In the spring of 1593 Richard Hooker published the first
part of his work Of the laws of ecclesiastical polity
which has come to be known
as the most famous attempt to persuade Elizabethan Puritans to
conform to the laws of the English Church.
Hooker's writings have
received more scholarly attention than those of any other
contemporary church polemicist but no consensus has, as yet,
been arrived at regarding
the nature of his argument or the way in which his ideas
addressed the
major issues of Elizabethan church controversy. It is my
intention in this
essay to focus on these issues and thus provide some insight
into the details
of Hooker's theory of law and its broader significance
as an argument
relating to the legislative authority of the Church of England.