This significant new volume aims to broaden the scholarly appraisal of Richard Hooker's adherence to Reformed orthodoxy. It does so not only by comparing Hooker to his English Reformed contemporaries, but also to a rich sample of international Reformed writers. There is a welcome emphasis on scholasticism in Reformed orthodoxy, drawing on the numerous recent studies in this field.

The line pursued by the great majority of these fourteen essays is that Hooker was an orthodox Reformed theologian. They are therefore critical of both the traditional view of Hooker as defending an Anglican via media, and the revisionist account of Peter Lake who sees Hooker by a ‘sleight of hand’ as criticising Reformed theology under the cloak of an attack on Puritanism and thereby forging a new theological synthesis. In their foreword the editors particularly attack Lake for ‘resorting to hermeneutics of suspicion and polemical deconstructions’; of setting out to look ‘for subtexts and double meanings’ and refusing to take Hooker's ‘protestations at face value’. Yet Daniel Eppley, in his essay here on reform of ecclesiastical law, argues that ‘Hooker himself exemplifies a type of loyal opposition, subtly working to effect improvement of the church even as he defends it’, using ‘ironic tensions to promote reform’. Eppley is led to this conclusion presumably because he considers this to be the most satisfactory overall interpretation of Hooker's work. Precisely the same applies to Lake. The water does not need to be muddied by foisting on Lake the notion of a hermeneutic of suspicion.

Bradford Littlejohn provides a very worthwhile assessment of Hooker's theology of law in relation to Reformed orthodoxy. Noting Zanchi's De lege in genere, with its basically Thomist taxonomy of law, he surveys Hooker's Lawes and Franciscus Junius’ short De politiae for the basic structure of their taxonomy of law in order to compare them to one another and to Aquinas. The similarities are notable, and I strongly endorse his conclusion of the need for further research in relation to Hooker and Reformed theological jurisprudence. On a minor note, I think his use of the terms rationalist and voluntarist deserves further scrutiny. Hooker was a philosophical voluntarist in the lineage of Duns Scotus, as were many later Thomists.

In his essay on Hooker and Reformed orthodoxy on autopistos, Andrew A. Fulford argues that for Hooker Holy Scripture is self-authenticated by its internal marks (e.g. fulfilled prophecies). He faces the problem, though, that Hooker explicitly denies that Scripture teaches that ‘it self is divine and sacred’; or in other words, as Fulford asserts, that Hooker believes that Scripture is authenticated by ‘external’ evidence. He tries to square this circle by arguing that because Hooker's ‘external’ evidence is (he assumes) based on the internal marks of Scripture, Hooker's distinction can be effectively collapsed into the standard Reformed doctrine that Scripture is self-authenticating. He sees a similar approach in Francis Turretin, who argues that the divine marks of Scripture are formally though not materially distinct from Scripture itself. In the Question from which Fulford quotes, Turretin some lines earlier argues that Scripture is a self-authenticating first principle, citing Aristotle's Posterior analytics. Yet Hooker in the Lawes explicitly denies that Scripture teaches the principle of its own sacred authority. Unfortunately, Fulford is silent on this and other key passages, which significantly undermines his argument.

Michael J. Lynch's article on Hooker and English hypothetical universalism is a heavyweight contribution and well worthy of study. Although accepting that Hooker's theology of predestination might in certain respects fall outside the boundaries of Reformed orthodoxy, he argues that Hooker's positions in two key aspects – ‘that Christ died for all human beings and that God wills the salvation of all human beings’ – ‘fall unambiguously within the boundaries of Reformed orthodoxy’. More specifically, he sees this as characterising ‘a trajectory of Reformed theology often identified as hypothetical universalism’, and argues that Hooker in this respect was a forerunner of theologians like John Davenant. He looks in detail at Hooker's use of the distinction between God's antecedent will for the salvation of humanity, and consequent will to punish humanity on account of sin. This distinction was disliked by some Reformed theologians, but defended by others depending critically on its usage. The crux of the matter is whether Hooker's use of the distinction supposed unfulfilled desires in God, and whether this in turn would be contrary to Reformed orthodoxy. Lynch claims that Vermigli used the distinction in the same manner as Hooker, quoting a passage where Vermigli speaks of God's frustrated or unfulfilled desires. Yet the passage is taken from the section of a scholium where Vermigli is setting out arguments for and against the proposition that God is the author of sin; he is not at this point setting out his own position. Later Vermigli cites Augustine that God does not permit unwillingly, for that would mean with regret, and in his final replies to the initial arguments there is no sign of a frustrated divine will. More generally, the point that Lynch misses is not that God has desires that his commands be fulfilled, but whether an extrinsic or an intrinsic distinction is being made concerning the divine will. The intrinsic usage can indeed be found in hypothetical universalism. But Hooker's repeated statements that God has desires that are frustrated by human free will, and that God is limited by the freedom that he has given his Creation, embodied a view of God from which the hypothetical universalists recoiled. Most fundamentally, Lynch does not consider the interaction between Hooker's views on free will and on predestination, and whether saving grace is intrinsically or extrinsically efficacious, which undergird the entire matter.

Two essays pursue a rather different path. David Neelands offers a characteristically finely-judged account of Hooker's position as a Protestant theologian firmly rejecting extremes. He does not label Hooker an orthodox Reformed theologian. Andrew J. Martin argues in his essay on Hooker and Reformed sacramental theology that Hooker's positions ‘at the very least pushed against the boundaries of the tradition’ and ‘drew sharp criticism from a wide range of his Reformed contemporaries’.

The foreword claims that due to a more careful reading of key passages, Hooker's relative proximity to the Reformed Protestant mainstream has become much clearer. I would have liked to see more extensive discussion of all the key passages in a number of these essays. This is crucial for a full evaluation of Hooker's relationship to Reformed orthodoxy, which this volume so rightly seeks to further.