A House for the Word
A Treatise on Public Worship from the fifth book of Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
By Richard Hooker
Edited By Brad Littlejohn & Patrick Timmis, with Caleb Smith & Brian Marr
$18.50 $13.00
Published September 25, 2025
About this book
Sacred places make sacred worship.
“The expanded Book V is a marvelous resource for any Anglican seeking to understand the meaning and practice of the Book of Common Prayer, as well as any historian investigating what typical English church practices looked like in the Elizabethan era. Many of the particular issues debated continue to be points of hot contention between Anglicans and Presbyterians today, or indeed between more liturgically-minded and anti-liturgical wings within both communions. Readers may be surprised for instance to find that on issues such as the recitation of creeds or set prayers, or the celebration of the church calendar, the terms of the debate have moved little from Hooker’s day—although many of his arguments seem, at least to us, so compelling that you might think they would have settled the discussion long since. None, perhaps, remains more important in Reformational Protestant circles than how to order our public worship, and how to mediate between the competing claims of a liturgical piety on the one hand and a sermon-centric piety on the other.” – From the Editor’s Introduction
Paperback | 150 pages | 5×8 | Published September 25, 2025 | ISBN-10 1-949716-75-9 | ISBN-13 978-1-949716-75-7
If you are interested in a bulk order, we offer a 50% discount and $10 shipping for orders of 10+ books OR orders containing 5+ copies of a single book. We also offer a 60% discount and free shipping for orders with a gross retail value over $500. To place a bulk order, please contact [email protected].
FROM THE BOOK
“Of course, true worship is always acceptable to God in itself, wherever it may be. He respects the place less than the sincerity with which he is served. As St. Basil notes, God heard the call of Moses in the midst of the sea, Job on the dunghill, Hezekiah in bed, Jeremiah in the mud, Jonah in the whale, Daniel in the den, his friends in the furnace, the thief on the cross, and Peter and Paul in prison. But it is obvious that the majesty and holiness of the place where God is worshiped has great power and virtue for us, because it sensibly stirs up our devotion and so elevates even our holiest and best acts of worship. And so, although we exhort all men everywhere to worship God, we think that no place is so good for God’s assembled people to perform this service as the church, nor any exhortation so proper as that of David: “O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” – Chapter 16
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Editorial Approach
Dedicatory Epistle
1
Religion and the Commonwealth – Hooker Chapter 1
2
The Danger of Atheistic Civil Religion – Hooker Chapter 2
3
The Danger of Superstition – Hooker Chapter 3
4
Are We Guilty of Superstition? – Chapter 4
5
Finding the Right Starting Points – Chapter 5
6
Dignity in Public Worship – Chapter 6
7
Tradition & Public Worship – Chapter 7
8
Church Authority over Public Worship – Chapter 8
9
Prudence in Public Worship – Chapter 9
10
The Danger of Private Judgment – Chapter 10
11
Temples & Churches – Chapter 11
12
The Dedication of Sacred Spaces – Chapter 2
13
A House for the Word – Chapter 16
14
Hearing the Word – Chapter 18
15
Reading the Word – Chapter 19
16
Reading the Apocrypha – Chapter 20
17
On Sermons – Chapter 21
18
The Grace of Hearing the Word – Chapter 22
19
Of Prayer – Chapter 23
20
Of Public Prayer -Chapter 24
21
The Form of Common Prayer – Chapter 25
22
Is Liturgy Good? – Chapter 26
Praise for this work
“Today, more than ever, we need Richard Hooker’s refutation of Puritanism. The Word, he insists, requires a proper House. Hooker’s defense of liturgical worship centers on the priority of tradition: “The love of ancient things argues for conservatism.” He sharply rebukes the “foaming mouths and fiery tongues” that despise the beauty of sacred space. He laments the “embarrassing deformities” of the liturgy. And he warns against the “momentary whims of individual preferences” in public prayer. Warm kudos to Brad Littlejohn and Patrick Timmis for their faithful work in modernizing yet another section of Hooker’s Laws. Today’s heirs of Anglican worship do well to take to heart Hooker’s refutation of late sixteenth-century evangelicalism.”
– Hans Boersma
Saint Benedict Servants of Christ Chair, Ascetical Theology, Nashotah House Theological Seminary
“Patrick Timmis and Brad Littlejohn have succeeded in making a portion of Book V, the longest section of the Laws, accessible to modern readers. This rendering in contemporary English of Hooker’s profound treatment on worship according to the Book of Common Prayer makes available to a general Christian audience his profound defense of classical, Protestant liturgical worship at a time when many are desiring a return to historic constructs of Reformation piety. This latest volume of the Davenant series of Hooker’s works will surely prove to be an invaluable service to the Church in our time and beyond. This effort truly represents retrieval of magisterial Reformation thought for present-day renewal at its best.”
– Andre A. Gazal, Ph.D.
Vice President of Academic Affairs and Professor of Church History and Systematic Theology, Montana Bible College
About the Editors
Dr. Bradford Littlejohn (Ph.D., University of Edinburgh) is Director of Programs and Education at American Compass . Previously, he served as a Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), and was for ten years the Founder and President of The Davenant Institute. A widely-published scholar of Protestant ethics and political thought, he is the author or editor of nineteen books, including Richard Hooker: A Companion to His Life and Work, and most recently Called to Freedom: Retrieving Christian Liberty in an Age of License.
Patrick Timmis (Ph.D., Duke University) is Assistant Professor of English at Hillsdale College. His essays on English Reformation poetry, liturgy, and sermon literature have appeared in such journals as Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Studies in Philology, The Chaucer Review, Christianity & Literature, The Ben Jonson Journal, and Inklings Studies. He is co-editor of Reformation and Society: Collected Essays Examining Sources, Nations, and Legacies of Reformations (Westminster Seminary Press, 2025), and of The Word Made Flesh for Us: A Treatise on Christology and the Sacraments (Davenant Press, 2024), the previous volume in Davenant’s modernized Richard Hooker series. Dr. Timmis is a licensed Reader and Catechist in the Anglican Church in North America.
Brian Marr is an editor and researcher at Canon Press and an enthusiast of Reformation theology.
Caleb Smith is a recent M.St graduate from Davenant Hall and a teacher at Trinitas Christian School in Pensacola, FL where he lives with his wife and seven children.
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The Davenant Institute endeavors to restore wisdom for the contemporary church. We seek to sponsor historical scholarship at the intersection of the church and academy, build friendships and facilitate collaboration within the Reformed and evangelical world, and equip the saints with time-tested resources for faithful public witness. Below are some of the works we’ve published towards that end.
