Authority in Scripture and the Believer

From The Living Church-

We cannot speak about authority in the Church without giving careful consideration to the authority of Scripture. What follows is a brief guide to some fundamental insights made by Richard Hooker (1553/4-1600) in his classic, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.

Much of Hooker’s discussion in the Laws pertains to the appropriateness of the Church authoritatively establishing customs and rites — what in general he calls “order” — the particulars of which are not prescribed by Scripture. We see the operative distinction in the following passage.

"The Church hath authority to establish that for an order at one time, which at another time it may abolish, and in both may do well. But that which in doctrine the Church doth now deliver rightly as a truth, no man will say that it may hereafter recall, and as rightly avouch the contrary. Laws touching matter of order are changeable, by the power of the Church; articles concerning doctrine not so [V.viii.2]."

The rub comes with Hooker’s distinction of order and doctrine. We might well ask how it is to be determined whether a point of dispute belongs to order or to doctrine. In practice, the Church’s authority will have to decide that higher-level question as well (although by Hookerian principles dissent from decisions judged to involve doctrinal error would continue to be required). There is no escaping the Church’s authority (as Hooker states in a discussion of the use of the cross in baptism) over

"traditions, ordinances made in the prime of Christian religion, established with that authority which Christ hath left to his Church for matters indifferent, and in that consideration requisite to be observed, till like authority see just and reasonable cause to alter them [V.lxv.2]."

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2010/10/8/authority-in-scripture-and-the-believer