35 LIFE OF WALTON. 



HOOKER, one of the greatest of English divines, i 

 sufficiently known and celebrated ; as a learned, able, 

 and judicious writer, and defender of our church, in 

 his Treatise of the laws of ecclesiastical polity ; the 

 occasion of writing which is at this day but little 

 known ; and, to say the truth, has never been related 

 with the clearness and perspicuity necessary to render 

 the controversy intelligible. In or about the year 1570 

 were published two small tracts severally entitled, a 

 first and second Admonition to the Parliament) con- 

 taining, under the form of a remonstrance, a most 

 virulent invective against the establishment and dis- 

 cipline of the church of England which were answer- 

 ed by Dr. Whitgift, afterwards archbishop of Can- 

 terbury, and defended by one Thomas Cartwright, the 

 author of the second Admonition. But the order and 

 progress of the controversy will best appear by the fol- 

 lowing state of it : 



Admonition, first and second. 



Anszoer thereto, by Whitgift. 



1. RepUe to the Answer, by T. C. [Thomas Cart- 

 wright.] 



Defence of the Answer (against the Reply) by 

 Whitgift. 



2. A Second RepUe of Cartwright against Whit- 

 gift's Second [Defence of the\ Answer. 



3. The rest of the Second Reply. 



Whitgift being, it seems, weary of the dispute, re- 

 mitted [committed J the future conduct of it to Hooker ; 

 who took it up with an examination of the two Admo- 

 nitions, and continued it through the subsequent books 

 of Cartwright, referring to the latter (a particular wor- 

 thy to be known : for, without it, no one can tell who or 

 what he is refuting) by the initials " T. C." and the 

 adjunct "lib." above-mentioned. 



Here the matter rested, till the re-establishment of 

 episcopacy and the liturgy (both which, it is well 

 known, were abolished by the usurpers under Crom 

 well) revived the question of the lawfulness of both the 

 one and the other, and gave rise to a controversy that is 

 likely never to end. 



