Richard Hooker and the Historic Episcopacy

From The Living Church-

Today we commemorate Richard Hooker. In the words of today’s collect, he arose “in a day of bitter controversy to defend with sound reasoning the great charity of the catholic and reformed religion.” I want to consider how the “great charity” of holding the Catholic and Reformed streams together uniquely shapes the Episcopal Church’s ability to engage in ecumenical dialogue. More specifically, I want to explore how Hooker’s argument for keeping the historic episcopacy in his day should influence questions of polity in ecumenical discussions of our own day.

Although Hooker argued for the continuation of the historic episcopacy, it is not clear that he gave an unqualified defense of the episcopacy for all times and places. Yet in the preface to his 19th century collection of Hooker’s Works, John Keble enshrined Hooker’s reputation as the great defender of the historic episcopacy. Keble wrote that although “on the whole, it should seem that where he speaks so largely of the mutability of church laws, government, and discipline,” the actual substance of Hooker’s views were that the “episcopacy grounded on apostolic succession was of supernatural origin and divine authority” (lxxiv–lxxv). In other words, although Hooker entertained the possibility of reform, in Keble’s interpretation, when it came to the question of the historic episcopacy, Hooker spoke only from the Catholic stream and argued that bishops were instituted by divine law.

More here-

https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2019/11/04/richard-hooker-and-the-historic-episcopacy/