Richard Hooker
I want you to imagine for a moment that the Dean of Derby preached this morning, a sermon of erudite and orthodox Anglican theology. Then this evening, along comes the reforming Canon Chancellor and purports to correct, nay to refute the Dean’s teaching, accusing him of popish heresy and of ignoring the Scriptures. And that this is a pattern that overall continues for several years. This is, of course, not what is happening here tonight. I do not stand here to refute the Dean’s heresies. Rather I stand here to speak of a man for whom this experience of sermon and counter-sermon was a regular occurrence. The man is Richard Hooker, and he has come to be seen as the greatest apologist for Anglicanism, and even by some as the inventor of Anglicanism! To understand how this came about, we must look a little at what had happened to the Church of England in his lifetime. Richard Hooker was born in Heavitree near Exeter ...