Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1593).

From Russell Kirk:

Richard Hooker deserves close study—in part because the Anglicans or Episcopalians (and the Methodists who in the eighteenth century branched off from Anglicanism) had much to do with the forming of American thought and custom, and in part because his principles retain enduring value in their own right. In the Christian humanist Hooker, the right reason of Thomas Aquinas was joined with the renewing vigor of the Reformation. . . . . This is a work of religious philosophy, rather than of theology strictly; its political theories have outlasted the immediate controversies that brought forth the treatise.

Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order 241-42 (3d ed. 1991).

The work is long, and we have been unable to locate an edited version of the political/legal writings of this influential theologian. For a summary of the major themes of his writing, see the continuation of the foregoing discussion in Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order 240-47 (3d ed. 1991). In addition, many scholarly works address the contributions of Hooker’s theology to legal and political theory. See, e.g., A.P D’Entreves, Medieval Contributions to Political Thought: Thomas Aquinas, Marsilius of Padua, Richard Hooker (1959); and Robert K. Faulkner, Richard Hooker and the Politics of a Christian England (1981).

Read this work here.