1This paper was given in an earlier form at the Colloquium on Richard Hooker at Church of the Advent, Boston, November 18, 2022.
In 1572, an anonymous pamphlet (likely authored by London clergyman John Field) published in An Admonition to the Parliament listed objections to the Book of Common Prayer, characterized as ‘Popishe abuses yet remayning in the Englishe Church, for the which Godly Ministers haue refused to subscribe.’ The thirteenth item in the list objects that ‘In all theyr order or seruice there is no edification, according to the rule of the Apostle, but confusion, they tosse the Psalmes in most places like tennice balles. … Thus they prophane the holy scriptures.’ The analogy became a meme, showing up in many critiques of antiphonal reading for a century following. Richard Hooker responded to it and a number of related objections to the usual way that the Psalter was said or sung in Elizabeth’s Church, arguing not merely, in the Whitgiftian way, for the indifference of the matter but for