This thesis discusses the contribution of Richard Hooker to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in his magisterial work, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Hooker’s discussion of the Holy Spirit is unsystematic although his dependence on the Holy Spirit for his theology is extensive. The aim of the thesis is to assess the contribution of the Holy Spirit to Hooker’s theology as under-represented in current research. Hooker’s attitude to reform is explored in relation to contemporary and later Puritan writers, such as William Perkins, William Ames, Richard Baxter, and John Owen, and forms part of the overall evaluation of the importance of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit for his theology. Four areas are investigated concerning the role Hooker assigned to the Holy Spirit in Christian theology. 1. The role of the Holy Spirit in the interpretation of Scripture. 2. The nature and purpose of the sacraments in light of the Holy Spirit. 3. The place of the Holy Spirit in understanding Hooker’s view of the orders of ministry. 4. The centre of Hooker’s theology as the claim to "participation" in the life of God. The thesis concludes that Hooker remained generally consistent with Calvin’s understanding of the Holy Spirit, though he refined Calvin’s scriptural hermeneutic with special reference to the relationship between reason and the Holy Spirit. It is also contends that later Puritans such as Richard Baxter and John Owen, offered a perspective on the relationship between reason and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that was consistent with Calvin but also anticipated by Hooker. This suggests a strong measure of continuity between Hooker and Puritan thought that did not become apparent until after his death in 1600, and which contemporary scholarship has continued to debate. Hooker was an advocate of reform but with a characteristically independent grasp of what that entailed in the convergence of Thomistic and Calvinist thought. Hooker’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit was a consistent theme that was essential to his central motif of the believer’s participation in God. The final chapter shows that Hooker, in defending the Elizabethan Settlement, was able to avoid the entrapment of the Puritan charge of Pelagianism and sympathy towards Rome on the one hand, and the Roman charge of Scriptural insufficiency on the other, by positing a third pole in the debate. This required acceptance of the idea of foundational Christian truth whose goal was theosis, the union of the soul with God, whose agent was the secret operation of the Holy Spirit and instrumentality, the Scriptures and sacraments. As such, Hooker called for mature commitment to theological investigation that stood above partisan rancour. / May 2005

This thesis discusses the contribution of Richard Hooker to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in his magisterial work, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Hooker’s discussion of the Holy Spirit is unsystematic although his dependence on the Holy Spirit for his theology is extensive. The aim of the thesis is to assess the contribution of the Holy Spirit to Hooker’s theology as under-represented in current research. Hooker’s attitude to reform is explored in relation to contemporary and later Puritan writers, such as William Perkins, William Ames, Richard Baxter, and John Owen, and forms part of the overall evaluation of the importance of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit for his theology. Four areas are investigated concerning the role Hooker assigned to the Holy Spirit in Christian theology. 1. The role of the Holy Spirit in the interpretation of Scripture. 2. The nature and purpose of the sacraments in light of the Holy Spirit. 3. The place of the Holy Spirit in understanding Hooker’s view of the orders of ministry. 4. The centre of Hooker’s theology as the claim to "participation" in the life of God. The thesis concludes that Hooker remained generally consistent with Calvin’s understanding of the Holy Spirit, though he refined Calvin’s scriptural hermeneutic with special reference to the relationship between reason and the Holy Spirit. It is also contends that later Puritans such as Richard Baxter and John Owen, offered a perspective on the relationship between reason and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that was consistent with Calvin but also anticipated by Hooker. This suggests a strong measure of continuity between Hooker and Puritan thought that did not become apparent until after his death in 1600, and which contemporary scholarship has continued to debate. Hooker was an advocate of reform but with a characteristically independent grasp of what that entailed in the convergence of Thomistic and Calvinist thought. Hooker’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit was a consistent theme that was essential to his central motif of the believer’s participation in God. The final chapter shows that Hooker, in defending the Elizabethan Settlement, was able to avoid the entrapment of the Puritan charge of Pelagianism and sympathy towards Rome on the one hand, and the Roman charge of Scriptural insufficiency on the other, by positing a third pole in the debate. This required acceptance of the idea of foundational Christian truth whose goal was theosis, the union of the soul with God, whose agent was the secret operation of the Holy Spirit and instrumentality, the Scriptures and sacraments. As such, Hooker called for mature commitment to theological investigation that stood above partisan rancour.

This thesis discusses the contribution of Richard Hooker to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in his magisterial work, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Hooker’s discussion of the Holy Spirit is unsystematic although his dependence on the Holy Spirit for his theology is extensive. The aim of the thesis is to assess the contribution of the Holy Spirit to Hooker’s theology as under-represented in current research. Hooker’s attitude to reform is explored in relation to contemporary and later Puritan writers, such as William Perkins, William Ames, Richard Baxter, and John Owen, and forms part of the overall evaluation of the importance of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit for his theology. Four areas are investigated concerning the role Hooker assigned to the Holy Spirit in Christian theology. 1. The role of the Holy Spirit in the interpretation of Scripture. 2. The nature and purpose of the sacraments in light of the Holy Spirit. 3. The place of the Holy Spirit in understanding Hooker’s view of the orders of ministry. 4. The centre of Hooker’s theology as the claim to "participation" in the life of God. The thesis concludes that Hooker remained generally consistent with Calvin’s understanding of the Holy Spirit, though he refined Calvin’s scriptural hermeneutic with special reference to the relationship between reason and the Holy Spirit. It is also contends that later Puritans such as Richard Baxter and John Owen, offered a perspective on the relationship between reason and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that was consistent with Calvin but also anticipated by Hooker. This suggests a strong measure of continuity between Hooker and Puritan thought that did not become apparent until after his death in 1600, and which contemporary scholarship has continued to debate. Hooker was an advocate of reform but with a characteristically independent grasp of what that entailed in the convergence of Thomistic and Calvinist thought. Hooker’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit was a consistent theme that was essential to his central motif of the believer’s participation in God. The final chapter shows that Hooker, in defending the Elizabethan Settlement, was able to avoid the entrapment of the Puritan charge of Pelagianism and sympathy towards Rome on the one hand, and the Roman charge of Scriptural insufficiency on the other, by positing a third pole in the debate. This required acceptance of the idea of foundational Christian truth whose goal was theosis, the union of the soul with God, whose agent was the secret operation of the Holy Spirit and instrumentality, the Scriptures and sacraments. As such, Hooker called for mature commitment to theological investigation that stood above partisan rancour.

This thesis argues that the scope of Richard Hooker’s critique in his Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie extends beyond its ostensive target of Elizabethan presbyterianism to what he saw as a more general dissolution of a framework of human self-understanding rooted in Christian metaphysics and sacramental polity. The foundation of Hooker’s revision of the conformist case, I argue, is not a critique of presbyterianism or Calvinism themselves but of their 14th-century nominalist roots. Whereas recent scholarship has focused on the extent of Hooker’s consistency with the magisterial reformers, I aim to situate Hooker within the broader intellectual developments, beyond merely doctrinal-confessional concerns, that would come to characterize modern thought. Such a broadened approach offers valuable insight into the competing tensions in the intellectual climate of nascent modernity and, more importantly, situates Hooker within the context of the epoch-level stakes that, as I argue, he himself envisioned for his project. I develop this line of interpretation with two case studies—the first on Hooker’s critique of newly developing reforms in logic, the second on his sacramentology. In both cases, Hooker adopts a position whose metaphysical-theological foundations are an explicit departure from the Calvinist-derived consensus framework of the Admonition Controversy. / Graduate

My dissertation explores Shakespeare’s negotiation of Reformation controversy about theories of salvation. While twentieth century literary criticism tended to regard Shakespeare as a harbinger of secularism, the so-called “turn to religion” in early modern studies has given renewed attention to the religious elements in Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Yet in spite of the current popularity of early modern religion studies, there remains an aura of uncertainty regarding some of the doctrinal or liturgical specificities of the period. This historical gap is especially felt with respect to theories of salvation, or soteriology. Such ambiguity, however, calls for further inquiry into historical theology. As one of the “hot-button” issues of the Reformation, salvation was fiercely contested in Shakespeare’s day, making it essential for scholarship to differentiate between conformist (Church of England), godly (puritan), and recusant (Catholic) strains of soteriology in Shakespearean plays. I explore how the language and concepts of faith, grace, charity, the sacraments, election, free will, justification, sanctification, and atonement find expression in Shakespeare’s plays. In doing so, I contribute to the recovery of a greater understanding of the relationship between early modern religion and Shakespearean drama. While I share Kastan’s reluctance to attribute particular religious convictions to Shakespeare (A Will to Believe 143), in some cases such critical guardedness has diverted attention from the religious topography of Shakespeare’s plays. My first chapter explores the tension in The Merchant of Venice between Protestant notions of justification by faith and a Catholic insistence upon works of mercy. The infamous trial scene, in particular, deconstructs cherished Protestant ideology by refuting the efficacy of faith when it is divorced from ethical behaviour. The second chapter situates Hamlet in the stream of Lancelot Andrewes’s “avant-garde conformity” (to use Peter Lake’s coinage), thereby explaining why Claudius’s prayer in the definitive text of the second quarto has intimations of soteriological agency that are lacking in the first quarto. The third chapter argues that Hamlet undermines the ghost’s association of violence and religion, thus implicitly critiquing the proliferation of religious violence on both sides of the Reformation divide. The fourth chapter argues that Calvin’s theory of the vicarious atonement of Christ, expounded so eloquently by Isabella in Measure for Measure, meets substantial resistance, especially when the Duke and others attempt to apply the soteriological principle of substitution to the domains of sexuality and law. The ethical failures that result from an over-realized soteriology indicate that the play corroborates Luther’s idea that a distinction must be maintained between the sacred and secular realms. The fifth chapter examines controversies in the English church about the (il)legitimacy of exorcising demons, a practice favoured by Jesuits but generally frowned upon by Calvinists. Shakespeare cleverly negotiates satirical source material by metaphorizing exorcisms in King Lear in a way that seems to acknowledge Calvinist scepticism, yet honour Jesuit compassion. Throughout this study, my hermeneutic is to read Shakespeare through the lens of contemporary theological controversy and to read contemporary theology through the lens of Shakespeare. / Graduate / 2023-11-20