Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Society, clerical conference and the Church of England
- Part II The godly ministry: piety and practice
- Part III ‘These uncomfortable times’: conformity and the godly ministers 1628–1638
- Part IV ‘These Dangerous Times’: the Puritan Diaspora 1631–1643
- 13 John Dury and the godly ministers
- 14 Choices of suffering and flight
- 15 The ‘non-separating Congregationalists’ and early Massachusetts
- 16 Thomas Hooker and the Amesians
- 17 Alternative ecclesiologies to 1643
- 18 Conclusion
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History
16 - Thomas Hooker and the Amesians
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Society, clerical conference and the Church of England
- Part II The godly ministry: piety and practice
- Part III ‘These uncomfortable times’: conformity and the godly ministers 1628–1638
- Part IV ‘These Dangerous Times’: the Puritan Diaspora 1631–1643
- 13 John Dury and the godly ministers
- 14 Choices of suffering and flight
- 15 The ‘non-separating Congregationalists’ and early Massachusetts
- 16 Thomas Hooker and the Amesians
- 17 Alternative ecclesiologies to 1643
- 18 Conclusion
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History
Summary
The first clear exposition of Hooker's ecclesiology came when he arrived in the Netherlands, although he had a reputation as a scholar of such issues long before his flight. From his long-standing friendship with William Ames we need not be surprised that his ecclesiology was already highly developed. When he became a candidate for the post of assistant to John Paget in the Amsterdam church in July 1631, Paget submitted twenty propositions, indicating his position and asking Hooker to make his own clear. On questions relating to salvation, Hooker found agreement easy and referred Paget to John Rogers' work; on relations with Separatists and the conduct of services he proved moderate and willing to seek agreement. On some questions, notably that of the lawful baptism of children whose parents are not church members, a question with a great future in New England, he pronounced himself insufficiently well read, but on the central questions of classical authority, he was already convinced and willing to dissent. There were four such questions. The first asked whether a particular congregation could call a minister without the approbation of the classis. Hooker answered by discussing the origins of the classis in terms derived from Ames, concluding that ‘particular congregations had power from Christ to call a minister and so did by that, their power choose and call their ministers fully and completely before there was a Classis, and therefore had their power not derived from a Classis’, although he acknowledged ‘that, if by mutual consent the congregation hath freely combined itself with the Classis, they shall do piously and expediently: freely to crave the approbation of the Classis, that they may be more confirmed or … better directed in their course’.
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- Information
- Godly Clergy in Early Stuart EnglandThe Caroline Puritan Movement, c.1620–1643, pp. 299 - 309Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997