Feast Day Of Richard Hooker

Readings:

Psalm 19:1-11
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 44:10-15
1 Corinthians 2:6-10,13-16
John 17:18-23


PRAYER

O God of truth and peace, who didst raise up thy servant Richard Hooker in a day of bitter controversy to defend with sound reasoning and great charity the catholic and reformed religion: Grant that we may maintain that middle way, not as a compromise for the sake of peace, but as a comprehension for the sake of truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Of Richard Hooker's book, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, James Kiefer says:

In the course of his book he sets forth the Anglican view of the Church, and the Anglican approach to the discovery of religious truth (the so-called via media, or middle road), and explains how this differs from the position of the Puritans, on the one hand, and the adherents of the Pope, on the other. He is very heavy reading, but well worth it. (He says, on the first page of Chapter I: "Those unto whom we shall seem tedious are in no wise injuried by us, seeing that it lies in their own hands to spare themselves the labor they are unwilling to endure."
....

Although Hooker is unsparing in his censure of what he believes to be the errors of Rome, his contemporary, Pope Clement VIII (died 1605), said of the book: "It has in it such seeds of eternity that it will abide until the last fire shall consume all learning."

Presently, I am reading a book of excerpts from Hooker's many-volume work. It is slow going, but I find much that is profitable and applicable to our situation in Anglicanland today. Along with the book of Hooker's excerpts, I am also using Michael Russell's book, Hooker's Blueprint as a sort of "Cliffs Notes" to Hooker's writing.

Reading Hooker in fits and starts, as I do, is not the best way to go, because reading the book at longer intervals, as I have done on occasion, I fall into the cadences of the Elizabethan English, and the reading becomes easier. If you choose to read Hooker, do as I say, and not as I do. And please! Don't ask me complicated questions about Richard Hooker's writings, because I'm not likely to be able to answer them.

Image from Wiki.