William G. Witt

June 1, 2026

Richard Hooker On Law and Gospel Part Two: Grace, Sacraments, Worship and Polity

Filed under: Anglicanism,Justification,Methodology,Sacraments,Theology — William Witt @ 8:18 pm

Grace as Participation: Justification and Sanctification

Richard Hooker

The means by which Richard Hooker understands Christians to participate in the incarnate, crucified, risen and ascended Jesus Christ would seem to be a “real mission” of the Holy Spirit (as opposed to an “appropriation” in which the common work of all three divine persons is ascribed to the Spirit). The anointing by Jesus by the Holy Spirit (at his baptism?) was not for himself only but so that we ourselves through the Spirit might share in that anointing:

Thus much no Christian man will deny, that when Christ sanctified his own flesh, giving as God and taking as man the Holy Ghost, he did not this for himself only but for our sakes, that the grace of sanctification and life which was first received in him might pass from him to his whole race as malediction came from Adam unto all mankind. Howbeit, because the work of his Spirit to those effects is in us prevented by sin and death possessing us before, it is of necessity that as well our present sanctification unto newness of life, as the future restoration of our bodies should presuppose a participation of the grace, efficacy, merit or virtue of his body and blood, without which foundation first laid there is no place for those other operations of the Spirit of Christ to ensue. So that Christ imparteth plainly himself by degrees. (Laws V.56.10)

The “whole church” is united to the “whole Christ” (in his humanity and divinity). The risen Christ is in every part of the church, which lives by his life through “participation.” Hooker writes:

And because the divine substance of Christ is equally in all, his human substance equally distant from all, it appeareth that the participation of Christ wherein there are many degrees and differences, must needs consist in such effects as being derived from both natures of Christ really into us, are made our own, and we by having them in us are truly said to have him from whom they come, Christ also more or less to inhabit and impart himself as the graces are fewer or more, greater or smaller, which really flow into us from Christ.

Christ is whole with the whole Church, and whole with every part of the Church, as touching his Person, which can no way divide itself, or be possessed by degrees and portions. But the participation of Christ importeth, besides the presence of Christ’s Person, and besides the mystical copulation thereof with the parts and members of his whole Church, a true actual influence of grace whereby the life which we live according to godliness is his, and from him we receive those perfections wherein our eternal happiness consisteth. (Laws V.56.10)

There are two ways in which we participate in Christ, partly by imputation (justification), but also partly by infusion (sanctification). We are not only justified or accounted righteous by faith, we also share in the risen Christ’s resurrection life. “Thus we participate Christ partly by imputation, as when those things which he did and suffered for us are imputed unto us for righteousness; partly by habitual and real infusion, as when grace is inwardly bestowed while we are on earth, and afterwards more fully both our souls and bodies made like unto his in glory.” Hooker states that the first thing “infused” into our hearts is the “Spirit of Christ,” from which everything else follows. The Spirit unites us to Christ our head thus enabling the church to become Christ’s body:

From hence it is that they which belong to the mystical body of our Saviour Christ, and be in number as the stars of heaven, divided successively by reason of their mortal condition into many generations, are notwithstanding coupled every one to Christ their Head, and all unto every particular person amongst themselves, inasmuch as the same Spirit, which anointed the blessed soul of our Saviour Christ, doth so formalize, unite and actuate his whole race, as if both he and they were so many limbs compacted into one body, by being quickened all with one and the same soul. (Laws V.56.11)

Hooker makes a clear distinction between justification and sanctification that had not yet appeared in Thomas Cranmer’s theology. Cranmer instead distinguished between “lively faith” and a “dead faith.”1 Hooker more helpfully uses the terminology that he found in John Calvin. He writes:

There is a glorifying righteousness of men in the world to come; and there is a justifying and a sanctifying righteousness here. The righteousness wherewith we shall be clothed in the world to come is both perfect and inherent. That whereby we are justified is perfect, but not inherent. That whereby we are sanctified, inherent, but not perfect. (Learned Discourse on Justification)

Hooker thus distinguishes between three kinds of righteousness. Eschatological righteousness, the righteousness of the world to come, will be perfect and inherent. When Jesus Christ returns and there is a new heaven and a new earth, we will be made inherently and completely righteous.

Concerning our present righteousness, Hooker distinguishes between justification and sanctification. The righteousness whereby we are justified by faith is perfect, but it is not an inherent righteousness because we continue to sin. The righteousness whereby we are sanctified is inherent, but it is not yet perfect. Sanctification thus involves a real ontological change, which is a progression in righteousness. We move forward, we fall back, we sin, we repent.

Concerning justification, Hooker writes:

Then, although in ourselves we be altogether sinful and unrighteous, yet even the man who in himself is impious, full of iniquity, full of sin, him being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin in hatred through repentance, him God beholdeth with a gracious eye, putteth away his sin by not imputing it, taketh quite away the punishment due thereunto, by pardoning it, and accepteth him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous, as if he had fulfilled all that is commanded him in the law: shall I say more perfectly righteous than if himself had fulfilled the whole law? I must take heed what I say; but the Apostle saith, “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” [2 Cor. 5:21]. (Learned Discourse on Justification)

This is a Reformation understanding of justification as imputation. Hooker is saying that in God’s sight, when we exercise faith in Christ, God accepts us and considers us as righteous even though we are not (inherently) righteous in ourselves.

Such we are in the sight of God the Father as is the very Son of God himself. Let it be counted folly, or phrensy, or fury, or whatsoever. It is our wisdom and our comfort; we care for no knowledge in the world but this: that man hath sinned and God hath suffered; that God hath made himself the sin of men, and that men are made the righteousness of God. (Learned Discourse on Justification)

This is Hooker’s way of saying that justification by faith is really about justification by Christ (alien righteousness).

But then Hooker adds concerning sanctification, which is a real and inherent infused righteousness:

Now concerning the righteousness of sanctification, we deny it not to be inherent; we grant that, unless we work, we have it not; only we distinguish it as a thing in nature different from the righteousness of justification: we are righteous the one way by the faith of Abraham, the other way, except we do the works of Abraham, we are not righteous. (Learned Discourse on Justification)

Martin Luther made a distinction between two kinds of righteousness, which is similar to the point Hooker makes here.2 If justification is forensic alien righteousness, there nonetheless is also an inherent transforming righteousness in sanctification. (more…)

September 6, 2022

Thomas Cranmer’s Reformation Theology

Filed under: Anglicanism,Justification,Theology — William Witt @ 3:02 am

Dates (1489-1556)

1489 Born at Aslockton, Nottinghamshire.
1510 Educated Jesus College, Cambridge.
1515 Receives MA; marries Joan some time after, who dies in childbirth.
1523 Ordained priest.
1529 Favored Henry VIII’s annulment of marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
1532 Secretly married Margaret Ossiander, niece of Andreas Osiander, while on embassy to Charles V.
1533 Became Archbishop of Canterbury; Henry’s marriage declared void.
1535 Coverdale Bible published (a revision of Tyndale).
1536 The Ten Articles (Mildly Catholic).
1537 Bishops’ Book (replaces the Ten Articles).
1539 Six Articles (Cranmer opposed – sent his wife back to Germany).
1540 “Preface to the Great Bible.”
1543 The King’s Book (revised version of the Bishops’ Book).
1544 The Great Litany.
1547 Death of Henry VIII.
1549 First Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI.
1552 The Ordinal; Second Prayer Book.
1553 Forty-Two Articles.
1553 Death of Edward VI, Accession of Mary Tudor.
1556 Cranmer burned at the stake.

Thomas Cranmer

As noted in my essay “What is Anglican Theology?,” Anglicanism does not have a distinctive founder to whom it appeals for identity in the way that Lutherans look to Martin Luther, for example, or the Reformed look to John Calvin. Even if we look to the Reformation era for roots, the English Reformation covers the entire period from the initial Catholicism of Henry VIII to the more distinctively Protestant era of his son Edward VI, which would be the period of Thomas Cranmer and other figures such as Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, and concludes with the Elizabethan settlement of the following generation, whose chief figures were John Jewel and Richard Hooker. Even then, one could make the case that it was really only in the following generation of the Caroline Divines that Anglicanism finally arrived at a settled identity. This extended beginning means that subsequent Anglicans have been able to appeal to different figures in this initial period as exemplars of Anglican identity, certainly Cranmer, but also Hooker or various figures among the Caroline Divines.

This essay and the next will examine themes in Thomas Cranmer’s theology. If Cranmer is not a figure of the stature of Luther or Calvin, he is nonetheless the most significant figure of the initial period of the English Reformation, not only because he was the primary author of the first two versions of the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 and 1552, but was also a major author of the Forty-Two Articles, which later became the Thirty-Nine Articles. Cranmer also wrote a number of homilies in the Book of Homilies. These three sets of documents – the Prayer Book (and the Ordinal), the Thirty-Nine Articles, and the Book of Homilies – are sometimes referred to as the Anglican Formularies, and have been appealed to (especially by Evangelical Anglicans) as definitive doctrinal sources for Anglican identity.

Because of Cranmer’s historical significance, not only as the Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Henry VIII and his son Edward VI, as the author of the Prayer Book, and a major contributor to the Thirty-Nine Articles and numerous Homilies, the question of how to interpret his theology is not only important for Anglican theology, but also controversial. While no one would claim that Cranmer was what would later be called an Anglo-Catholic, theologians have pointed to numerous “catholic” themes in Cranmer’s theology: the modeling of the Book of Common Prayer on patristic liturgies, the medieval Sarum liturgy, and historic Catholic collects; Cranmer’s modeling of Morning and Evening Prayer on the Benedictine Daily Office; Cranmer’s regular appeal to the church fathers, and, finally, a conciliatory tone that perhaps echoes more the humanist Catholic Desiderius Erasmus than Luther or Calvin. At the same time, Evangelical Anglicans often have looked to Cranmer as a definitive authority, and have appealed to the Anglican Formularies as normative for Anglican identity. If earlier interpreters tried to recover a more “catholic” or ecumenical Cranmer, in recent decades there has been a resurgence of the more “Protestant” interpretation of Cranmer’s theology.1 In this and the following essay, I will attempt a balanced interpretation of Cranmer’s theology to show why he can be appealed to by many different interpreters. In this chapter, I will summarize Cranmer’s Reformation theology; in the next, I will look at his sacramental theology and his liturgical contributions.

 

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July 16, 2019

I Get Mail or Justification and the New Perspective on Paul

Filed under: Justification,Theology — William Witt @ 5:23 am

This is the second part of a response to a reader who left some comments on an essay I’d written a few years ago entitled Anglican Reflections on Justification by Faith. Unfortunately, an adequate response required more space than would fit in a comment box. Here’s my response to the second comment:

And one other issue: IMHO one of the most powerful claims made by the “New Perspective” is that we cannot find a single instance of an author in the New Testament period who was defending “works righteousness”; hence, Paul could not have been arguing against a non-existent opponent. I have not seen a single response to this claim.

Unfortunately, (as Krister Stendahl asserted in an important essay), we read Paul through Luther, who indeed was battling those who were advocating salvation by works. A better resolution may be found in pursuing more carefully how the church has understood the role of merit in justification/sanctification. I’m reminded that Augustine said that when God rewards our merits, He crowns his own gifts.

Thanks. Steve

Lamb of GodSteve,

You raise two different issues in this comment, but both are variations on a common theme – that in some way the “New Perspective on Paul” invalidates the Reformation understanding of justification. In the realm of “popular” theology, I see this claim raised both by traditional Protestants (who then reject the New Perspective) and by Roman Catholics (or others of “catholic” leanings, e.g., Eastern Orthodox, Anglo-Catholics) who presume that the “New Perspective” in some way validates the “Catholic” position on justification. I mentioned this in my essay: “Occasionally, one comes across Roman Catholic apologists who suggest that the New Perspective proves that the Council of Trent was right, after all. More frequently, traditional Protestants (such as John Piper) vigorously attack the ‘New Perspective’ (notably N. T. Wright) as not only a betrayal of the Reformation, but a distortion of Paul’s theology.” Your reference to “merit” as God “crowning his gifts” sounds like a variation on the “Catholic” apologetic.

Some of this I already addressed in my essay: (1) “[T]he New Perspective does not amount to a simple rejection of the Reformation understanding of justification.” (2) “For example, broadly speaking, New Perspective scholars are clear that justification language in Paul is the language of the courtroom, and is thus forensic,” and (3) “New Perspective scholars continue to affirm that justification in Paul is ‘by faith alone.’ ”

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July 10, 2019

I Get Mail or Concerning Justification and Doctrinal Development

Filed under: Development of Doctrine,Justification,Theology — William Witt @ 3:57 am

A reader left some comments on an essay I’d written a few years ago entitled Anglican Reflections on Justification by Faith. Unfortunately, an adequate response required more space than would fit in a comment box. Here’s my response to the first comment:

Very good article. Some Reformers identified the doctrine of justification as the “article by which the church stands or falls” and Luther himself said something very similar. Yet, as you indicate, the Reformation understanding of justification as 1) forensic and 2) distinct from sanctification was a genuine doctrinal development. Alister McGrath agreed with this assessment saying that the Reformation understanding was a “theological novum.” Herein lies the problem: if the reformed view of justification is a theological novum and it is central to our understanding of salvation, then it would seem that the church had erred on a central doctrine for 1500 years; indeed, it would seem that the church only began to “stand” with this theological discovery. So, I’m curious as to why you would label the Reformers view of justification as Doctrinal Development 1 instead of Doctrinal Development 2 (designations that you used in an essay on DD). Thanks. Steve

Lamb of GodSteve,

Three different issues need to be addressed here. First is the notion of doctrinal development itself. What constitutes a genuine as opposed to an illegitimate doctrinal development? Second concerns the question of whether justification by grace through faith is a genuine doctrinal development or rather an illegitimate development. Third, if justification is the article by which the church stands or falls, was it the case that the church “erred on a central doctrine for 1500 years”?

(1) So what constitutes a “doctrinal development”? A doctrinal development takes place when the church affirms as definitive a doctrinal position that had not been clearly articulated previously. In a very real sense, by definition, all doctrinal developments are “theological novi,” and it is for this reason that they often meet with opposition. Primary examples would be the councils of Nicea and Chalcedon. Nicea affirmed dogmatically that Jesus Christ is homoousios (of the same nature or “consubstantial”) with the Father. Chalcedon affirmed what became the official dogma concerning the incarnation – that Jesus Christ is one divine person with two natures, one divine and one human. Some resisted homoousios on the grounds that it was not a biblical expression, and that it was suspect as being “Sabellian.” Nestorians and monophysites/miaphysites rejected Chalcedon for opposite reasons. Nestorians rejected the language of “one person” because they suspected it was monophysite, while monophysites rejected Chalcedon because they suspected it of Nestorianism.
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