The Reverend Thomas Hooker (1586-1647), founder of the Connecticut colony, was a Calvinist pastor and teacher of great importance to both Old and New England. To many today, Hooker is best known for his last great work, A Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline (1648), his definitive defense of the congregational way. This study attempts to demonstrate that Hooker was first and foremost a "physician" of the soul who specialized as a psychologist of conversion; therein lay his greatest contribution to church and society, rather than (as is also often thought) his role as "the first democrat." Contents: The Life and Work of Thomas Hooker; Hooker's Morphology of Conversion: Contextual Considerations; Hooker's Morphology of Conversion: Early Formulations; Hooker's Preparationist Theology as Formulated in His Writings from the Antinomian Period and Beyond. « less more »