Daily Reading for November 3 • Richard Hooker, Priest, 1600
The praises of God in the mouths of his Saints are not so restrained to their own particular, but that others may both conveniently and fruitfully use them; first, because the mystical communion of all faithful men is such as maketh every one to be interested in those precious blessings which any one of them receiveth at God’s hands; secondly, because when any thing is spoken to extol the goodness of God, whose mercy endureth for ever, albeit the very particular occasion whereupon it riseth do come no more, yet . . . a small resemblance between the benefits, which we and others have received, may serve to make the same words of praise and thanksgiving fit, though not equally in all circumstances fit for both. . . . By often using their words in such a manner, our minds are daily more and more inured with their affections.
From Richard Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V, in The Works of Mr. Richard Hooker, edited by the Rev. W. S. Dobson, M.A. (London: J. F. Dove, 1825).