In the spring of 1593 Richard Hooker published the first part of his work Of the laws of ecclesiastical polity which has come to be known as the most famous attempt to persuade Elizabethan Puritans to conform to the laws of the English Church. Hooker's writings have received more scholarly attention than those of any other contemporary church polemicist but no consensus has, as yet, been arrived at regarding the nature of his argument or the way in which his ideas addressed the major issues of Elizabethan church controversy. It is my intention in this essay to focus on these issues and thus provide some insight into the details of Hooker's theory of law and its broader significance as an argument relating to the legislative authority of the Church of England.