NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY Lecture 9 Thomas Hooker and the Doctrine of Conversion Difference between Puritan and Reformed Protestantism The American Church historian Sydney Ahlstrom once remarked that “Christian theology exists in the context of history…Just as European philosophical tradition, in Whiteheads famous phrase, consists of a series of footnotes to Plato, so Christian theology is a series of footnotes to St. Paul” (Theology in America, The Major Protestant Voices from Puritanism to Neo- Orthodoxy. Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill Educational Publishing, p.23). Puritan theology, as practiced in England and New England, was no exception. It was formed in the context of the Protestant Reformation, particularly the Reformed branch of it with its emphasis on the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace. But while Puritan theologians stood firmly in the tradition of Geneva, the theology they developed was more than a footnote to Calvin. Their contribution to Reformed theology was that they put a uniquely practical stamp on it. They were more concerned with the application of Biblical doctrines than with their theoretical formulation. . In that sense they were all disciples of William Ames who defined theology as the art of living well. For him to live well is to live a life suitable and fitting to God, and so happily in God (The Learned Doctor William Ames, p.144). Ames who spent many years in the Netherlands and became a professor at the Franeker University in 1623, never tired of reminding his students that theology must be much more than dogmatics or polemics and that men need to hold pure doctrine and practical divinity in proper balance and relationship (Ibid.,p.129). In his view, Biblical doctrine is the means a theologian- pastor must use to reach the end or goal of theology which is “to save himself and them that hear him,”(I Tim. 4: 16). He must model the art of living to God by living to God himself, and so lead others to God, devoting himself wholly to the glory of God, and the edification of the church (Ibid., p.145). Emphasis on Conversion To be or become such a theologian who can influence others, one needs to be converted. This may seem very obvious but Ames feared that many students who aspired to the ministry were sadly deficient when it came to godliness which he rightly regarded as the evidence of the new birth or conversion. It is because he saw very little evidence of such godliness in both ministers and their congregations that Ames stressed the necessity of conversion. How can anyone be a good man if he is not converted, he reasoned? So ever since his own conversion at Cambridge under the preaching of William Perkins, Ames made conversion the first step in theology, for only then, he insisted, would theology have meaning. (Ibid). Although Ames died in the Netherlands and never set foot in America, his influence on New England Puritans was enormous. In fact several of the best known ministers who served in New England became his disciples while living in the Netherlands as refugees. Among them were Thomas Hooker, John Cotton and John Davenport. All three of them became leading lights in New England and shared Ames’ convictions regarding the necessity of prioritizing the doctrine of conversion in their preaching and pastoral ministries. Thomas Hooker (1586-1647) Thomas Hooker became famous in the 1620s as a highly skilled expositor of the whole range of Biblical truth, but his overriding concern was to teach people the absolute necessity of conversion as the first stage of saving religion. He not only dealt with this subject in most of his sermons but also in several books such as The Application of Redemption , The Soul’s Preparation for Christ and The Poor Doubting Christian Drawn to Christ. While still a young preacher in England Hooker, like all his Puritan colleagues, was very concerned about the low level of spiritual life in the Church of England They concluded that many in England, perhaps the majority, considered themselves Christians when in fact they were not. These “experimental Puritans” thought that the problem was not simply church government and liturgy but nominal Christianity. Since the parochial system counted all but the most scandalous as Christians-and was lax with discipline-hypocrites abounded within the Church (David Weir, Early New England, p.20). The Puritans therefore were convinced that the need of the hour was to evangelize those who were thought to be Christians or “gospellers”, as they were called,” while in reality their faith was only the temporary faith of the stony- ground hearers of Jesus’ parable. Their religion, at best, was like that of Nicodemus before his new birth. Thomas Hooker fully shared the conviction that most Englishmen who attended church on Sunday-and remember that church attendance was mandatory and subject to fines-were unconverted. That helps to explain why his preaching and that of his Puritan colleagues was so searching. As Iain Murray writes: It is impossible to do any justice to the burden of Hooker’s preaching in Essex betw Sketch of Hooker’s Preaching on Conversion 1. In conversion the human will is hostile to Christ until it is renewed by the power of God. The will of the unregenerate man can turn in any direction except to Christ and to holiness. Certainly the man willing to believe the promises of God shall be saved but since the Fall such willingness was never found in any natural man. The will of a natural man is the worst part about him…It is uncontrollable, it will stand out against all reasons and arguments, and nothing can move the will except God work upon it. (Application of Redemption, Bks 1-8, p 328). Therefore, if man is ever to be saved it is absolutely necessary that his will be changed. This happens, Hooker says, in regeneration or the new birth. It is the act of God which, implanting a new principle of spiritual life, produces a new understanding and a new will, so that the person who is the subject of this act may truly be called ‘a new creature’. It is also an act of sovereign and almighty power, ‘wrought irresistibly, not issuing from the liberty of our choice, and therefore it is brought about by the irresistible impression of the work of the Spirit’ (Ibid, Bks 9-10, p 395). In regeneration ‘the soul behaves itself merely passively, and is wrought upon by an over-ruling power’. (Ibid, p 50). For Hooker regeneration involves a great mystery The act of God whereby a sinner is renewed is so secret and unsearchable, involving as it does his sub- conscious being, that he can by no means tell with certainty how or when it occurs. (Ibid, Bks 1-8, pp 77-8). Regeneration is not instantly recognizable either to observers or to a man’s own consciousness. But while regeneration itself is hidden, its effects are known, although the speed with which these become observable in the consciousness of a convert is subject to wide variations. 2. Conversion involves both a divine and human activity. Conversion, Hooker says, is not begun and concluded at the actual point of regeneration. Were that the case then in conversion man would be only passive and acted upon by God. But Scripture teaches that man also plays an important role in this process. Unless both the divine and human activities are properly correlated, the presentation of the gospel is bound to be seriously distorted. Hooker here is reacting to Antinomians who taught that since all depends upon Christ, there is nothing left for man to do but to ‘believe’. Some went even further and said that Christ repents and believes for us. Against these wrong ideas Hooker points to Scripture and its many exhortations to repent and believe. The Christ who preached that no one can enter the kingdom of God until he is ‘born of the Spirit’ (John 3.5-8), also preached, ‘Repent ye and believe the gospel’ (Mark 1.15); ‘Strive to enter in at the strait gate (Luke 13.24). Paul also preached that men ‘should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance’ (Acts 26.20). One clear deduction which the Puritans drew from the above texts was that in conversion God deals with men as responsible moral agents and acts suitably to their nature. They are not ‘sticks and stones’ but intelligent beings with minds and consciences which have to be affected by the truth if they are to be converted. Thus ‘the means of grace’ (preeminently the Word of God) are given to men and to these they must respond. Given this conviction it is not surprising that the sermons of Hooker abound in exhortations to action: men are to humble themselves, repent, pray, believe and obey the truth. They stressed this not because they believed in human ability but because they knew it was God’s command to use the means which He is pleased to use effectively if he so pleases (Ibid., Bks 9-10, p 306). Hooker’s insistence that man has an active part to play in his conversion has led some to conclude that he was not free from Arminianism. Perry Miller, for instance, alleges that in exhorting men to duty, and appealing to their minds, Hooker and other Puritans were deviating from Calvin by emphasizing human ability in salvation.’(The New England Mind, 17th Century, p 200). R. T. Kendall agrees with Miller’s assessment. “Many people who have taken the time to wade through Thomas Hooker’s long sermons,” he writes, “have been astonished that Hooker imputed to the natural, unregenerate man an extraordinary ability to take the initiative in seeking grace’ (The Influence of Calvin and Calvinism upon the American Heritage, Annual Lecture of the Evangelical Library, 1976, p 14). 1979). These criticisms are not new. Hooker and his colleagues were well aware of them and they dealt effectively and decisively with them. They recognized that at the root of that error lay a defective and one-sided definition of conversion. Although passive at the instant of regeneration that instant is a point in a process in which, before and after regeneration, man is active. As Iain Murray writes, Modern writers criticize the Puritans for making a ‘simple’ subject needlessly complex but the true explanation of their criticisms may lie in the wor 3.The importance of using the means of grace Hooker taught that the means of grace have a definite role to play in conversion both before as well as after the moment of regeneration. Although the unregenerate man is spiritually dead, this does not mean that he is incapable of any reaction to Scripture. His mind and conscience may be reached by the truth: indeed it is the preacher’s business to see that they are so reached, because until they are, there will be no conviction of sin, and without conviction of sin there will be no subsequent conversion. If repentance means turning one’s back upon sin, and if conversion entails turning from sin to holiness, no one is going to see the need for such a change who has not first felt sin to be a burden. Faith is more than reason but it is not against reason. Truth must be presented to the mind before it can reach the heart. There has to be a knowledge which prepares the way for faith and that knowledge consists, in the first instance, of the recognition of the need for a Saviour. Without such a conviction, men, far from being in a state of readiness to believe, treat the gospel as meaningless, for it proposes remedies for a sickness from which, they suppose, they do not suffer. Only a changed view of their real condition will show men their need to respond. Such is the thinking which lay behind the Puritan belief that evangelism must proceed from the starting point that men are careless and unprepared. So long as sin is unseen, Christ will be unsought’. The reason for the change in the 3,000 on the day of Pentecost was not that they had not heard of Christ before but that they had not been convicted before: ‘They were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’ (Acts 2.37). Before sinners are convicted they see no need for reading, hearing, prayer, seeking and enquiry; but when they find themselves besieged with sins and plagues, heaven frowning, hell gaping, their consciences accusing, and themselves dropping down to the grave, and their souls to hell, they think it high time, and more than time to bestir themselves, to do what they can, and to cry for help and direction in so desperate distress and danger. ‘The whole need not the physician’, therefore they do not send, nor yet are they willing to receive, nor care to enquire, or take any medicine. But when the disease grows fierce, and life is in danger, then they send out messengers far and near for a physician. (Application of Salvation, pp 562-3). Men under conviction of sin, Hooker taught, generally pass through two stages, first, contrition, and second, humiliation. By the first, ‘God brings the sinner to a sight of himself and his sin’ so that he sees ‘an absolute necessity of a change, and therefore thinks thus with himself, If I rest thus, I shall never see God with comfort’. At this point the man begins to change his life and practices, and begins to use seriously ‘all the ordinances of God’, yet all his endeavours only reveal more clearly the real state of his heart and his helplessness to change anything more than the external. At length, having looked ‘to himself and his self- sufficiency, and finding no comfort there, he falls down before the Lord and begs for mercy, and yet he sees himself unworthy of mercy, without which he must perish. He has nothing, and he can do nothing to merit it’ 76 (The Soul’s Humiliation, 1638, pp 131-2). 4. No stereo-typed conversions Although Hooker believed that contrition and humiliation are common in the experience of converts, he did not insist that everyone had to conform to the same model or pattern of conversion. He recognized that God saves sinners in different ways. For one thing, the time element is very variable. Conversion does not have to be a protracted process: “Sometimes the Lord suddenly sets on the blow, and pierces the soul through at one thrust.’ Sometimes at one sermon, maybe in the handling of one point, nay some one sentence, or some special truth, the Lord is pleased to arm it and discharge it, with mighty power and uncontrollable evidence, that it astonishes and shivers the heart of the sinner all in pieces." (Application of Redemption, Bks 9-10, p 372). Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, is thinking about taking money from the public; Peter and James are casting a net into the sea, to see how to make provision for themselves; Christ calls them to himself, and so to an interest in grace and glory, when they had not so much as thought that way. (Ibid, pp 289- 90). Not only is there variety in the length of time but also the degree of conviction of sin varies from person to person. Some pass through long periods of fear and distress. Others, like Lydia, pass from death to life in a very brief time and in a gentle way, (The Soul’s Preparation for Christ, 1643, p 168). 5. Awakening is not the same as conversion Hooker warned against treating awakened sinners as if they are already saved. Conviction of sin, no matter how keenly felt, does not always issue in true conversion. The rich young ruler was ‘very sorrowful’ but not converted (Luke 18.23). Felix ‘trembled’ under the Word of God but he did not become a Christian. These are examples of general or common operations of the Holy Spirit which can be experienced by the unregenerate. Thus when a person comes under conviction, what results from that conviction is by no means a foregone conclusion. Any one of three different conditions may follow in the experience of an awakened person: (i) Conviction may be lost or thrown off, as Herod at last threw it off under the preaching of John the Baptist. ‘Thus’, writes Hooker, ‘Millions of men perish, go within the view of Canaan, and never possess it’(Application of Redemption, Bks 9-10, p 368). A person may get the burden of conviction off his back by a false belief that he has received Christ. This is the stony-ground hearer of the gospel of whom Jesus says, he ‘heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself’ (Matt 13.20-21). Some in this category will later fall away from their Christian profession under trials. Others will remain in the church having the form of godliness without the power. (2). Puritans understood that there is a real danger for people making a premature and unsound profession of faith. Many, writes Hooker, are ‘still-born, not “begotten again to a lively hope”, [1 Pet 1.3]. They heal themselves before God heals them and make application before sound preparation’ (Application of Redemption, Bks 9-10, p 449). (3). The fact that the awakened sinner is unable to change his own heart, and the danger that he may depend upon his own efforts for acceptance with God, must not be allowed to weaken his obligation to act. There are things to be done if he is to be converted. Reading, hearing, repenting, praying and believing are not duties from which a man is excused until he is regenerate. Hooker presses man’s responsibility to humble himself, at the same time holding out the comfort of Christ’s promise: The Lord hath promised to come into our souls if we humble them, and make them fitting to entertain his Majesty; therefore sweep your hearts, and cleanse those rooms, cleanse every sink, and brush down every cobweb, and make room for Christ; for if thy heart be prepared and divorced from all corruptions, then Christ will come and take possession of it. (Application of Redemption, Bks 1-8, p 201). 4. Conversion and Assurance of salvation Regeneration produces great changes in a sinner but the effects of the new birth may be so gradual in the conscious experience of the convert that a truly regenerate person may remain for some time more conscious of sin than of forgiveness. There are believers who, in their own eyes, are still outside of Christ, whereas in reality their experience is already saving if they did but know it. They are ‘poor doubting Christians’ who do not understand that a person can be the recipient of grace even if he lacks assurance of salvation. Critics like Norman Pettit think they know why people who are exposed to Hooker’s type of preaching find it difficult to believe they are saved. It is because Hooker preached ‘preparation’ rather than Christ himself. In other words, by over- emphasizing self-examination he made it almost impossible for anyone to be sure of their salvation. (The Heart Prepared, pp 17-8). Iain Murray believes this criticism is completely off the mark. The claim that Hooker preached ‘preparation’ rather than Christ himself, he writes, suggests both a slight reading of his writings plus an utter misconception of the work of Christ in the application of redemption. What Hooker and Puritans generally taught on assurance is in marked contrast with the easy-believing approach followed by many evangelicals today. The programmed, standardized, and stereotyped conversions that are manufactured at revivals and crusades are very different from the ones Puritans prayed for and laboured hard to effect. Most modern conversions it seems, take place in the absence of deep conviction of sin and they lack the evidence of radically changed conduct. Also, those who are pressured into making decisions for Christ are immediately assured of their portion in Christ. Puritan pastors were also diligent in leading men to Christ and to assurance, but they were careful not to do what only the Holy Spirit can do so they did not lay hands on converts quickly or heal their wounds lightly. Hooker’s critics say that he dismissed faith in Christ as the basis for assurance and instead made men look to their own works and sanctification – a procedure which, they claim, is bound to lead to protracted doubt and uncertainty. But again this is a misrepresentation of Hooker. He firmly believed with Calvin that true faith carries a degree of assurance with it. But he also believed that assurance is not synonymous with saving faith. If that were so it would be impossible for a man to be regenerate unless he was assured of his salvation. Yet every true believer may have assurance because assurance rests not in himself but in the promises of Christ. Faith, Hooker teaches, is the supreme grace, from which all other graces flow, because it is faith which receives all from Christ. Therefore to delay exercising faith in the promises of grace until our attainments in sanctification give evidence upon which to base our hope is to destroy the foundations of assurance. ‘It’s Satan’s policy’, writes Hooker, ‘to make the saints be at a loss when they look for pardon and grace, and peace and comfort within themselves and then to look to Christ, and so they lose their labour and look in vain, but we should look up to Christ “the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb 12.1). “God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings”, but these blessings are contained “in Christ“ ([Eph 1.3), dispended by Christ and received from Christ by faith (Ibid, Bks 1-8, p 94). What Hooker is saying comes down to this: assurance of our justification does not begin with evidence of our sanctification but with faith in Christ. Yet while there is a degree of assurance implicit in faith, this assurance may be neither full nor certain because much weakness can co-exist with faith…Believers do not commonly have a full or infallible assurance of their salvation from the very time of their conversion. Assurance exists in degrees. A weak assurance, which goes with weak spiritual experience, is not to be despised. Hooker’s overriding concern was to show that assurance belongs to the realm of personal, spiritual experience. And if that experience is real (whatever its degree of strength), it is owing to the work of the Spirit of Christ. True assurance, by definition, is not self-made. The person who can ‘take’ his assurance whenever he wills from the promises of Scripture is dangerously mistaken. Just as certainly as true conviction of sin comes by the personal agency of the Holy Spirit, so does assurance, and the measure in which it is given is in the hands of God: “Complain not of delays,” Hooker urges, “but wait, for God hath waited for you long; and therefore if he make you wait for peace of conscience and assurance of his love, the Lord deals equally and lovingly with you, and as shall be best for you. God gives what, and when, and how he will; therefore wait for it.” (The Doubting Christian, H.T.S., p 158). But while Hooker agreed that assurance of our justification does not begin with evidence of our sanctification but with faith in Christ, he also taught that sanctification is an indispensable component of assurance. While the believer’s first or initial assurance is not founded upon any personal and inward attainments in grace, any further growth in assurance is closely related to growth in holiness. Any profession of ‘assurance which is not accompanied by holiness of life represents a departure from biblical Christianity. The temporary believer may seek Christ for pardon, forgiveness and joy but the regenerate person wants the rule of Christ and the holiness of Christ; he wants Christ for sanctification as well as for justification. Assurance, then, is not based upon the believer’s holiness and yet holiness and obedience are essential NT tests of the soundness of any Christian profession. Not to press those tests upon professing Christians is to ignore what the Bible treats as a necessity, and yet to press them and not to make personal grace the basis of the Christian’s comfort is one of the most difficult of all the duties of a faithful pastor. Hooker was well acquainted with the difficulty and it was the Christ-centredness of his preaching which prevented his emphasis upon godliness from descending into legalism. Yet he has often been accused of legalism by modern critics ‘Hooker offered assurance’, writes Norman Pettit, ‘only as a final reward for prolonged self- scrutiny and doubt…he deliberately fosters an attitude of doubt, so that no man can claim to be regenerate without embarking on a process that is harsh, tedious, and long.’ 34 ( In H.T.S., 137). This is false. The facts are that Hooker never condoned doubt and uncertainty as virtues. The opposite is the case. At Hooker’s death, in 1647, Cotton Mather reports, he expired ‘with a smile in his countenance’, and in ‘the glorious peace of soul which he had enjoyed without any interruption for near thirty years together’(Magnalia, 1, 350. It is true that some of his colleagues thought that Hooker at times set the standards for conversion too high. As one of them wrote in an introduction to his posthumous work, The Application of Redemption. ‘Perhaps he urged too far and insisted too much on conviction preceding saving conversion…a man may be held too long under John Baptist’s water’ But if it this was so, it was not because Hooker was a legalist. Rather it was because prevailing spiritual conditions at the time demanded a strong emphasis on conversion. The need of the hour, as Hooker assessed it, was “to rectify those that have slipped into profession, and leapt over both true and deep humiliation for sin, and a sense of their natural condition.” God sent John the Baptist to Israel when it was in great spiritual decline to preach a stern message of repentance, so the Lord called Hooker to a similar ministry first in Old and later in New England. He was sent to restore the doctrine of conversion at a time when that doctrine was not preached at all or if it was preached it was not preached properly as required by Scripture. Concluding remarks: Iain Murray wrote this article on Hooker’s doctrine of conversion to demonstrate the enormous contrast between the Puritan view of conversion and assurance and what many evangelicals teach on these subjects today. He writes, In the 17th Century; conviction of sin was…no theory but a felt experience and discriminating preaching on assurance was therefore a necessity. In the last (nineteenth) century, however, the whole understanding of the doc Murray concludes with this Biblically warranted optimistic note: In the early 18th Century, conviction of sin and conversions did become far less comm

NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY
Lecture 9
Thomas Hooker and the Doctrine of Conversion

Difference between Puritan and Reformed Protestantism
The American Church historian Sydney Ahlstrom once remarked
that “Christian theology exists in the context of history…Just as European
philosophical tradition, in Whiteheads famous phrase, consists of a series of
footnotes to Plato, so Christian theology is a series of footnotes to St. Paul”
(Theology in America, The Major Protestant Voices from Puritanism to Neo-
Orthodoxy. Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill Educational Publishing, p.23).
Puritan theology, as practiced in England and New England, was no
exception. It was formed in the context of the Protestant Reformation, particularly
the Reformed branch of it with its emphasis on the sovereignty of God and the
doctrines of grace. But while Puritan theologians stood firmly in the tradition of
Geneva, the theology they developed was more than a footnote to Calvin. Their
contribution to Reformed theology was that they put a uniquely practical stamp on
it. They were more concerned with the application of Biblical doctrines than with
their theoretical formulation. . In that sense they were all disciples of William
Ames who defined theology as the art of living well. For him to live well is to live
a life suitable and fitting to God, and so happily in God (The Learned Doctor
William Ames, p.144). Ames who spent many years in the Netherlands and
became a professor at the Franeker University in 1623, never tired of reminding
his students that theology must be much more than dogmatics or polemics and that
men need to hold pure doctrine and practical divinity in proper balance and
relationship (Ibid.,p.129). In his view, Biblical doctrine is the means a theologian-
pastor must use to reach the end or goal of theology which is “to save himself and
them that hear him,”(I Tim. 4: 16). He must model the art of living to God by
living to God himself, and so lead others to God, devoting himself wholly to the
glory of God, and the edification of the church (Ibid., p.145).

Emphasis on Conversion
To be or become such a theologian who can influence others, one needs to
be converted. This may seem very obvious but Ames feared that many students
who aspired to the ministry were sadly deficient when it came to godliness which
he rightly regarded as the evidence of the new birth or conversion. It is because he
saw very little evidence of such godliness in both ministers and their
congregations that Ames stressed the necessity of conversion. How can anyone be
a good man if he is not converted, he reasoned? So ever since his own conversion
at Cambridge under the preaching of William Perkins, Ames made conversion the

first step in theology, for only then, he insisted, would theology have meaning.
(Ibid).
Although Ames died in the Netherlands and never set foot in America, his
influence on New England Puritans was enormous. In fact several of the best
known ministers who served in New England became his disciples while living in
the Netherlands as refugees. Among them were Thomas Hooker, John Cotton and
John Davenport. All three of them became leading lights in New England and
shared Ames’ convictions regarding the necessity of prioritizing the doctrine of
conversion in their preaching and pastoral ministries.

Thomas Hooker (1586-1647)
Thomas Hooker became famous in the 1620s as a highly skilled expositor of
the whole range of Biblical truth, but his overriding concern was to teach people
the absolute necessity of conversion as the first stage of saving religion. He not
only dealt with this subject in most of his sermons but also in several books such
as The Application of Redemption , The Soul’s Preparation for Christ and The
Poor Doubting Christian Drawn to Christ.
While still a young preacher in England Hooker, like all his Puritan
colleagues, was very concerned about the low level of spiritual life in the Church
of England They concluded that many in England, perhaps the majority,
considered themselves Christians when in fact they were not. These “experimental
Puritans” thought that the problem was not simply church government and liturgy
but nominal Christianity. Since the parochial system counted all but the most
scandalous as Christians-and was lax with discipline-hypocrites abounded within
the Church (David Weir, Early New England, p.20).
The Puritans therefore were convinced that the need of the hour was to
evangelize those who were thought to be Christians or “gospellers”, as they were
called,” while in reality their faith was only the temporary faith of the stony-
ground hearers of Jesus’ parable. Their religion, at best, was like that of
Nicodemus before his new birth.
Thomas Hooker fully shared the conviction that most Englishmen who
attended church on Sunday-and remember that church attendance was mandatory
and subject to fines-were unconverted. That helps to explain why his preaching
and that of his Puritan colleagues was so searching. As Iain Murray writes:
It is impossible to do any justice to the burden of Hooker’s preaching in
Essex betw

Sketch of Hooker’s Preaching on Conversion

1. In conversion the human will is hostile to Christ until it is renewed by the
power of God.

The will of the unregenerate man can turn in any direction except to Christ
and to holiness. Certainly the man willing to believe the promises of God shall be
saved but since the Fall such willingness was never found in any natural man. The
will of a natural man is the worst part about him…It is uncontrollable, it will stand
out against all reasons and arguments, and nothing can move the will except God
work upon it. (Application of Redemption, Bks 1-8, p 328).
Therefore, if man is ever to be saved it is absolutely necessary that his will
be changed. This happens, Hooker says, in regeneration or the new birth. It is the
act of God which, implanting a new principle of spiritual life, produces a new
understanding and a new will, so that the person who is the subject of this act may
truly be called ‘a new creature’. It is also an act of sovereign and almighty
power, ‘wrought irresistibly, not issuing from the liberty of our choice, and
therefore it is brought about by the irresistible impression of the work of the
Spirit’ (Ibid, Bks 9-10, p 395). In regeneration ‘the soul behaves itself merely
passively, and is wrought upon by an over-ruling power’. (Ibid, p 50).
For Hooker regeneration involves a great mystery The act of God whereby a
sinner is renewed is so secret and unsearchable, involving as it does his sub-
conscious being, that he can by no means tell with certainty how or when it
occurs. (Ibid, Bks 1-8, pp 77-8). Regeneration is not instantly recognizable either
to observers or to a man’s own consciousness.
But while regeneration itself is hidden, its effects are known, although the
speed with which these become observable in the consciousness of a convert is
subject to wide variations.

2. Conversion involves both a divine and human activity.
Conversion, Hooker says, is not begun and concluded at the actual point of
regeneration. Were that the case then in conversion man would be only passive
and acted upon by God. But Scripture teaches that man also plays an important
role in this process. Unless both the divine and human activities are properly
correlated, the presentation of the gospel is bound to be seriously distorted.
Hooker here is reacting to Antinomians who taught that since all depends upon
Christ, there is nothing left for man to do but to ‘believe’. Some went even further
and said that Christ repents and believes for us. Against these wrong ideas Hooker
points to Scripture and its many exhortations to repent and believe. The Christ
who preached that no one can enter the kingdom of God until he is ‘born of the
Spirit’ (John 3.5-8), also preached, ‘Repent ye and believe the gospel’ (Mark
1.15); ‘Strive to enter in at the strait gate (Luke 13.24). Paul also preached that
men ‘should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance’ (Acts
26.20).
One clear deduction which the Puritans drew from the above texts was that

in conversion God deals with men as responsible moral agents and acts suitably to
their nature. They are not ‘sticks and stones’ but intelligent beings with minds and
consciences which have to be affected by the truth if they are to be converted.
Thus ‘the means of grace’ (preeminently the Word of God) are given to men and
to these they must respond.
Given this conviction it is not surprising that the sermons of Hooker abound
in exhortations to action: men are to humble themselves, repent, pray, believe and
obey the truth. They stressed this not because they believed in human ability but
because they knew it was God’s command to use the means which He is pleased
to use effectively if he so pleases (Ibid., Bks 9-10, p 306).
Hooker’s insistence that man has an active part to play in his conversion has
led some to conclude that he was not free from Arminianism. Perry Miller, for
instance, alleges that in exhorting men to duty, and appealing to their minds,
Hooker and other Puritans were deviating from Calvin by emphasizing human
ability in salvation.’(The New England Mind, 17th Century, p 200). R. T. Kendall
agrees with Miller’s assessment. “Many people who have taken the time to wade
through Thomas Hooker’s long sermons,” he writes, “have been astonished that
Hooker imputed to the natural, unregenerate man an extraordinary ability to take
the initiative in seeking grace’ (The Influence of Calvin and Calvinism upon the
American Heritage, Annual Lecture of the Evangelical Library, 1976, p 14). 1979).
These criticisms are not new. Hooker and his colleagues were well aware of
them and they dealt effectively and decisively with them. They recognized that at
the root of that error lay a defective and one-sided definition of conversion.
Although passive at the instant of regeneration that instant is a point in a process
in which, before and after regeneration, man is active. As Iain Murray writes,
Modern writers criticize the Puritans for making a ‘simple’ subject
needlessly complex but the true explanation of their criticisms may lie
in the wor
3.The importance of using the means of grace
Hooker taught that the means of grace have a definite role to play in
conversion both before as well as after the moment of regeneration. Although the
unregenerate man is spiritually dead, this does not mean that he is incapable of
any reaction to Scripture. His mind and conscience may be reached by the truth:
indeed it is the preacher’s business to see that they are so reached, because until
they are, there will be no conviction of sin, and without conviction of sin there
will be no subsequent conversion. If repentance means turning one’s back upon
sin, and if conversion entails turning from sin to holiness, no one is going to see
the need for such a change who has not first felt sin to be a burden. Faith is more
than reason but it is not against reason. Truth must be presented to the mind before
it can reach the heart. There has to be a knowledge which prepares the way for
faith and that knowledge consists, in the first instance, of the recognition of the

need for a Saviour. Without such a conviction, men, far from being in a state of
readiness to believe, treat the gospel as meaningless, for it proposes remedies for a
sickness from which, they suppose, they do not suffer. Only a changed view of
their real condition will show men their need to respond.
Such is the thinking which lay behind the Puritan belief that evangelism
must proceed from the starting point that men are careless and unprepared. So
long as sin is unseen, Christ will be unsought’. The reason for the change in the
3,000 on the day of Pentecost was not that they had not heard of Christ before but
that they had not been convicted before: ‘They were pricked in their heart and said
unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’
(Acts 2.37). Before sinners are convicted they see no need for reading, hearing,
prayer, seeking and enquiry; but when they find themselves besieged with sins and
plagues, heaven frowning, hell gaping, their consciences accusing, and themselves
dropping down to the grave, and their souls to hell, they think it high time, and
more than time to bestir themselves, to do what they can, and to cry for help and
direction in so desperate distress and danger. ‘The whole need not the physician’,
therefore they do not send, nor yet are they willing to receive, nor care to enquire,
or take any medicine. But when the disease grows fierce, and life is in danger,
then they send out messengers far and near for a physician. (Application of
Salvation, pp 562-3).
Men under conviction of sin, Hooker taught, generally pass through two
stages, first, contrition, and second, humiliation. By the first, ‘God brings the
sinner to a sight of himself and his sin’ so that he sees ‘an absolute necessity of a
change, and therefore thinks thus with himself, If I rest thus, I shall never see God
with comfort’. At this point the man begins to change his life and practices, and
begins to use seriously ‘all the ordinances of God’, yet all his endeavours only
reveal more clearly the real state of his heart and his helplessness to change
anything more than the external. At length, having looked ‘to himself and his self-
sufficiency, and finding no comfort there, he falls down before the Lord and begs
for mercy, and yet he sees himself unworthy of mercy, without which he must
perish. He has nothing, and he can do nothing to merit it’ 76 (The Soul’s
Humiliation, 1638, pp 131-2).

4. No stereo-typed conversions
Although Hooker believed that contrition and humiliation are common in
the experience of converts, he did not insist that everyone had to conform to the
same model or pattern of conversion. He recognized that God saves sinners in
different ways. For one thing, the time element is very variable. Conversion does
not have to be a protracted process: “Sometimes the Lord suddenly sets on the
blow, and pierces the soul through at one thrust.’ Sometimes at one sermon,

maybe in the handling of one point, nay some one sentence, or some special truth,
the Lord is pleased to arm it and discharge it, with mighty power and
uncontrollable evidence, that it astonishes and shivers the heart of the sinner all in
pieces." (Application of Redemption, Bks 9-10, p 372).
Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, is thinking about taking money
from the public; Peter and James are casting a net into the sea, to see how to make
provision for themselves; Christ calls them to himself, and so to an interest in
grace and glory, when they had not so much as thought that way. (Ibid, pp 289-
90).
Not only is there variety in the length of time but also the degree of
conviction of sin varies from person to person. Some pass through long periods of
fear and distress. Others, like Lydia, pass from death to life in a very brief time
and in a gentle way, (The Soul’s Preparation for Christ, 1643, p 168).

5. Awakening is not the same as conversion
Hooker warned against treating awakened sinners as if they are already
saved. Conviction of sin, no matter how keenly felt, does not always issue in true
conversion. The rich young ruler was ‘very sorrowful’ but not converted (Luke
18.23). Felix ‘trembled’ under the Word of God but he did not become a
Christian. These are examples of general or common operations of the Holy Spirit
which can be experienced by the unregenerate. Thus when a person comes under
conviction, what results from that conviction is by no means a foregone
conclusion. Any one of three different conditions may follow in the experience of
an awakened person:
(i) Conviction may be lost or thrown off, as Herod at last threw it off under the
preaching of John the Baptist. ‘Thus’, writes Hooker, ‘Millions of men perish, go
within the view of Canaan, and never possess it’(Application of Redemption, Bks
9-10, p 368). A person may get the burden of conviction off his back by a false
belief that he has received Christ. This is the stony-ground hearer of the gospel
of whom Jesus says, he ‘heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet
hath he not root in himself’ (Matt 13.20-21). Some in this category will later fall
away from their Christian profession under trials. Others will remain in the church
having the form of godliness without the power.
(2). Puritans understood that there is a real danger for people making a
premature and unsound profession of faith. Many, writes Hooker, are ‘still-born,
not “begotten again to a lively hope”, [1 Pet 1.3]. They heal themselves before
God heals them and make application before sound preparation’ (Application of
Redemption, Bks 9-10, p 449).
(3). The fact that the awakened sinner is unable to change his own heart, and the
danger that he may depend upon his own efforts for acceptance with God, must

not be allowed to weaken his obligation to act. There are things to be done if he
is to be converted. Reading, hearing, repenting, praying and believing are not
duties from which a man is excused until he is regenerate. Hooker presses man’s
responsibility to humble himself, at the same time holding out the comfort of
Christ’s promise: The Lord hath promised to come into our souls if we humble
them, and make them fitting to entertain his Majesty; therefore sweep your hearts,
and cleanse those rooms, cleanse every sink, and brush down every cobweb,
and make room for Christ; for if thy heart be prepared and divorced from all
corruptions, then Christ will come and take possession of it. (Application of
Redemption, Bks 1-8, p 201).

4. Conversion and Assurance of salvation
Regeneration produces great changes in a sinner but the effects of the new
birth may be so gradual in the conscious experience of the convert that a truly
regenerate person may remain for some time more conscious of sin than of
forgiveness. There are believers who, in their own eyes, are still outside of Christ,
whereas in reality their experience is already saving if they did but know it. They
are ‘poor doubting Christians’ who do not understand that a person can be the
recipient of grace even if he lacks assurance of salvation.
Critics like Norman Pettit think they know why people who are exposed to
Hooker’s type of preaching find it difficult to believe they are saved. It is because
Hooker preached ‘preparation’ rather than Christ himself. In other words, by over-
emphasizing self-examination he made it almost impossible for anyone to be sure
of their salvation. (The Heart Prepared, pp 17-8).
Iain Murray believes this criticism is completely off the mark. The claim
that Hooker preached ‘preparation’ rather than Christ himself, he writes, suggests
both a slight reading of his writings plus an utter misconception of the work of
Christ in the application of redemption. What Hooker and Puritans generally
taught on assurance is in marked contrast with the easy-believing approach
followed by many evangelicals today. The programmed, standardized, and
stereotyped conversions that are manufactured at revivals and crusades are very
different from the ones Puritans prayed for and laboured hard to effect. Most
modern conversions it seems, take place in the absence of deep conviction of sin
and they lack the evidence of radically changed conduct. Also, those who are
pressured into making decisions for Christ are immediately assured of their
portion in Christ. Puritan pastors were also diligent in leading men to Christ and to
assurance, but they were careful not to do what only the Holy Spirit can do so they
did not lay hands on converts quickly or heal their wounds lightly.
Hooker’s critics say that he dismissed faith in Christ as the basis for
assurance and instead made men look to their own works and sanctification – a

procedure which, they claim, is bound to lead to protracted doubt and uncertainty.
But again this is a misrepresentation of Hooker. He firmly believed with Calvin
that true faith carries a degree of assurance with it. But he also believed that
assurance is not synonymous with saving faith. If that were so it would be
impossible for a man to be regenerate unless he was assured of his salvation. Yet
every true believer may have assurance because assurance rests not in himself but
in the promises of Christ. Faith, Hooker teaches, is the supreme grace, from which
all other graces flow, because it is faith which receives all from Christ. Therefore
to delay exercising faith in the promises of grace until our attainments in
sanctification give evidence upon which to base our hope is to destroy the
foundations of assurance. ‘It’s Satan’s policy’, writes Hooker, ‘to make the saints
be at a loss when they look for pardon and grace, and peace and comfort within
themselves and then to look to Christ, and so they lose their labour and look in
vain, but we should look up to Christ “the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb
12.1). “God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings”, but these blessings are
contained “in Christ“ ([Eph 1.3), dispended by Christ and received from Christ by
faith (Ibid, Bks 1-8, p 94).
What Hooker is saying comes down to this: assurance of our justification
does not begin with evidence of our sanctification but with faith in Christ. Yet
while there is a degree of assurance implicit in faith, this assurance may be neither
full nor certain because much weakness can co-exist with faith…Believers do not
commonly have a full or infallible assurance of their salvation from the very time
of their conversion. Assurance exists in degrees. A weak assurance, which goes
with weak spiritual experience, is not to be despised.
Hooker’s overriding concern was to show that assurance belongs to the
realm of personal, spiritual experience. And if that experience is real (whatever its
degree of strength), it is owing to the work of the Spirit of Christ. True assurance,
by definition, is not self-made. The person who can ‘take’ his assurance whenever
he wills from the promises of Scripture is dangerously mistaken. Just as certainly
as true conviction of sin comes by the personal agency of the Holy Spirit, so does
assurance, and the measure in which it is given is in the hands of God: “Complain
not of delays,” Hooker urges, “but wait, for God hath waited for you long; and
therefore if he make you wait for peace of conscience and assurance of his love,
the Lord deals equally and lovingly with you, and as shall be best for you. God
gives what, and when, and how he will; therefore wait for it.” (The Doubting
Christian, H.T.S., p 158).
But while Hooker agreed that assurance of our justification does not begin
with evidence of our sanctification but with faith in Christ, he also taught that
sanctification is an indispensable component of assurance. While the believer’s
first or initial assurance is not founded upon any personal and inward attainments

in grace, any further growth in assurance is closely related to growth in holiness.
Any profession of ‘assurance which is not accompanied by holiness of life
represents a departure from biblical Christianity. The temporary believer may seek
Christ for pardon, forgiveness and joy but the regenerate person wants the rule of
Christ and the holiness of Christ; he wants Christ for sanctification as well as for
justification. Assurance, then, is not based upon the believer’s holiness and yet
holiness and obedience are essential NT tests of the soundness of any Christian
profession. Not to press those tests upon professing Christians is to ignore what
the Bible treats as a necessity, and yet to press them and not to make personal
grace the basis of the Christian’s comfort is one of the most difficult of all the
duties of a faithful pastor. Hooker was well acquainted with the difficulty and it
was the Christ-centredness of his preaching which prevented his emphasis upon
godliness from descending into legalism.
Yet he has often been accused of legalism by modern critics ‘Hooker offered
assurance’, writes Norman Pettit, ‘only as a final reward for prolonged self-
scrutiny and doubt…he deliberately fosters an attitude of doubt, so that no man
can claim to be regenerate without embarking on a process that is harsh, tedious,
and long.’ 34 ( In H.T.S., 137). This is false. The facts are that Hooker never
condoned doubt and uncertainty as virtues. The opposite is the case. At Hooker’s
death, in 1647, Cotton Mather reports, he expired ‘with a smile in his
countenance’, and in ‘the glorious peace of soul which he had enjoyed without
any interruption for near thirty years together’(Magnalia, 1, 350.
It is true that some of his colleagues thought that Hooker at times set the
standards for conversion too high. As one of them wrote in an introduction to his
posthumous work, The Application of Redemption. ‘Perhaps he urged too far and
insisted too much on conviction preceding saving conversion…a man may be held
too long under John Baptist’s water’ But if it this was so, it was not because
Hooker was a legalist. Rather it was because prevailing spiritual conditions at the
time demanded a strong emphasis on conversion. The need of the hour, as Hooker
assessed it, was “to rectify those that have slipped into profession, and leapt over
both true and deep humiliation for sin, and a sense of their natural condition.” God
sent John the Baptist to Israel when it was in great spiritual decline to preach a
stern message of repentance, so the Lord called Hooker to a similar ministry first
in Old and later in New England. He was sent to restore the doctrine of conversion
at a time when that doctrine was not preached at all or if it was preached it was not
preached properly as required by Scripture.

Concluding remarks:
Iain Murray wrote this article on Hooker’s doctrine of conversion to
demonstrate the enormous contrast between the Puritan view of conversion and

assurance and what many evangelicals teach on these subjects today. He writes,
In the 17th Century; conviction of sin was…no theory but a felt
experience and discriminating preaching on assurance was therefore a
necessity. In the last (nineteenth) century, however, the whole understanding
of the doc
Murray concludes with this Biblically warranted optimistic note:
In the early 18th Century, conviction of sin and conversions did become far less comm