Defending the prayer book, Hooker cleverly turns the charge of papist back on the non-conformists. According to Targoff’s summary, “By depicting the use of sermons to distribute God’s word as an act of scriptural hoarding, Hooker aims to reverse the ‘papist’ label directed against the church for its seemingly Catholic practices: whereas the established churchmen embody the Protestant spirit by spreading God’s word through the reading of Scripture aloud, the non-conformists duplicate Catholic habits by subjecting the congregation to the whims of the minister.”
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