ABSTRACT
The doctrine of justification has always been a crucial element which conferred identity to Protestant churches and even to Protestant theologians. Richard Hooker (1554–1600), the reputed author of the famous Lawes of the Ecclesiasticall Politie, is no exception to this rule and this makes his theology quite difficult to pigeonhole. Part of the problem consists of the nature of Hooker’s works, which may be chronologically organized in three different categories. The first category is formed of tractates and sermons, which include The Two Sermons Upon Part of S. Judes Epistle (1582–1583), A Learned and Confortable Sermon of the Certaintie and Perpetuitie of Faith in the Elect (1585), A Learned Discourse of Justification, Workes and How the Foundation of Faith is Overthrown (1586), Master Hookers Answer to the Supplication that Master Travers Made to the [Privy] Counsell (1586), and A Learned Sermon of the Nature of Pride (1586). 1 The second category is occupied by the Lawes of the Ecclesiasticall Politie, which consist of eight books written probably up to 1597. The third category is made up of manuscript responses to attacks on the Laws. 2 Thus, Hooker wrote a response to A Christian Letter, published anonymously in 1599, whose authors accused him of spreading ideas opposed to the Thirty-Nine Articles. Later on, Hooker began to write a defence of the Laws, now called the Dublin Fragments, which he did not complete as he died after a short illness in 1600. 3
