In fact, Cartwright's work almost seems as if
specially written to warn the nation against a possible, if not an
imminent, danger, to warn them, in truth, that--"New Presbyter is but
Old Priest writ large."
Cartwright's narrow-minded dogmatism was crushingly answered in Richard
Hooker's _Ecclesiastical Polity_, the first volume of which appeared in
1594. This remarkable book forms, indeed, an important landmark in the
history of English political and religious thought. Its forcible
exposition of the basic principles of constitutional civil government
makes many portions of it even to-day most attractive and instructive
reading. For the first time in the history of religious controversy,
reason is extolled above any and every authority, and accepted as
supreme judge and arbiter of spiritual, as well as of temporal, affairs.
Though Hooker thought it fit that the reason of the individual should
yield to that of the Church, he did not hesitate to declare "that
authority should prevail with man either against or above reason, is no
part of our belief. Companies of learned men, be they never so great and
reverend, are to yield unto reason." As Buckle well points out,[21:1] if
we compare this work with Jewel's _Apology for the Church of England_,
written some thirty years previously,--and ordered, together with the
Bible and Fox's _Martyrs_, "to be fixed in all parish churches and read
to the people,"--"we shall at once be struck by the different methods
these eminent writers employ.
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