Posted on: February 15th, 2008 CS Lewis on Richard Hooker
Thanks to Jeff Myers for pointing out this quotation:
Hooker had never heard of a religion called Anglicanism. He would
never have dreamed of trying to ‘convert’ any foreigner to the Church
of England. It was to him obvious that a German or Italian would not
belong to the Church of England, just as an Ephesian or Galatian would not have belonged to the Church of Corinth. Hooker is never seeking for ‘the true Church’, never crying, like Donne, ‘Show me deare Christ, thy spouse.’ For him no such problem existed. If by ‘the
church’ you mean the mystical church (which is partly in Heaven) then, of course, no man can identify her. But if you mean the visible
Church, then we all know her. She is ‘a sensibly known company’ of
all those throughout the world who profess one Lord, one Faith, one
Baptism (III.i.3)” (English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, 454).”
