"The knot of all Christian society": Hooker, conformity and the peace of the Church

 ... because in all alterations, and specially in rites and ceremonies, there happen discords amongst the people, and thereupon slanderous words and railings, whereby charity, the knot of all Christian society, is loosed; the queen's majesty being most desirous of all other earthly things, that her people should live in charity both towards God and man, and therein abound in good works, wills and straitly commands all manner her subjects to forbear all vain and contentious disputations in matters of religion, and not to use in despite or rebuke of any person these convicious words, papist or papistical heretic, schismatic or sacramentary, or any suchlike words of reproach - from the Elizabethan Injunctions, 1559.

Perhaps a defining aspect of Hooker's The Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie is how it cherished and protected the peace brought to the ecclesia Anglicana by the Elizabethan Settlement. As an example of this, we can his defence of the particular aspect of the Settlement indicated in the above extract from the Injunctions

Hooker rejects Disciplinarian criticism of the reformed ecclesia Anglicana ministering the Sacrament to "papistes":

The name of a Papist is not given unto any man for being a notorious malefactor - LEP V.68.5.

While recognising the "faltes" of the Roman Church, Hooker insists that it is "to be held and reputed a parte of the howse of God, a limme of the visible Church of Christ" (V.68.9).  This is so because of the Church's centre:

... the onlie object which separateth oures from other religions is Jesus Christ - LEP V.68.6.
 
This ensured that partaking of the holy Mysteries in the ecclesia Anglicana sufficed for "conformitie", rather than "imposinge upon the Church a burthen to enter farther into mens hartes and to make a deeper search of theire consciences then any Law of God or reason of man inforceth" (V.68.9).  Anything more echoed "the error of all popish definitions that hitherto have bene brought" (V.68.6).

Hooker similarly rejected criticism of those accused of being 'Sacramentaries' - the Lutheran and Papalist term of contempt for those adhering to one of the Reformed understandings of the Eucharist:

It seemeth therefore much amisse that against them whome they terme Sacramentaries so many invective discorses are made all runninge upon two pointes, that the Eucharist is not a bare signe or figure onlie, and that the efficacie of his bodie and blood is not all wee receive in this sacrament.  For no man having read theire bookes and writinges which are thus traduced can be ignorant that both these assertions they plainely confesse to be most true - LEP V.67.8.

Hooker urges that both 'papiste' and 'sacramentary' conforming to the ecclesia Anglicana be regarded as those "lovinge truth and seekinge comfort out of holie mysteries" (V.67.12).  So the traditionally-minded parishioner condemned by others as a 'papiste' could receive the Sacrament.  And the reform-minded parishioner condemned by others as a 'sacramentary' could similarly approach the Sacrament, rather than being judged as denying the gift there given and received.

For Hooker this peace recognised and affirmed a shared understanding of our "reall participation" in Christ by means of the Eucharist.  Disagreement, Hooker states, is on "a narrower isshue":

nor dothe anie thing rest doubtfull but this, whether when the sacrament is administered, Christ be whole within man onlye, or els his bodie and bloode be also externallye seated in the verie consecrated elementes them selves - LEP V.67.2.

This "narrower isshue" was an unnecessary distraction from the 'sacramentaries' sharing the belief in "reall participation" in the Eucharist:

They graunt that these holie mysteries received in due manner doe instrumentallie both make us partakers of the grace of that bodie and blood which were given for the life of the world, and besides also imparte unto us even in true and reall though mysticall manner the verie person of Lord him self - V.67.8.

Hooker could have pointed to the Consensus Tigurinus between Geneva and Zurich to illustrate this, with its confession "we do not disjoin the reality from the signs".  To use Hooker's words, this contributed "at lengthe" to "a generall agreement" on our "mysticall communion" with the Lord in the Sacrament.  Nothing more than this "mysticall participation" was required by "the sentence of antiquite", "of all the ancient fathers of the Church" (V67.11).

It is a Christological and sacramental theology of conformity, a means of the Church embodying "charity, the knot of all Christian society".

In his reflection on Eucharistic theology, Hooker was also indicating how the peace the Elizabethan Settlement bestowed on the ecclesia Anglicana could be shared with the wider ecclesia Europa, "still distracted, and rent with so manyfold contentions" concerning the Eucharist (V.67.2).

Thus therefore wee see that howsoever mens opinions do otherwise varie nevertheless touching baptisme and the supper of the Lord wee may with consent of the whole Christian world conclude they are necessarie, the one to initiate, the other to consummate or make perfect our life in Christ - LEP V.67.13.