Thomas Hooker

English-born colonial American theologian

• Born: July 7, 1586
• Birthplace: Markfield, Leicestershire, England
• Died: July 7, 1647
• Place of death: Hartford, Connecticut

Hooker was a major theologian within the Calvinist tradition. In addition to writing a cogent defense of the Congregational form of church government, he advocated democratic ideals and made a significant contribution to the framing of Connecticut’s first constitution.

Early Life

Thomas Hooker was born the son of a head servant of the powerful Digby family. He most likely attended the grammar school at the nearby Market Bosworth. In 1604, Hooker was awarded a fellowship to attend Cambridge University. By then, he had already been attracted to the Protestant movement called Puritanism, which was influenced by the austere teachings of John Calvin. After briefly studying at Queens College, Cambridge, Hooker transferred to Emmanuel College, whose members were known to include many Puritan sympathizers. He was awarded a B.A. in 1608 and an M.A. in 1611. For the next seven years, he taught religion and catechism at Emmanuel College.

While teaching at Emmanuel, Hooker had a profound religious experience. Convinced of his divine calling, he preached a series of sermons on the nature of spiritual rebirth, which would remain a major theme throughout his career. In 1618, a man named Francis Drake, the patron of Saint George’s parish in Esher, Surrey, appointed Hooker to be the church rector. One of his major tasks at Esher was to attend to the spiritual welfare of Drake’s wife, Joan, who was profoundly depressed and had attempted suicide. His apparent success in helping the distraught woman promoted Hooker’s reputation as a caring minister. In 1621, Hooker married Mrs. Drake’s maid, Susanna Garbrand. The couple had at least six children, of whom four survived their father.

Life’s Work

In 1625, following the death of Joan Drake, Hooker moved to Chelmsford, Essex, where he preached and lectured in the Church of Saint Mary. He also began a school. Essex had a large network of Puritan ministers. Hooker quickly became one of the respected leaders of the movement, and his sermons on conversion attracted considerable attention. He had developed a perspective called preparationist theology, arguing that spiritual rebirth occurs gradually over an extended period rather than in a single flash of insight. Like other Puritans, he believed the Church of England had not sufficiently purified itself of Catholic doctrines and practices, including continuation of the title “priest” and the sign of the cross. Committed to the local autonomy of congregations, Hooker began to criticize the authority and power of the bishops.

At this time, William Laud , the future archbishop of Canterbury, was already leading a crusade against the Nonconformists. In 1629, he required Hooker to appear before a church court to defend his teachings and criticisms of the Anglican Church. Although released on bond, Hooker was recalled the next year to appear before Laud’s Court of High Commission. To avoid prison, Hooker went into hiding. In 1631, he fled England, joining other Puritan refugees in Holland. While working as an assistant minister in Delft, he published his first book, The Soules Preparation for Christ (1632), which was essentially a collection of sermons. He also met some of the organizers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and he decided to join a group from Essex that was establishing residence in Newtown (now Cambridge).

On September 4, 1633, Hooker arrived in New England with John Cotton and his future assistant, Samuel Stone . In Newtown, Hooker and Stone led in the foundation of a church based on Congregational principles. Hooker was soon involved in local controversies. A skillful mediator, he helped to resolve some of the differences between civil leaders and the colony’s governor, John Winthrop . In 1634, the magistrates asked him for advice about John Endicott’s mutilation of the English flag. Endicott had cut out the cross from the flag, based on the idea that the image of the cross was an idolatrous relic of papal superstition. In a thirteen-page discussion, “Touching the Cross in the Banners” (1634), Hooker concluded that the cross was a mere symbol rather than an idol or object of worship.

The religious ideas of Anne Hutchinson and John Wheelwright proved to be of greater consequence for the colony than those of Endicott. In 1637, Hooker and Peter Bulkeley of Concord presided over a synod convened to consider the antinomian doctrine of Hutchinson and Wheelwright, which basically asserted that those Christians directly guided by the spirit might disregard civic laws. The synod condemned eighty-two errors taught by Hutchinson and Wheelwright, providing a basis for their eventual expulsion from Massachusetts. The synod also endorsed the preparation theology of Hooker and his colleagues.

As the Newtown congregation grew, its members began to need more land for farming. They decided to sell their property to a new group of immigrants and to relocate on the fertile banks of the Connecticut River. In 1636, Hooker moved to the new settlement, which was named Hartford after the birthplace of Samuel Stone. About the same time, other groups also left Massachusetts to begin other settlements along the river. Because Connecticut was outside the Massachusetts charter, the new towns had the task of forming a new government, a task that was delayed in part by the 1637 war with the Pequot Indians.

In 1638, representatives from the towns held a general court to write a framework for a new system of government, called the Fundamental Orders. Hooker addressed the delegates with a sermon declaring that the people had the ultimate authority to decide the powers of a government and to choose the public magistrates. Historical sources are unclear about the extent to which he participated in the actual drafting of the Fundamental Orders.

Hooker was increasingly recognized as one of the spiritual leaders of New England. His published sermons, with titles like The Soules Humiliation (1637) and The Soules Possession of Christ (1638), were highly respected. During the 1640’s, the religious upheavals in England led to considerable debate about church government. In 1643, Hooker and other ministers of Massachusetts and Connecticut were invited to attend the Westminster Assembly of Calvinist theologians. They declined because the assembly was dominated by Presbyterians unsympathetic to New England’s system of independent congregations. An assembly of Congregational ministers requested Hooker to defend their position. Hooker’s influential response, A Survey of the Summe of Church-Discipline (1648), was published posthumously, as was his defense of infant baptism, The Covenant of Grace Opened (1649).

Significance

As historian Perry Miller has demonstrated, Hooker probably did not invent any new doctrines, but he did articulate, lucidly and with conviction, religious and political views widely held by moderate Puritans of the time. Nevertheless, Hooker defended democratic values more than most of his contemporaries, and he apparently had some influence over the formation of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, which some historians consider the first written constitution in America.

Hooker’s A Survey of the Summe of Church-Discipline was a highly respected defense of New England’s system of church government. It allowed for more tolerance for diversity and human imperfection than many Puritan works, and it was widely cited in the discussions that resulted in the Cambridge Platform of 1648.

Bibliography

Ball, John H. Chronicling the Soul’s Wandering: Thomas Hooker and His Morphology of Conversion. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1992. Presents Hooker as a physician of the soul who specialized in the psychology of conversion.

Bremer, Francis. The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards. Boston: University Press of New England, 1995. A helpful study that emphasizes the social aspects of Puritanism.

Bush, Sargent, Jr. The Writings of Thomas Hooker: Spiritual Adventurer in Two Worlds. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980. A good selection of Hooker’s sermons and other theological works, with an excellent introduction that summarizes his ideas.

Hall, David, ed. Puritans in the New World: A Critical Anthology. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. Includes a helpful up-to-date introduction to the topic and two well-chosen selections from Hooker’s writings.

LaPlante, Eve. American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. An interesting study of the antinomian controversy, with a very unflattering view of Hooker and other Puritan leaders.

Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana. Reprint. New York: Russell & Russell, 1967. A classic Puritan work of 1702 that includes a biography under the title “The Light of the Western Churches: Or, The Life of Mr. Thomas Hooker.”

Miller, Perry. The New England Mind. 2 vols. Boston: Beacon Press, 1939. A classic study of Puritanism, with many interesting comments on Hooker.

Shuffelton, Frank. Thomas Hooker, 1586-1647. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977. A valuable full-length biography that emphasizes doctrinal and political controversies.

Taylor, Robert. Colonial Connecticut: A History. Millwood, N.Y.: KTO Press, 1979. Useful summary that has an especially good account of the writing of the colony’s constitution.

Williams, George, and Sargent Bush, Jr., eds. Thomas Hooker: Writings in England and Holland, 1626-1633. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975. In addition to Hooker’s early writings, the book contains useful essays by the editors and a comprehensive bibliography.