born March 1554?, Heavitree, Exeter, Devon, Eng.
died Nov. 2, 1600, Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, Kent
English clergyman and theologian.
He attended the University of Oxford, became a fellow of Corpus Christi College in 1577, and was ordained in 1581. He served as master of the Temple Church (1585–91) and later was vicar of churches at Drayton Beauchamp, Boscombe, and Bishopsbourne. He created a distinctive Anglican theology during a time when the Church of England was threatened by both Roman Catholicism and Puritanism . His great work was Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1594–97), in which he defended the threefold authority of the Bible, church tradition, and human reason.