their hands. Yea, I am persuaded, that of them with whom in this cause we strive, there are whose betters amongst men would be hardly found, if they did not live amongst men, but in some wilderness by themselves. The cause of which their disposition, so unframable unto societies wherein they live, is, for that they discern not aright what place and force these several kinds of laws ought to have in all their actions. Is their question either concerning the regiment of the Church in general, or about conformity between one church and another, or of ceremonies, offices, powers, jurisdictions in our own church? Of all these things they judge by that rule which they frame to themselves with some show of probability, and what seemeth in that sort convenient, the same they think themselves bound to practise; the same by all means they labour mightily to uphold; whatsoever any law of man to the contrary hath determined they weigh it not. Thus by following the law of private reason, where the law of public should take place, they breed disturbance.

[7] For the better inuring therefore of men's minds with the true distinction of laws, and of their several force according to the different kind and quality of our actions, it shall not peradventure be amiss to shew in some one example how they all take place. To seek no further, let but that be considered, than which there is not any thing more familiar unto us, our food.

What things are food and what are not we judge naturally by senses; neither need we any other law to be our director in that behalf than the selfsame which is common unto us with beasts.

- Πολλοὶ γὰρ ἐν μὲν τοῖς οἰκείοις τῇ ἀρετῇ δύνανται χρῆσθαι, ἐν δὲ Tоis πρÒS ÉTEрov àduvaтovσi. Arist. Ethic. lib. v. cap. 3.

$ Job xxxiv. 3.

But when we come to consider of food, as of a benefit which God of his bounteous goodness hath provided for all things livingt; the law of reason doth here require the duty of thankfulness at our hands, towards him at whose hands we have it. And lest appetite in the use of food should lead us beyond that which is meet, we owe in this case obedience to that law of reason, which teacheth mediocrity in meats and drinks. The same things divine law teacheth also, as at large we have shewed it doth all parts of moral duty, whereunto we all of necessity stand bound, in regard of the life to come.

But of certain kinds of food the Jews sometime had, and we ourselves likewise have, a mystical, religious, and supernatural use, they of their Paschal lamb and oblations, we of our bread and wine in the Eucharist; which use none but divine law could institute.

Now as we live in civil society, the state of the commonwealth wherein we live both may and doth require certain laws concerning food"; which laws, saving only that we are members of the commonwealth where they are of force, we should not need to respect as rules of action, whereas now in their place and kind they must be respected and obeyed.

Yea, the selfsame matter is also a subject wherein sometime ecclesiastical laws have place; so that unless we will be authors of confusion in the Church, our private discretion, which otherwise might guide us a contrary way, must here submit itself to be that way guided, which the public judgment of the Church hath thought better. In which case that of Zonaras concerning fasts may be remembered. Fastings are good, but let good things be done * Psalm cxlv. 15, 16.

u

[See 5 Eliz. c. 5. § 14, 15; 27 Eliz. c. II; 35 Eliz, c. 7. $ 22.]

in good and convenient manner. He that transgresseth in his fasting the orders of the holy fathers, the positive laws of the Church of Christ, must be plainly told, that good things do lose the grace of their goodness, when in good sort they are not performed x.

And as here men's private fancies must give place to the higher judgment of that church which is in authority a mother over them; so the very actions of whole churches have, in regard of commerce and fellowship with other churches, been subject to laws concerning food, the contrary unto which laws had else been thought more convenient for them to observe; as by that order of abstinence from strangled and bloody may appear; an order grounded upon that fellowship which the churches of the Gentiles had with the Jews.

Thus we see how even one and the selfsame thing is under divers considerations conveyed through many laws; and that to measure by any one kind of law all the actions of men were to confound the admirable order, wherein God hath disposed all laws, each as in nature, so in degree, distinct from other.

[8] Wherefore that here we may briefly end: of Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both Angels and men and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.

* ὅτι οὐ καλὸν τὸ καλὸν, ὅταν μὴ καλῶς γίνηται. Zonar. in Can. Apost. 66. [Beverig. Synod. t. i. p. 43.]

y Acts xv. 20.

NOTES.

I. Introduction.-General difficulties of defending things established.Reasons for going to the bottom of the subject and treating it methodically. Subject of the Treatise; the grounds and rationale of existing Laws and Government of the Church of England.— Subject of the First Book: the Nature of Law in general, under the Heads of, (1) the Law of God; (2) the Law of Nature; (3) the Law of Scripture.

[2] With this compare Sermon iii. one of the Temple series, 1586, connected with the controversy with Travers, and in which the germs of much of this First Book may be traced (p. 597, ed. 1845):

The nature of man, being much more delighted to be led than drawn, doth many times stubbornly resist authority, when to persuasion it easily yieldeth. Whereupon the wisest law-makers have endeavoured always, that those laws might seem most reasonable, which they would have most inviolably kept. A law simply commanding or forbidding, is but dead in comparison of that which expresseth the reason wherefore it doth the one and the other. And, surely, even in the laws of God, although that he hath given commandment be in itself a reason sufficient to exact all obedience at the hands of men, yet a forcible inducement it is to obey with greater alacrity and cheerfulness of mind, when we see plainly that nothing is imposed more than we must needs yield unto, except we will be unreasonable. In a word, whatsoever we be taught, be it precept for direction of our manners, or article for instruction of our faith, or document any way for information of our minds, it then taketh root and abideth, when we conceive not only what God doth speak, but why.'

And again, p. 601 :

'The want of exact distinguishing between these two ways [the way of nature, and the way of grace], and observing what they have common, what peculiar, hath been the cause of the greatest part of that confusion whereof Christianity at this day laboureth. The lack of diligence in searching, laying down, and inuring men's minds with those hidden grounds of reason, whereupon the least particulars in each of these are most firmly and strongly builded, is the only reason of all those scruples and uncertainties, wherewith we are in such sort entangled, that a number despair of ever discerning what is right or wrong in any thing.'

[3] Hating to be reformed;-This phrase, from Ps. 50. 17, is more than once quoted by Hooker.

Sceptre of his discipline;— Christ's Holy Discipline,' was the recognised term for the proposed Puritan reforms.

That law which giveth life unto the rest;-I have quoted on the page following the title, what I suppose to be the earliest expression of this leading idea of Hooker, from Heraclitus (Ritter and Preller, Histor. Phil. § 41); which perhaps (for there is doubt about the readings) may be translated: To be wise is of public concern to all. It behoves men speaking with reason to stand stoutly for the public concern of all, as a city [stands] for the law, yea, more stoutly than a city. For all human laws are fed by one the divine law; for it bears sway so far forth as it chooses, and suffices for all, and yet goes beyond.' The same line of thought is followed in Cicero de Legibus (vide i. 6; ii. 4), with which Mr. Hallam compares Hooker's First Book. (Constit. Hist. c. iv.)

II. Of Law, in its idea and widest sense; a rule by which work is done for an end.-Of God's Law to himself; the Law which he has set to himself in his external working. Why, and in what sense, we conceive God as setting a Law to himself.-Ends of God's working.-God's will not without reason.-This Eternal Law above all created intelligence; perfect; unchangeable; consistent with

God's freedom.

[1] Some operation not violent or casual;-Their own proper and natural way of working, opposed to what they do, either by accident and at random, or by force and against their nature.

Some fore-conceived end;—All working implies an end. If we ascribe to God working, we cannot help ascribing to him ends; and the idea of Law, as that which adapts working to ends, follows on the idea of working. 'Omne agens agit propter finem; alioquin ex actione agentis non magis sequeretur boc quam illud, nisi in casu.' S. Thom. Aq. Summ. Th. 1. qu. 44, art. 4.

That which doth assign, &c. ;- Law,' the rule fixing (1) the kind, (2) the degree, (3) the special shape and form of any working. (Cp. Aquinas: Lex regula quaedam et mensura actuum, secundum quam aliquis inducitur ad agendum, vel ab agendo retrahitur.') Hooker observes later on (iii. 1) that he has enlarged' the usual sense of law, which includes in it, being imposed with sanctions by a superior authority.' Here it is, in a wider sense, a rule imposed by reason or by the necessary conditions of the thing to be done.

[2] Dangerous it were;-This famous paragraph embodies the substance of a number of sayings current in Christian as in heathen learning: e. g. the story of Simonides in Cic. Nat. D. 1. 22; Aug. De Ordine 2. 16: Deus scitur melius nesciendo;' and 18: 'Cujus nulla scientia est in anima, nisi scire quomodo eum nesciat;' and Arnob. quoted by Keble: Qui ut intelligaris, tacendum est,' Cp. like passages in Minuc. Felix c. 19; Tert. Apol. 1. 17: 'Sibi soli notus;' Aug. Confess. 1. 4; De