison; which is, “That small difficulties, when exceedingly great good is sure to ensue, and on the other side momentary benefits, when the hurt which they draw after them is unspeakable, are not at all to be respected.” This rule is the ground upon which the wisdom of the Apostle builds a law, enjoining patience to himself; “The present lightness of our affliction works for us even with abundance upon abundance an eternal weight of glory; while we look not on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:17): therefore Christianity [is] to be embraced, whatever calamities in those times it was accompanied with. Upon the same ground our Saviour proves the law most reasonable, that does forbid those crimes which men for gain’s sake fall into. “For a man to win the world if it be with the loss of his soul, what benefit or good is it?” (Matt. 16:26). Axioms less general, yet so manifest that they need no further proof, are such as these, “God [is] to be worshipped;” “parents [are] to be honoured;” “others [are] to be used by us as we ourselves would by them.” Such things, as soon as they are alleged, all men acknowledge to be good; they require no proof or further discourse to be assured of their goodness.

Nevertheless[22] whatever such principle there is, it was at the first found out by discourse, and drawn from out of the very bowels of heaven and earth. For we are to note, that things in the world are to us discernible, not only so far forth as serves for our vital preservation, but further also in a twofold higher respect. For first if all other uses were utterly taken away, yet the mind of man being by nature speculative and delighted with contemplation in itself, they ought[23] to be known even for mere knowledge and understanding’s sake. Yea further besides this, the knowledge of every least [230] thing in the whole world has in it a second peculiar benefit to us, inasmuch as it serves to minister rules, canons, and laws, for men to direct those actions by, which we properly term human. This did the very heathens themselves obscurely insinuate, by making Themis, which we call Jus, or Right, to be the daughter of heaven and earth.[24]

[6.] We know things either as they are in themselves, or as they are in mutual relation one to another. The knowledge of that which man is in reference to himself, and other things in relation to man, I may justly term the mother of all those principles, which are as it were edicts, statutes, and decrees, in that Law of Nature, by which human actions are framed. First therefore having observed that the best things, where they are not hindered, do still produce the best operations, (for which cause, where many things are to concur to one effect, the best is in all congruity of reason to guide the rest[25], that [by] it prevailing most, the work principally done by it may have greatest perfection:) when hereupon we come to observe in ourselves, of what excellency our souls are in comparison to our bodies, and the diviner part in relation to the baser of our souls; seeing that all these concur in producing human actions, it cannot be well unless the chiefest do command and direct the rest.[26] The soul then ought to conduct the body, and the spirit of our minds[27] the soul. This is therefore the first Law, whereby the highest power of the mind requires general obedience at the hands of all the rest concurring with it to action.

[7.] Touching the several grand mandates, which being imposed by the understanding faculty of the mind must be obeyed by the Will of Man, they are by the same method found out, whether they import our duty towards God or towards man.

Touching the one, I may not here pause[28] to explain[29], by what degrees of discourse the minds even of mere natural men have attained to know, not only that there is a God, but also what power, force, wisdom, and other properties that God has, and how all things depend on him. This being therefore presupposed, from that known relation which God has [231] to us as to children,[30] and to all good things as to effects of which [he] himself is the principal cause,[31] these axioms and laws of nature[32] concerning our duty have arisen[:] “that in all things we go about his aid is by prayer to be craved:”[33] “that he cannot have sufficient honour done to him, but the utmost of that we can do to honour him we must;”[34] which 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:” (Deut. 6:5) which Law our Saviour does term “The first and the great commandment.” (Matt. 22:38)

Touching the next, which as our Saviour adds is “like unto this,” (he means in amplitude and largeness, inasmuch as it is the root out of which all Laws of duty towards men have grown, as out of the former all offices of religion towards God,) the like natural inducement has brought men to know that it is their duty no less to love others than themselves. For seeing those things which are equal must necessarily 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 for his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless [I] 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 anything offered them repugnant to this desire must necessarily 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 [had] by me shown to them. My desire therefore to be loved by my equals in nature as much as possible may be, imposes upon me a natural duty of bearing towards them fully the like affection. From this relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, natural Reason has drawn for direction of life several rules and canons, [of] which no man is ignorant;[35] as namely, “That because we would take no harm, we must [232] therefore do none;” “That since we would not be in anything severely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid all severity in our dealings[36];” “That from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain;”[37] with such like; in which to wade further would be tedious, and to our present purpose not altogether so necessary, seeing that on these two general heads already mentioned all other particular points[38] are dependent.[39]

[8.] Wherefore the natural measure by which to judge our doings, is the sentence of Reason, determining and setting down what is good to be done. Which sentence is either mandatory, showing what must be done; or else permissive, declaring only what may be done; or thirdly admonitory, explaining[40] what is the most convenient for us to do. The first takes place, where the comparison does stand altogether between doing and not doing of one thing which in itself is absolutely good or evil; as it would have been for Joseph to yield or not to yield to the impotent desire of his lewd mistress, the one evil the other good simply.[41] The second is, when of divers things evil, all being inevitable[42], we are permitted to take one; which one saving only in case of so great urgency should not otherwise be taken; as in the matter of divorce among the Jews.[43] The last, when of divers things good, one is principal and most eminent; as in their act who sold their possessions and laid the price at the Apostles’ feet;[44] which possessions they might have retained for themselves without sin: again, in the Apostle St. Paul’s own choice to maintain himself by his own labour;[45] whereas in living by the Church’s maintenance, as others did, there had been no offence committed. In Goodness therefore there is a latitude or extent, by which it comes to pass that even of good actions some are better than others; whereas [233] otherwise one man could not excel another, but all should be either absolutely good, as hitting exactly[46] that indivisible point or centre in which goodness consists; or else missing it they should be excluded out of the number of well-doers. Degrees of well-doing there could be none, except perhaps in the seldomness and oftenness of doing well. But the nature of Goodness being thus ample, a Law is properly that which Reason in such sort defines to be good that it must be done. And the Law of Reason or human Nature is that which men by discourse of natural Reason have rightly found out themselves to be all forever bound to in their actions.

[9.] Laws of Reason have these marks to be known by. Such as keep them resemble most lively in their voluntary actions that very manner of working which Nature herself does necessarily observe in the course of the whole world. The works of Nature are all necessary[47], beautiful, without superfluity or defect; even so theirs[48], if they be framed according to that which the Law of Reason teaches. Secondly, those Laws are investigable by Reason, without the help of supernatural and divine Revelation. Finally, in such sort they are investigable, that the knowledge of them is general, the world has always been acquainted with them; according to that which one in Sophocles observes concerning a branch of this Law, “It is no child of to-day’s or yesterday’s birth, but has been no man knows how long since.”[49] It is not agreed upon by one, or two, or few, but by all. Which we may not so understand, as if every particular man in the whole world did know and confess whatever the Law of Reason does contain; but this Law is such that being proposed no man can reject it as unreasonable and unjust. Again, there is nothing in it that any man (having natural perfection of reason[50] and ripeness of judgment) may [not] by labour and travail find out. And to conclude, the general principles of it are such, as it is not easy to find men ignorant of them, therefore Law rational []—which men commonly use to call the Law of Nature, meaning thereby the Law which human Nature knows itself in reason universally bound to, which also [234] for that cause may be termed most fitly the Law of Reason—this Law, I say, comprehends all those things which men by the light of their natural understanding evidently know, or at least may know, to be seemly or unseemly[51], virtuous or vicious, good or evil for them to do.

[10.] Now although it be true, which some have said, that “whatever is done amiss, the Law of Nature and Reason thereby is transgressed,”[52] because even those offences which are by their special qualities breaches of supernatural laws, do also, because[53] they are generally evil, violate in general that principle of Reason, which wills universally to fly from evil: yet we do not[54] therefore so far extend the Law of Reason, as to contain in it all manner laws to which reasonable creatures are bound, but (as has been shown) we restrain it to those duties only, which all men by force of natural reason[55] either do or might understand to be such duties as concern all men. “Certain half-waking men there are” (as Saint Augustine notes), “who neither altogether asleep in folly, nor yet thoroughly awake in the light of true understanding, have thought that there is not at all anything just and righteous in itself; but look, to that to which[56] nations are inured, [and] the same they take to be right and just. Whereupon their conclusion is, that seeing each sort of people has a different kind of right from the others, and that which is right of its own nature must be everywhere one and the same, therefore in itself there is nothing right. These good folk,” says he, (“that I may not trouble their minds[57] with rehearsal of too many things,) have not looked so far into the world as to perceive that, ‘Do as thou wouldest be done unto,’ is a sentence which all nations [235] under heaven are agreed upon. Refer this sentence to the love of God, and it extinguishes all heinous crimes; refer it to the love of thy neighbour, and all grievous wrongs it banishes out of the world.”[58] Wherefore as touching the Law of Reason, this was (it seems) Saint Augustine’s judgment: namely, that there are in it some things which stand as principles universally agreed upon; and that out of those principles, which are in themselves evident, the greatest moral duties we owe towards God or man may without any great difficulty be concluded.

[11.] If then it be here demanded, by what means it should come to pass (the greatest part of the moral Law being so easy for all men to know) that so many thousands of men nevertheless have been ignorant even of principal moral duties, not imagining the breach of them to be sin: I deny not that[59] lewd and wicked custom, beginning perhaps at the first among few, afterwards spreading into greater multitudes, and so continuing from time to time, may be of force even in plain things to smother the light of natural understanding; because men will not bend their minds[60] to examine whether things to which they have been accustomed be good or evil. For example’s sake, that grosser kind of heathenish idolatry, whereby they worshipped the very works of their own hands, was an absurdity to reason so palpable, that the Prophet David comparing idols and idolaters together makes almost no distinction[61] between them, but the one in a manner as much without mind[62] and sense as the other; “They that make them are like unto them, and so are all that trust in them” (Ps. 135:18). That in which an idolater does seem so absurd and foolish is by the Wise Man thus expressed, “He is not ashamed to speak to that which has no life, he calls on him that is weak for health, he prays for life to him which is dead, of him which has no experience he requires help, for his journey he appeals[63] to him which is not able to go, for gain and work and success in his affairs he seeks furtherance of him that has no manner of power” (Wis. 13:17). The cause of which senseless stupidity is afterwards imputed to custom. “When a father mourned grievously for his son that was taken away suddenly, he [236] made an image for him that was once dead, whom now he worships as a god, ordaining to his servants ceremonies and sacrifices. Thus by process of time this wicked custom prevailed, and was kept as a law;” (Wis. 14:15–16) the authority of rulers, the ambition of craftsmen, and such like means thrusting forward the ignorant, and increasing their superstition.

To this which the Wise Man has spoken something besides may be added. For whatever we have hitherto taught, or shall hereafter, concerning the force of man’s natural understanding, this we always desire in addition[64] 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. [A]s oft as we cause God in his justice to withdraw [t]he benefit of this [aid], there can no other thing follow than that which the Apostle notes, even [that] men endowed with the light of reason [] walk nevertheless “in the vanity of their mind, having their cogitations darkened, and being strangers from the life of God through the ignorance which is in them, because of the hardness of their hearts” (Eph. 4:17–18). And this cause is mentioned by the prophet Isaiah, speaking of the ignorance of idolaters, who see not how the manifest Law of Reason condemns their gross iniquity and sin. “They have not in them,” says he, “so much thought[65] as to think, ‘Shall I bow to the stock of a tree?’ All knowledge and understanding is taken from them; for God has shut their eyes that they cannot see” (Is. 44:18–19).

That which we say in this case of idolatry serves for all other things, in which the like kind of general blindness has prevailed against the manifest Laws of Reason. Within the compass of which laws we do not only comprehend whatever may be easily known to belong to the duty of all men, but even whatever may possibly be known to be of that quality, so that the same be by necessary consequence deduced out of clear and manifest principles. For if once we descend to probable inferences[66] [of] what is convenient for men, we are then in the territory where free and arbitrary determinations and[67] Human Laws take place; which laws are after to be considered.

“The Benefit of Keeping That Law Which Reason Teaches”

Chapter 9 of Book 1 in

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

By Richard Hooker

1594

[Hooker, Richard. “Concerning Laws and Their Several Kinds in General.” Book 1 in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. In Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Arranged by the Rev. John Keble MA. 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). 3 vols. Vol. 1. The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/921. In the public domain. Some modernized vocabulary and contructions have been substituted in the text by the Witherspoon Institute.]

Within the text, numbers within brackets indicate the page divisions of the 1888 edition from which this text was taken; prose within text are insertions of the Witherspoon Institute to supply words required by modern English usage. In places the Witherspoon Institute has modernized archaic or obsolete vocabulary or constructions in Hooker’s text. In cases where the changes are very basic and risk no alteration to the original meaning of the text (such as changing “whereof” to “of which”  and “saith” to “says”) there is no notation in the text; changes to more substantive vocabulary are noted with footnotes that show the original word that Hooker used.

Within the footnotes, text not within brackets are Hooker’s original notes; text within single brackets is supplied by the Witherspoon Institute; text within double brackets (that is, [[ ]] ) is supplied by the editors of the 1888 edition. 

[237]

Chapter 9: The benefit of keeping that Law which Reason teaches.

[1.] Now the due observation of this Law which Reason teaches us cannot but be effectual to [the] great good [of them] that observe the same. For we see the whole world and each part of it so compacted, that as long as each thing performs only that work which is natural to it, it thereby preserves both other things and also itself. Contrariwise, let any principal thing, as the sun, the moon, any one of the heavens or elements, but once cease or fail, or swerve, and who does not easily conceive that the consequence[1] thereof would be ruin both to itself and whatever depends on it? And is it possible, that Man being not only the noblest creature in the world, but even a very world in himself, his transgressing the Law of his Nature should draw no manner of harm after it? Yes, “tribulation and anguish to every soul that does evil” (Rom. 2:9). Good does follow unto all things by observing the course of their nature, and on the contrary side evil by not observing it; but not unto natural agents that good which we call Reward, not that evil which we properly term Punishment. The reason of this is, because among creatures in this world, only Man’s observation of the Law of his Nature is Righteousness, only Man’s transgression [is] Sin. And the reason of this is the difference in his manner of observing or transgressing the Law of his Nature. He does not [do] otherwise than voluntarily the one or the other. What we do against our wills, or constrainedly, we are not properly said to do it, because the motive cause of doing it is not in ourselves, but carries us, as if the wind should drive a feather in the air, we no whit furthering that by which we are driven. In such cases therefore the evil which is done moves compassion; men are pitied for it, as being rather miserable in such respect than culpable. Some things are likewise done by man, though not through outward force and impulsion, though not against, yet without their wills; as in alienation of mind, or any [] like inevitable utter absence of thought[2] and judgment. For which cause, no man did ever think the hurtful actions of insane[3] men and innocents to be punishable. Again, some things we do neither against nor without[] and yet not simply and merely with our wills, but with our wills in such sort moved, that [238] although there be no impossibility [] that we might [not act thus], nevertheless we are not so easily able to do otherwise. In this consideration one evil deed is made more pardonable than another. Finally, [although] that which we do [is] evil, [it] is notwithstanding by so much more pardonable, by how much the exigence of so doing or the difficulty of doing otherwise is greater; unless this necessity or difficulty [should] have originally risen from ourselves. It is no excuse therefore for him, who being drunk commits incest, and alleges that his mind was[4] not his own; inasmuch as [he] himself might have chosen whether his mind should by that mean[s] have been taken from him. Now rewards and punishments do always presuppose something willingly done well or ill; without which respect though we may sometimes receive good or harm, yet then the one is only a benefit and not a reward, the other simply a hurt not a punishment. From the sundry dispositions of man’s Will, which is the root of all his actions, there grows variety in the sequel of rewards and punishments, which are by these and the like rules measured: “Take away the will, and all acts are equal: That which we do not, and would do, is commonly accepted as done.”[5] By these and the like rules men’s actions are determined of and judged, whether they be in their own nature rewardable or punishable.

[2.] Rewards and punishments are not received, but at the hands of such as being above us have power to examine and judge our deeds. How men come to have this authority one over another in external actions, we shall more diligently examine in that which follows. But for this present, so much all do acknowledge, that since every man’s heart and conscience does in good or evil, even secretly committed and known to none but itself, either like or disallow itself, and accordingly either rejoice—nature itself exulting (as it were) in certain hope of reward—or else grieve (as it were) in a sense of future punishment; neither of which can in this case be looked for from any other, saving only from Him who discerns and judges the very secrets of all hearts: [239] therefore He is the only rewarder and revenger of all such actions; although not of such actions only, but of all by which the Law of Nature is broken of which [He] Himself is author. 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 to, threaten the neglecters of them with none but divine punishment.[6]

“How Reason Does Lead Men to the Making of Human Laws Whereby Political Societies Are Governed; and to Agreement about Laws by Which the Fellowship or Communion of Independent Societies Stands”

Chapter 10 of Book 1 in

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

By Richard Hooker

1594

[Hooker, Richard. “Concerning Laws and Their Several Kinds in General.” Book 1 in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. In Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Arranged by the Rev. John Keble MA. 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). 3 vols. Vol. 1. The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/921. In the public domain. Some modernized vocabulary and contructions have been substituted in the text by the Witherspoon Institute.]

Within the text, numbers within brackets indicate the page divisions of the 1888 edition from which this text was taken; prose within text are insertions of the Witherspoon Institute to supply words required by modern English usage. In places the Witherspoon Institute has modernized archaic or obsolete vocabulary or constructions in Hooker’s text. In cases where the changes are very basic and risk no alteration to the original meaning of the text (such as changing “whereof” to “of which”  and “saith” to “says”) there is no notation in the text; changes to more substantive vocabulary are noted with footnotes that show the original word that Hooker used.

Within the footnotes, text not within brackets are Hooker’s original notes; text within single brackets is supplied by the Witherspoon Institute; text within double brackets (that is, [[ ]] ) is supplied by the editors of the 1888 edition. 

Chapter 10: How Reason does lead men to the making of human laws whereby political Societies are governed; and to agreement about laws by which the fellowship or communion of independent societies stands.

[1.] That which hitherto we have set down is (I hope) sufficient to show the brutishness of them, which imagine that religion and virtue are only as men will account of them; that we might make as much account, if we would, of the contrary, without any harm to ourselves, and that in nature they are as indifferent one as the other. We see then how nature itself teaches laws and statutes to live by. The laws which have been hitherto mentioned do bind men absolutely even as they are men, even if[1] they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement among themselves what to do or not to do.[2] But inasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things needful for such a life as our nature does desire, a life fit for the dignity of man; therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us if we live alone[3] 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 political Societies, which societies could not be without Government, nor Government without a distinct kind of Law from that which has been already declared. Two foundations there are which bear up public societies[:] the one, a natural inclination, by which 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 Commonwealth[4], the very soul of a political body, the parts of which are by law animated, held together, and set on work in such actions, as the common good requires. Political laws, ordained for external order and government[5] among men, are never framed as they [240] should be, unless they presume the will of man to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience to the sacred laws of his nature; in a word, unless they presume man to be in regard of his depraved mind little better than a wild beast [and] do accordingly provide notwithstanding so to shape[6] his outward actions, that they be no hindrance to the common good for which societies are instituted: unless the laws[7] do this, they are not perfect. It remains therefore that we consider how nature finds out such laws of government as serve to direct even depraved nature to a right end.

[2.] All men desire to lead in this world a happy life. That life is led most happily, in which all virtue is exercised without impediment or obstacle[8]. The Apostle, in exhorting men to contentment although they have in this world no more than very bare food and raiment, (1 Tim. 6:8) gives 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, [that] till it be removed [it does] not allow[9] 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 (Gen. 1:29, 2:17). For this cause, after men began to grow to a number, the first thing we read they gave themselves to was the tilling of the earth and the feeding of cattle. Having by this mean[s] on which to live, the principal actions of their life afterward are noted by the exercise of their religion (Gen. 4:2, 26). True it is, that the kingdom of God must be the first thing in our purposes and desires (Matt. 6:33). But inasmuch as righteous life presupposes life; inasmuch as it is impossible to live virtuously unless we live; therefore the first impediment, which naturally we endeavour to remove, is penury and want of things without which we cannot live. For life many implements are necessary; more, if we seek (as all men naturally do) such a life as has in it joy, comfort, delight, and pleasure. To this end we see how quickly sundry mechanical arts were found out, in the very beginning[10] of the world (Gen. 4:20–22). As things of greatest [241] 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 wishes, 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 as that which the Prophet implies, saying, “Can a mother forget her child?” (Is. 49:15) such as that which the Apostle mentions, saying, “He that cares not for his own is worse than an infidel;” (1 Tim. 5:8) such as that concerning Abraham, “Abraham will command his sons and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord” (Gen. 18:19).

[3.] 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 (Gen. 4:8); how could it be helped[11] but that when families were multiplied and increased upon earth, after separation each providing for itself, envy, strife, contention and violence must grow among them? For has not Nature furnished man with reason and valour, as it were with armour, which may be used as well for extreme evil as good? Yea, were they not used by the rest of the world for evil; for the contrary only by Seth, Enoch, and those few the remnant[12] in that line (Gen. 6:5; Gen. 5)? We all make complaint of the iniquity of our times: not unjustly; for the days are evil. But compare them with those times in which there were no civil societies, with those times in which there was as yet no manner of public government[13] established, with those times in which there were not above eight persons righteous living upon the face of the earth (2 Pet. 2:5); and we have surely good cause to think that God has blessed us exceedingly, and has made us behold most happy days.

[4.] To take away all such mutual grievances, injuries, and wrongs, there was no way but only by growing unto compromise[14] [242] and agreement among themselves, by ordaining some kind of government public, and by yielding themselves subject to it; that to 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 however men may seek their own advantage[15], yet if this were done with injury to others it was not to be suffered, but by all men and by all good means [was] 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 of it, inasmuch as every man is towards himself and them [for] whom he has great affection[16] partial; and therefore that strifes and troubles would be endless, unless they gave their common consent all to be ordered by some whom they should agree upon: without which consent there would be 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[17]; 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 seems necessary.

To fathers within their private families Nature has given a supreme power; for which cause we see throughout the world even from the foundation thereof, all men have always been taken as lords and lawful kings in their own houses. Nevertheless over a whole grand multitude having no such dependency upon any one, and consisting of so many families as every political society in the world does, 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 necessarily be either usurped, and then unlawful; or, if lawful, then either granted or consented to by them over whom they exercise the same, or else given extraordinarily from God, to whom all the world is subject. It is no improbable opinion therefore which the arch-philosopher was of, that as the chiefest person [243] 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.[18] Which is also (as it seems) 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.

However, this is not[19] the only kind of government[20] that has been received in the world. The inconveniences of one kind have caused sundry other to be devised. So that in a word all public government of whatever kind seems evidently to have risen from deliberate advice, consultation, and agreement[21] between men, judging it convenient and necessary[22]; there being no impossibility in nature considered by itself, but that men might have lived without any public government. Nevertheless, the corruption of our nature being presupposed, we may not deny that the Law of Nature does now require of necessity some kind of government, so that to bring things to the first course they were in, and utterly to take away all kind of public government in the world, would be apparently to overturn the whole world.

[5.] The case of man’s nature standing therefore as it does, some kind of government[23] the Law of Nature does require; yet the kinds of it being many, Nature ties not to any one, but leaves the choice as a thing arbitrary. At the first when some certain kind of government was once approved, it may be that nothing was then further thought upon for the manner of governing, but all left them who were to rule to their wisdom and discretion[24];[25] 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 [244] them to come to laws, in which all men might see their duties beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. If things be simply good or evil, and moreover[26] universally so acknowledged, one does not need a new law to be made for such things.[27] The first kind therefore of things appointed by human laws contains whatever being in itself naturally good or evil, is notwithstanding more secret than what can be discerned by every man’s present understanding[28], without some deeper discourse and judgment. In which discourse because there is difficulty and possibly[29] many ways to err, unless such things were set down by laws, many would be ignorant of their duties who 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.[30]

[6.] 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 whatever is most divine; and because the labour of doing good, together with the pleasure arising from the contrary, does make men for the most part slower to the one and more prone to the other, than that duty prescribed to them by law can prevail sufficiently with them: therefore to laws that men do make for the benefit of men it has seemed always needful to add rewards, which may more allure to good than any hardness deters from it, and punishments, which may more deter from evil than any sweetness thereto allures. Wherein as the generality is natural—virtue rewardable and vice punishable—so the particular determination of the reward or punishment belongs to them by whom laws are made. Theft is naturally punishable, but the kind of punishment is positive, and is made lawful[31] as men shall think with discretion convenient by law to appoint.

[7.] In laws, that which is natural binds universally, that which is positive not so. Leaving aside[32] those kinds of positive [245] laws which men impose upon themselves, as by vow to God, contract with men, or such like; somewhat it will make to our purpose, a little more fully to consider what things are involved in[33] 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 to anything improper[34] does seem unreasonable. Most requisite therefore it is that none but wise men be admitted to devise laws which all men shall be forced to obey. Laws are matters of principal consequence; men of common capacity and only ordinary judgment are not able (for how should they?) to discern what things are fittest for each kind and state of government[35]. We cannot be ignorant how much our obedience to laws depends upon this point. Let a man[,] [even] though entirely[36] justly[,] oppose himself to them that are disordered in their ways, and what one amongst them commonly does not resent[37] 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. Why? They presume that the law does speak with all indifference; that the law has no side-respect to their persons; that the law is as it were an oracle proceeded from wisdom and understanding.[38]

[8.] Nevertheless laws do not take their constraining force from the quality of such as devise them, but from that power which does give them the strength of laws. That which we spoke before concerning the power of government must here be applied to the power of making laws by which to govern; which power God has over all: and by the natural law, to which he has made all subject, the lawful power of making laws to command whole political societies of men belongs so properly to the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of whatever kind 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 [246] their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny.

Laws they are not therefore which public approbation has not made so. But approbation not only they give who personally declare their assent by voice sign or act, but also when others do it in their names by right originally at the least derived from them. As in parliaments, councils, and the like assemblies, although we be not personally ourselves present, notwithstanding our assent is by reason of others [who are] agents there in our behalf. And what we do by others, [there being] no reason that it should not stand as our deed, no less effectually binds us than if [we] ourselves had done it in person. In many things assent is given, they that give it not imagining they do so, because the manner of their assenting is not apparent. As for example, when an absolute monarch commands his subjects that which seems good in his own discretion, has not his edict the force of a law whether they approve or dislike it? Again, that which has been received long since and is by custom now established, we keep as a law which we may not transgress; yet what consent was ever thereto sought or required at our hands?

On[39] this point therefore we are to note, that since men naturally have no full and perfect power to command whole political multitudes of men, therefore we could not be living at any man’s commandment utterly without our consent.[40] And to be commanded we do consent, when that society of which we are part has at any time before consented, without revoking the same after by the like universal agreement. Wherefore as any man’s deed past is good as long as he himself continues; so the act of a public society of men done five hundred years since stands as theirs who presently are of the same societies, because corporations are immortal; we were then alive in our predecessors, and they in their successors do live still. Laws therefore human, of whatever kind, are valid[41] by consent.

[9.] If here it be demanded how it comes to pass that this being common to all laws which are made, there should be found even in good laws so great variety as there [247] is; we must note the reason of this to be the sundry particular ends, to which the different disposition of that subject or matter, for which laws are provided, causes them to have especial respect in making laws. A law is mentioned among the Greeks of which Pittacus is reported to have been author; and by that law it was agreed, that he which being overcome with drink did then strike any man, should suffer punishment double as much as if he had done the same being sober.[42] No man could ever have thought this reasonable, that had intended thereby only to punish the injury committed according to the gravity of the fact: for who knows not that harm deliberately[43] done is naturally less pardonable, and therefore worthy of the sharper punishment? But inasmuch as none did so commonly[44] this way offend as men in that case, which they wittingly fell into, even because they intended to[45] be so much the more freely outrageous; it was for their public good where such disorder was grown to frame a positive law for remedy of it accordingly. To this appertain those known laws of making laws; as that law-makers must have an eye to the place where, and to the men among whom; that one kind of law cannot serve for all kinds of government[46]; that where the multitude bears sway, laws that shall tend to preservation of that state must make common smaller offices to be assigned[47] by lot, for fear of strife and division likely to arise; by reason that ordinary qualities sufficing for discharge of such offices, they could not but by many be desired, and so with danger contended for, and not missed without grudge and discontentment, whereas at an uncertain lot none can find themselves grieved, on whomever it lights; contrariwise the greatest, of which but few are capable, to pass by popular election, that neither the people may envy such as have those honours, inasmuch as they themselves bestow them, and that the chiefest may be kindled with desire to exercise all parts of rare and beneficial virtue, knowing they shall not lose their labour by growing in fame and estimation among the people: if the helm of chief government be in the hands of a few of the wealthiest, that then laws providing for continuance thereof must make the punishment of contumely and wrong offered [248] to any of the common sort sharp and grievous, that so the evil may be prevented by which the rich are most likely to bring themselves into hatred with the people, who are not wont to take so great offence when they are excluded from honours and offices, as when their persons are contumeliously trodden upon. In other kinds of government[48] the like is observed concerning the difference of positive laws, which to be everywhere the same is impossible and against their nature.

[10.] Now as they who are learned in the laws of this land observe, that our statutes sometimes are only the affirmation or ratification of that which by common law was held before[49]; so here it is not to be omitted that generally all human laws, which are made for the ordering of political societies, be either such as establish some duty to which all men by the law of reason did before stand bound; or else such as make that a duty now which before was none. The one sort we may for distinction’s sake call “mixedly,” and the other “merely” human. That which plain or necessary reason binds men to may be in sundry considerations expedient to be ratified by human law. For example, if confusion of blood in marriage, the liberty of having many wives at once, or any other the like corrupt and unreasonable custom does happen to have prevailed far, and to have gotten the upper hand of right reason with the greatest part; so that no way is left to rectify such foul disorder without prescribing by law the same things which reason necessarily does enforce but is not perceived that so it does; or if many be grown unto that which the Apostle did lament in some, concerning whom he writes, saying, that “even what things they naturally know, in those very things as beasts void of reason they corrupted themselves;” (Jude 10) or if there be no such special accident, yet inasmuch as the common sort are led by the sway of their [249] sensual desires, and therefore do more shun sin for the sensible evils which follow it among men, than for any kind of sentence which reason does pronounce against it:[50] this very thing is cause sufficient why duties belonging to each kind of virtue, although the Law of Reason teach them, should notwithstanding be prescribed even by human law. Which law in this case we term mixed, because the matter to which it binds is the same which reason necessarily does require at our hands, and from the Law of Reason it differs in the manner of binding only. For whereas men before stood bound in conscience to do as the Law of Reason teaches, they are now by virtue of human law become constrainable, and if they outwardly transgress, punishable. As for laws which are merely human, the matter of them is anything which reason does but probably teach to be fit and convenient; so that till such time as law has passed among men about it, of itself it binds no man. One example of which may be this. Lands are by human law in some places after the owner’s decease divided among all his children, in some all descends to the eldest son. If the Law of Reason did necessarily require but one of these two to be done, they which by law have received the other should be subject to that heavy sentence, which denounces against all that decree wicked, unjust, and unreasonable things, woe (Is. 10:1). Whereas now whichever be received there is no Law of Reason transgressed; because there is probable reason why either of them may be expedient, and for either of them more than probable reason there is not to be found.

[11.] Laws whether mixedly or merely human are made by political societies: some, only as those societies are civilly united; some, as they are spiritually joined and make such a body as we call the Church. Of laws human in this latter kind we are to speak in the third book following. Let it therefore suffice thus far to have touched the force with which Almighty God has graciously endowed our nature, and thereby enabled the same to find out both those laws which all men generally are forever bound to observe, and also such [250] as are most fit for their benefit[51], who lead their lives in any ordered state of government.

[12.] Now besides that law which simply concerns men as men, and that which belongs to them as they are men linked with others in some form of political society, there is a third kind of law which touches all such several bodies politic, so far forth as one of them has public commerce with another. And this third is the Law of Nations. Between men and beasts there is no possibility of sociable communion, because the well-spring of that communion is a natural delight which man has to transfuse from himself into others, and to receive from others into himself especially those things in which the excellency of his kind does most consist. The chiefest instrument of human communion therefore is speech, because by it we impart mutually one to another the ideas[52] of our reasonable understanding.[53] And for that cause[,] seeing beasts are not capable of speech[54], inasmuch as with them we can engage in[55] no such discourse[56], they being in degree, although above other creatures on earth to whom nature has denied sense, yet lower than to be sociable companions of man to whom nature has given reason; it is of Adam said that among the beasts “he found not for himself any suitable[57] companion” (Gen. 2:20). Civil society does more content the nature of man than any private kind of solitary living, because in society this good of mutual participation is so much more ample[58] than otherwise. With this nevertheless we are not satisfied, but we covet (if it might be) to have a kind of society and fellowship even with all mankind. Which thing Socrates intending to signify professed himself a citizen, not of this or that commonwealth, but of the world.[59] And an effect of that very natural desire in us (a manifest token that we wish after a sort a universal fellowship with all men) appears by the wonderful delight men have, some to visit foreign countries, some to discover nations not heard of in former ages, we all to know the affairs and dealings of other people, yea to be in league of amity with them: and this not only for the sake of trade[60], or to the end that when many are confederated each may make the other the more strong, but [251] for such cause also as moved the Queen of Sheba to visit Solomon;[61] and in a word, because nature does presume that however many men there are in the world, so many gods as it were there are, or at leastwise such they should be towards men.[62]

[13.] Touching laws which are to serve men in this behalf; even as those Laws of Reason, which (man retaining his original integrity) had been sufficient to direct each particular person in all his affairs and duties, are not sufficient but require the addition[63] of other laws, now that man and his offspring are grown thus corrupt and sinful; again, as those laws of polity and government[64], which would have served men living in public society together with that harmless disposition which then they should have had, are not able now to serve, when men’s iniquity is so hardly restrained within any tolerable bounds: in like manner, the national laws of mutual commerce between societies of that former and better quality might have been other than now, when nations are so prone to offer violence, injury, and wrong. Hereupon has grown in each of these three kinds that distinction between Primary and Secondary laws; the one grounded upon sincere, the other built upon depraved nature. Primary laws of nations are such as concern embassies, such as belong to the courteous entertainment of foreigners and strangers, such as serve for commodious trade, and the like. Secondary laws in the same kind are such as this present unquiet world is most familiarly acquainted with; I mean laws of arms, which yet are much better known than kept. But what matter the Law of Nations does contain I omit to search.

The strength and virtue of that law is such that no particular nation can lawfully prejudice the same by any of their several laws and ordinances, more than a man by his private resolutions [may prejudice] the law of the whole commonwealth or state wherein he lives. For as civil law, being the act of a whole body politic, does therefore overrule each several part of the same body; so there is no reason that any one commonwealth of itself should to the prejudice of another [252] annihilate that upon which the whole world has agreed. For which cause, the Lacedæmonians forbidding all access of strangers into their coasts, are in that respect both by Josephus and Theodoret deservedly blamed,[65] as being enemies to that hospitality which for common humanity’s sake all the nations on earth should embrace.

[14.] Now as there is great cause of communion, and consequently of laws for the maintenance of communion, among nations; so among Christian nations the like in regard even of Christianity has been always judged needful.

And in this kind of correspondence among nations the force of general councils does stand. For as one and the same divine law, of which in the next place we are to speak, is to all Christian churches a rule for the chiefest things; by means of which they all in that respect make one church, as having all but “one Lord, one faith, and one baptism:” (Eph. 4:5) so the urgent necessity of mutual communion for preservation of our unity in these things, as also for order in some other things convenient to be everywhere uniformly kept, makes it requisite that the Church of God here on earth have her laws of spiritual commerce between Christian nations; laws by virtue of which all churches may enjoy freely the use of those reverend, religious, and sacred consultations, which are termed Councils General. A thing of which God’s own blessed Spirit was the author (Acts 15:28); a thing practised by the holy Apostles themselves; a thing always afterwards kept and observed throughout the world; a thing never otherwise than most highly esteemed of, till pride, ambition, and tyranny began by factious and vile endeavours to abuse that divine invention to the furtherance of wicked purposes. But [just] as the just authority of civil courts and parliaments is not therefore to be abolished, because sometimes there is cunning used to frame them according to the private intents of men over potent in the commonwealth; so the grievous abuse which has been of councils should rather cause men to study how so gracious a thing may again be reduced to that first perfection, than in light[66] of stains and blemishes since growing be held forever in extreme disgrace.

[253]

To speak of this matter as the cause requires would require very long discourse. All I will presently say is this: whether it be for the finding out of anything to which divine law binds us, but yet in such sort that men are not thereof on all sides resolved; or for the setting down of some uniform judgment to stand touching such things, as being neither way matters of necessity, are notwithstanding offensive and scandalous when there is open opposition about them; be it for the ending of strifes, touching matters of Christian belief, wherein the one part may seem to have probable cause of dissenting from the other; or be it concerning matters of polity, order, and government[67] in the church; I nothing doubt but that Christian men should much better conform[68] themselves to those heavenly precepts, which our Lord and Saviour with so great insistence[69] gave as concerning peace and unity (John 14:27), if we did all concur in desire to have the use of ancient councils again renewed, rather than these proceedings continued, which either make all contentions endless, or bring them to one only determination, and that of all others the worst, which is by sword.

[15.] It follows therefore that a new foundation being laid, we now adjoin hereto that which comes in the next place to be spoken of; namely, wherefore God has himself by Scripture made known such laws as serve for direction of men.

“Why God Has by Scripture Further Made Known Such Supernatural Laws, As Do Serve for Men’s Direction”

Chapter 11 of Book 1 in

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

By Richard Hooker

1594

[Hooker, Richard. “Concerning Laws and Their Several Kinds in General.” Book 1 in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. In Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Arranged by the Rev. John Keble MA. 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). 3 vols. Vol. 1. The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/921. In the public domain. Some modernized vocabulary and contructions have been substituted in the text by the Witherspoon Institute.]

Within the text, numbers within brackets indicate the page divisions of the 1888 edition from which this text was taken; prose within text are insertions of the Witherspoon Institute to supply words required by modern English usage. In places the Witherspoon Institute has modernized archaic or obsolete vocabulary or constructions in Hooker’s text. In cases where the changes are very basic and risk no alteration to the original meaning of the text (such as changing “whereof” to “of which”  and “saith” to “says”) there is no notation in the text; changes to more substantive vocabulary are noted with footnotes that show the original word that Hooker used.

Within the footnotes, text not within brackets are Hooker’s original notes; text within single brackets is supplied by the Witherspoon Institute; text within double brackets (that is, [[ ]] ) is supplied by the editors of the 1888 edition. 

Chapter 11: Why God has by Scripture further made known such supernatural laws, as do serve for men’s direction.

[1.] All things, (God only excepted,) besides the nature which they have in themselves, receive externally some perfection from other things, as has been shown[,] [i]nsomuch as there is in the whole world no one thing great or small, [that may not] either in respect of knowledge or of use it [] add something to our perfection. And whatever such perfection there is which our nature may acquire, the same we properly term our Good; our Sovereign Good or Blessedness, that in which the highest degree of all our perfection consists, that which being once attained to there can remain nothing further to be desired; and therefore with it our souls are fully content and satisfied, in that they have[,] they rejoice, and thirst for no more. Wherefore of good things desired some are such that for themselves we covet them not, but only because they serve as instruments to that for which we are [254] to seek: of this sort are riches. Another kind there is, which although we desire for itself, as health, and virtue, and knowledge, nevertheless they are not the last mark at which we aim, but have their further end to which they are referred, so that in them we are not satisfied as having attained the utmost we may, but our desires do still proceed. These things are linked and as it were chained one to another; we labour to eat, and we eat to live, and we live to do good, and the good which we do is as seed sown with reference to a future harvest.[1] But we must come at length to some pause. For, if everything were to be desired for some other without any stint, there could be no certain end proposed to our actions, we should go on we know not whither; yea, whatever we do would be in vain, or rather nothing at all would be possible to be done. For [just] as to take away the first efficient [cause] of our being[2] would be to annihilate utterly our persons, so we cannot remove the last final cause of our working, but we shall cause whatever we work to cease. Therefore something there must be desired for itself simply and for no other. That is simply for itself desirable, for the nature of which it is opposite and repugnant to be desired with relation to any other. The ox and the ass desire their food, neither propose they to themselves any reason[3] why; so that of them this is desired for itself; but why? By reason of their imperfection which cannot otherwise desire it; whereas that which is desired simply for itself, the excellency of it is such as permits it not in any sort to be referred to a further end.

[2.] Now that which man does desire with reference to a further end, the same he desires in such measure as is to that end convenient; but what he covets as good in itself, towards that his desire is ever infinite. So that unless the last good of all, which is desired altogether for itself, be also infinite, we do evil in making it our end; even as they who placed their felicity in wealth or honour or pleasure or anything here attained; because in desiring anything as our final perfection which is not so, we do amiss.[4] Nothing [255] may be infinitely desired except that good which indeed is infinite; for the better [it is] the more desirable [it is]; that therefore [is] most desirable in which there is [an] infinity of goodness: so that if anything desirable may be infinite, that must necessarily be the highest of all things that are desired. No good is infinite except only God; therefore he our felicity and bliss. Moreover, desire tends to union with that [which] it desires. If then in Him we be blessed, it is by force of participation and conjunction with Him. Again, it is not the possession of any good thing [that] can make them happy which have it, unless they enjoy the thing with which they are possessed. Then are we happy therefore when fully we enjoy God, as an object in which the powers of our souls are satisfied even with everlasting delight; so that although we be men, yet by being to God united we live as it were the life of God.

[3.] Happiness therefore is that estate by which we attain, so far as possibly may be attained, the full possession of that which simply for itself is to be desired, and contains in it after an eminent sort the satisfaction[5] of our desires, the highest degree of all our perfection. Of such perfection we are not capable in this life. For while we are in the world, we are subject to sundry imperfections,[6] griefs of body, defects of mind; yea the best things we do are painful, and the exercise of them grievous, being continued without intermission; so that in those very actions by which we are especially perfected in this life we are not able to persist; we are forced with very weariness, and that often, to interrupt them: which tediousness cannot fall into those operations that are in the state of bliss, when our union with God is complete. Complete union with him must be according to every power and faculty of our minds apt to receive so glorious an object. [W]e are [c]apable of God both by understanding and will: by understanding, as He is that sovereign Truth which comprehends the rich treasures of all wisdom; by will, as He is that sea of Goodness of which whoever tastes [256] shall thirst no more. As the will does now work upon that object by desire, which is as it were a motion towards the end as yet unobtained; so likewise upon the same [when] hereafter [it is] received [the will] shall work also by love. “Appetitus inhiantis fit amor fruentis,” says St. Augustine: “The longing disposition of them that thirst is changed into the sweet affection of them that taste and are replenished.”[7] Whereas we now love the thing that is good, but good especially in respect of benefit to us; we shall then love the thing that is good, only or principally for the goodness of beauty in itself. The soul being in this sort, as it is active, perfected by love of that infinite good, shall, as it is receptive, be also perfected with those supernatural passions of joy, peace, and delight. All this [will be] endless and everlasting. Which perpetuity, in regard of which our blessedness is termed “a crown which withers not,” (2 Tim. 4:8; 1 Pet. 5:4) does neither depend upon the nature of the thing itself, nor proceed from any natural necessity that our souls should so exercise themselves for ever in beholding and loving God, but from the will of God, which does both freely perfect our nature in so high a degree, and continue it so perfected. Under Man, no creature in the world is capable of felicity and bliss. First, because their chiefest perfection consists in that which is best for them, but not in that which is simply best, as ours does. Secondly, because whatever external perfection they tend to, it is not better than themselves, as ours is. How just occasion have we therefore even in this respect with the Prophet to admire the goodness of God! “Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst exalt him above the works of thy hands,” (Ps. 8:4) so far as to make thyself the inheritance of his rest and the substance of his felicity?

[4.] Now if men had not naturally this desire to be happy, how would it be possible that all men should have it? All men [do] have [it]. Therefore this desire in man is natural. It is not in our power not to do the same; how should it then be in our power to do it coldly or listlessly[8]? So that our desire[,] being [257] natural[,] is also in that degree of earnestness to which nothing can be added. And is it probable that God should fashion[9] the hearts of all men [to be] so desirous of that which no man may obtain? It is an axiom of nature that natural desire cannot utterly be vain[10].[11] This desire of ours being natural should be vain, if that which may satisfy the same were a thing impossible for man to aspire to. Man does seek a triple perfection: first a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requires either as necessary supplements, or as beauties and ornaments of itself; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none underneath man is either capable of or acquainted with; lastly a spiritual and divine, consisting in those things to which we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain to them. They that make the first of these three the scope of their whole life, are said by the Apostle to have no god but only their belly, to be earthly-minded men.[12] To the second they bend themselves, who seek especially to excel in all such knowledge and virtue as does most commend men. To this branch belongs the law of moral and civil perfection. That there is something higher than either of these two, no other proof is necessary than the very process of man’s desire, which being natural should be vain, if there were not some farther thing in which it might rest at the length contented, which in the former it cannot do. For man does not seem to rest satisfied, either with fruition of that with which his life is preserved, or with performance of such actions as advance him most deservedly in estimation; but does further covet, yea oftentimes manifestly pursue with great sedulity and earnestness, that which cannot stand him in any stead for vital use; that which exceeds the reach of sense; yea something above capacity of reason, something divine and heavenly, which with hidden exultation it rather surmises than conceives; something it seeks, and what that is directly it knows not, yet very intent[13] desire of this does so incite it, that all other known delights and pleasures are [258] laid aside, they give place to the search of this [] only suspected desire. If the soul of man did serve only to give him being in this life, then things appertaining to this life would content him, as we see they do other creatures; which creatures enjoying what they live by seek no further, but in this satisfaction[14] do show a kind of acknowledgment that there is no higher good which does any way belong to them. With us it is otherwise. For although the beauties, riches, honours, sciences, virtues, and perfections of all men living, were in the present possession of one; yet something beyond and above all this [] would still be sought and earnestly thirsted for. So that Nature even in this life does plainly claim and call for a more divine perfection than either of these two that have been mentioned.

[5.] This last and highest estate of perfection of which we speak is received by men in the nature of a Reward.[15] Rewards do always presuppose such duties performed as are rewardable. Our natural means therefore to blessedness are our works; nor is it possible that Nature should ever find any other way to salvation than only this. But examine the works which we do, and since the first foundation of the world what one can say, My ways are pure? Seeing then all flesh is guilty of that for which God has threatened eternally to punish, what possibility is there in this way to be saved? There remains therefore either no way to salvation, or if any, then surely a way which is supernatural, a way which could never have entered into the heart of man as much as once to conceive or imagine, if God himself had not revealed it extraordinarily. For which cause we term it the Mystery or secret way of salvation. And therefore St. Ambrose in this matter appeals justly from man to God, “Cœli mysterium doceat me Deus qui condidit, non homo qui seipsum ignoravit:—Let God himself that made me, let not man that knows not himself, be my instructor concerning the mystical way to heaven.”[16] “When men of excellent intellect[17],” says Lactantius, “had wholly betaken themselves to study, after farewell bidden to all kind as well of private as public action, they spared no labour that might be spent in the [259] search of truth; holding it a thing of much more worth[18] to seek and to find out the reason of all affairs as well divine as human, than to stick fast in the toil of piling up riches and gathering together heaps of honours. Nevertheless, they both did fail of their purpose, and got not as much as to quit[19] their charges; because truth which is the secret of the Most High God, whose proper handy-work all things are, cannot be compassed with that intellect[20] and those senses which are our own. For God and man should be very near neighbours, if man’s cogitations were able to take a survey of the counsels and appointments of that Majesty everlasting. Which being utterly impossible, that the eye of man by itself should look into the bosom of divine Reason; God did not suffer him being desirous of the light of wisdom to stray any longer up and down, and with bootless expense of travail to wander in darkness that had no passage to get out by. His eyes at the length God did open, and bestow upon him the knowledge of the truth by way of Gift[21], to the end that man might both be clearly convicted of folly, and being through error off[22] of the way, have the path that leads to immortality laid plain before him.”[23] Thus far Lactantius Firmianus, to show that God himself is the teacher of the truth, by which is made known the supernatural way of salvation and law for them that shall be saved to live in. In the natural path of everlasting life the first beginning is that [260] ability of doing good, which God on the day of man’s creation endowed him with; from hence obedience to the will of his Creator, absolute righteousness and integrity in all his actions; and last of all the justice of God rewarding the worthiness of his deserts with the crown of eternal glory. Had Adam continued in his first estate, this would have been the way of life to him and all his posterity. With respect to which[24] I confess notwithstanding with the wisest[25] of the school-divines, “That if we speak of strict justice, God could [in] no way have been bound to requite man’s labours in so generous[26] and ample a manner as human felicity does import; inasmuch as the dignity of this exceeds so far the other’s value. But even if[27] God of his great liberality had determined in lieu of man’s endeavours to bestow the same by the rule of that justice which best beseems him, namely, the justice of one that requites nothing mincingly, but all with pressed and heaped and even over-enlarged measure; yet could it never therefore[28] necessarily be gathered, that such justice should add to the nature of that reward the property of everlasting continuance; since possession of bliss, though it should be but for a moment, would be an abundant retribution.”[29] But we are not now to enter into this consideration, how gracious and bountiful our good God might still appear in so rewarding the sons of men, although they should exactly perform whatever duty their nature binds them to. However God did propose this reward, we that were to be rewarded must have done that which is required at our hands; we failing in the one, it would be in nature an impossibility that the other should be looked for. The light of nature is never able to find out any way of obtaining the reward of bliss, but by performing exactly the duties and works of righteousness.

[6.] From salvation therefore and life all flesh being [261] excluded this way, behold how the wisdom of God has revealed a way mystical and supernatural, a way directing to the same end of life by a course which grounds itself upon the guiltiness of sin, and through sin desert of condemnation and death. For in this way the first thing is the tender compassion of God respecting us drowned and swallowed up in misery; the next is redemption out of the same by the precious death and merit of a mighty Saviour, which has witnessed of himself, saying, “I am the way,” (John 14:6) the way that leads us from misery into bliss. This supernatural way had God in himself prepared before all worlds. The way of supernatural duty which to us he has prescribed, our Saviour in the Gospel of St. John does note, terming it because of its excellency[30], The Work of God, “This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:29) Not that God does require nothing for happiness at the hands of men saving only a naked belief (for hope and charity we may not exclude); but that without belief all other things are as nothing, and it [is] the ground of those other divine virtues.

Concerning Faith, the principal object of which is that eternal Verity which has discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ; concerning Hope, the highest object of which is that everlasting Goodness which in Christ does quicken the dead; concerning Charity, the final object of which is that incomprehensible Beauty which shines in the countenance of Christ the Son of the living God: concerning these virtues, the first of which beginning here with a weak apprehension of things not seen, ends with the intuitive vision of God in the world to come; the second beginning here with a trembling expectation of things far removed and as yet but only heard of, ends with real and actual fruition of that which no tongue can express; the third beginning here with a weak inclination of heart towards him to whom we are not able to approach, ends with endless union, the [262] mystery of which is higher than the reach of the thoughts of men; concerning that Faith, Hope, and Charity, without which there can be no salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only in that law which God himself has from heaven revealed? There is not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, more than has been supernaturally received from the mouth of the eternal God.

Laws therefore concerning these things are supernatural, both in respect of the manner of delivering them, which is divine; and also in regard of the things delivered, which are such as have not in nature any cause from which they flow, but were by the voluntary appointment of God ordained besides the course of nature, to rectify nature’s obliquity with.

“The Cause Why So Many Natural or Rational Laws Are Set Down in Holy Scripture”

Chapter 12 of Book 1 in

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

By Richard Hooker

1594

[Hooker, Richard. “Concerning Laws and Their Several Kinds in General.” Book 1 in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. In Richard Hooker, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an Account of His Life and Death by Isaac Walton. Arranged by the Rev. John Keble MA. 7th edition revised by the Very Rev. R.W. Church and the Rev. F. Paget (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888). 3 vols. Vol. 1. The Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/921. In the public domain. Some modernized vocabulary and contructions have been substituted in the text by the Witherspoon Institute.]

Within the text, numbers within brackets indicate the page divisions of the 1888 edition from which this text was taken; prose within text are insertions of the Witherspoon Institute to supply words required by modern English usage. In places the Witherspoon Institute has modernized archaic or obsolete vocabulary or constructions in Hooker’s text. In cases where the changes are very basic and risk no alteration to the original meaning of the text (such as changing “whereof” to “of which”  and “saith” to “says”) there is no notation in the text; changes to more substantive vocabulary are noted with footnotes that show the original word that Hooker used.

Within the footnotes, text not within brackets are Hooker’s original notes; text within single brackets is supplied by the Witherspoon Institute; text within double brackets (that is, [[ ]] ) is supplied by the editors of the 1888 edition. 

Chapter 12: The cause why so many natural or rational Laws are set down in Holy Scripture

[1.] When supernatural duties are exacted as necessary[1], natural [duties] are not rejected as needless. The law of God therefore is, though principally delivered for instruction in the former, yet fraught with precepts of the latter also. The Scripture is fraught even with laws of Nature; insomuch that Gratian defining Natural Right, (by which is meant the right which exacts those general duties that concern men naturally even as they are men,) terms “Natural Right, that which the Books of the Law and the Gospel do contain.”[2] Neither is it vain that the Scripture abounds with so great [a] store of laws in this kind: for they are either such as we of ourselves could not easily have found out, and then the benefit is not small to have them readily set down to our hands; or if they be so clear and manifest that no man endowed with reason can lightly be ignorant of them, yet [when] the Spirit as it were borrows them from the school of Nature, because they are useful for proving things less manifest, and for inducing[3] a persuasion of something which would be in itself more hard and dark—unless it should in such sort be cleared—the very applying of them to particular cases is not without most singular use and profit [in] many ways for men’s instruction. Besides, be they plain of themselves or obscure, the evidence of God’s own testimony added to the natural assent of reason concerning the certainty of them, does not a little comfort and confirm the same.

[263]

[2.] Wherefore inasmuch as our actions are occupied with[4] things beset with many circumstances, which cause men of sundry intellects[5] to be also of sundry judgments concerning that which ought to be done; requisite it cannot but seem [that] the rule of divine law should in this help our imbecility, that we might the more infallibly understand what is good and what evil. The first principles of the Law of Nature are easy; hard it would be to find men ignorant of them. But concerning the duty which Nature’s law does require at the hands of men in a number of particular things, so far has the natural understanding even of sundry whole nations been darkened, that they have not discerned some[6] gross iniquity to be sin.[7] Again, being so prone as we are to fawn upon ourselves, and to be ignorant as much as may be of our own deformities, without the feeling sense of which we are most wretched, even so much the more, because not knowing them we cannot so much as desire to have them taken away: how should our festered sores be cured, except that God has delivered a law as sharp as the two-edged sword, piercing the very closest and most unsearchable corners of the heart[8], which the Law of Nature can hardly, human laws by no means possible, reach to? By this we know even secret concupiscence to be sin, and are made fearful to offend though it be but in a wandering cogitation. Finally, of those things which are for direction of all the parts of our life needful, and not impossible to be discerned by the [264] light of Nature itself; are there not many which few men’s natural capacity, and some which no man’s, has been able to find out? They are, says St. Augustine, but a few, and they endowed with great ripeness of intelligence[9] and judgment, free from all such affairs as might trouble their meditations, instructed in the sharpest and the subtlest points of learning, who have, and that with great difficulty[10], been able to find out [] only the immortality of the soul. The resurrection of the flesh what man did ever at any time dream of, having not heard it otherwise than from the school of Nature? By this it appears how much we are bound to yield to our Creator, the Father of all mercy, eternal thanks, for that he has delivered his law to the world, a law in which so many things are laid open, clear, and manifest, as a light which otherwise would have been buried in darkness, not without the hazard, or rather not with the hazard but with the certain loss, of infinite thousands of souls most undoubtedly now saved.

[3.] We see, therefore, that our sovereign good is desired naturally; that God the author of that natural desire had appointed natural means whereby to fulfil it; that man having utterly disabled his nature to those means has had another[11] revealed from God, and has received from heaven a law to teach him how that which is desired naturally must now supernaturally be attained. Finally, we see that because those latter exclude not the former wholly and entirely[12] as unnecessary, therefore together with such supernatural duties as could not possibly have been otherwise known to the world, the same law that teaches them, teaches also with them such natural duties as could not by light of Nature easily have been known.