Thomas Hooker was born in 1586 in Leicestershire, England. His father was a yeoman. Hooker entered Queen's College at age nineteen, and then transferred to Emmanuel College, regarded by many as a nursery for Puritans. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1608, became a fellow in 1609, and graduated with a master's degree in 1611.

While at Emmanuel, Hooker became acutely afflicted by "the spirit of bondage" (Romans 8:15). He was so distressed by thoughts of the just wrath of heaven that he cried out, "While I suffer thy terrors, O Lord, I am distracted!" Simeon Ash, Hooker's sizar and later a member of the Westminster Assembly, spent many nights trying to console Hooker by directing him to the Savior. Hooker clung to the promises of Scripture until he was soundly converted. With a certainty born of experience, he would later say to others, "The promise of the gospel was the boat which was to carry a perishing sinner over into the Lord Jesus Christ" (Mather, Great Works of Christ in America, 1:334). His experiences gave him an abiding sympathy for others involved in similar struggles of the soul.

After his conversion, Hooker served as lecturer and catechist until 1618 at Emmanuel where many of England's spiritual leaders (including Stephen Marshall, Anthony Burgess, Jeremiah Burroughs, and William Bridge) listened to him preach. Hooker emphasized the application of salvation, which, wrote Cotton Mather, was a natural fruit of the "storm of soul that had helped him unto a most experimental acquaintance with the truths of the gospel." His students preserved many notes of those sermons, some of which were later printed without Hooker's approval.

In 1619, Hooker accepted a call to serve as rector of St. George's, a small parish in Esher, Surrey, about fifteen miles from London. Francis Drake, Hooker's patron and a relative of the famous Elizabethan seaman with the same name, gave Hooker a small salary. He also invited Hooker to stay at his home. There Hooker ministered at length to Drake's wife, Joan, who feared she was a reprobate and had committed the unpardonable sin. Just prior to her death on April 18, 1625, Hooker's efforts bore fruit: she died at peace in the Lord.

In 1621, Hooker married Mrs. Drake's servant, Susannah Garbrand. He and his bride moved to Essex in 1625. The Hookers had five children, two of whom died in infancy. They named their first child, Johanna, after Mrs. Drake (she would later marry Thomas Shepard).

Hooker served as lecturer and curate at St. Mary's in Chelmsford, about thirty miles east of London, where his work was greatly blessed. Morals and Sabbath-keeping improved in the community during that time. People flocked to hear him, even though he challenged their consciences with penetrating "uses," or applications. One listener said, "He was the best at a Use that ever he heard." Mather said, "There was a great reformation wrought, not only in the town, but in the adjacent country, from all parts whereof they came to hear."

"If any of our late preachers and divines came in the spirit and power of John Baptist, this man did," wrote Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye. Giles Firmin, a fellow Puritan, said that Hooker's sermons were so powerful that he could "put a king in his pocket" (The Real Christian, 38).

In 1629, however, Hooker's preaching against some Anglican rituals brought him into conflict with Archbishop William Laud of Canterbury. After several disputes, Hooker was ejected from his lectureship in Chelmsford. He started a grammar school in nearby Little Baddow with the help of John Eliot, a convert of Hooker's ministry who would one day become a famous missionary to the North American Indians (see Eliot above).

Hooker's academy became influential, and thus it wasn't long before the Court of High Commission summoned him to appear before them. On the fixed date, Hooker was in bed with a fever. The Court set another date. Hooker escaped to the Netherlands before that date—but barely. The ship on which he sailed was barely out of sight when the court officers pursuing Hooker were on the pier inquiring about his whereabouts.

Hooker went first to Amsterdam, where he had been invited by several elders to serve a Presbyterian Church of English refugees pastored by John Paget. Paget, however, did not concur with his elders. He was a staunch Presbyterian who brought Hooker's views of non-separating Congregationalism to his classis. Hooker occupied a middle ground between Presbyterianism and the Brownists, who represented an extreme form of Congregationalism. After interviewing Hooker, the classis refused to let Hooker be installed as Paget's assistant, because Hooker believed that a classis did not have the power to call ministers. The classis also said Hooker was too tolerant in accepting ex-Brownists into a congregation, even though he repudiated their separation from the Church of England.

From Amsterdam, Hooker went to Delft, where he was welcomed by the minister of the Scottish Presbyterian Church, John Forbes, who worked with English-speaking merchants in the Prinsenhof Church. He worked so harmoniously with Forbes that an observer said that the two ministers were like "one soul in two bodies."

After two years, Hooker accepted a call to Rotterdam to work as an associate with William Ames. Hooker deeply respected Ames, saying, "If a scholar was but well studied in Dr. Ames's Marrow of Theology and Cases of Conscience, so as to understand them thoroughly, he would make a good divine, though he had no more books in the world." Hooker wrote a complimentary preface for Ames's A Fresh Suit against Human Ceremonies in God's Worship. Ames, in turn, wrote of Hooker that though he had been "acquainted with many scholars of diverse nations, yet he never met with Mr. Hooker's equal, either for preaching or for disputing" (Mather, "Piscator Evangelicus," in Johannes in Eremo, 20–21).

Hooker soon became distressed with Rotterdam's failure to be receptive to "heart-religion." His participation in the Congregational experiment there helped mature him as a non-separatist, but he did not feel at home. When some merchants told Hooker that some of his former parishioners from Chelmsford were planning to immigrate to North America and wanted him to accompany them, Hooker joined them.

By 1633, the Puritan exodus to Massachusetts was well under way. Hooker sailed for America on the Griffin along with Samuel Stone (1602–63), a close friend and colleague; John Cotton; and two hundred others, many of whom were believers. During the eight-week voyage, the people enjoyed three sermons nearly every day. They heard Cotton in the morning, Hooker in the afternoon, and Stone in the evening. People in Massachusetts were overjoyed to receive such noted ministers. They quipped that they now had "Cotton for their clothing, Hooker for their fishing, and Stone for their building."

Shortly after arriving in Boston, Hooker and Stone were asked to serve at the first church of Newtown (now Cambridge). Preaching, weekly lectures, pastoral duties, counseling "cases of conscience," and advising in political and civil affairs kept Hooker busy. The church in Newtown was greatly blessed under his leadership. One of its key members, John Haynes, was elected governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In time, Hooker's desire for more and better land, growing discontent with the political situation at Massachusetts Bay Colony, and strained relationships with John Cotton and John Winthrop led him to consider moving. Hooker also had serious differences with several Massachusetts leaders on civil government. As Iain Murray writes, "The counsel which prevailed in Boston, influenced by the assumption that at various points a Christian state should follow the Old Testament theocracy, restricted suffrage to church members and was ready to deal with differences of religious opinion by force of law" ("Thomas Hooker and the Doctrine of Conversion," Banner of Truth, no. 195 [Dec. 1979]: 29). Advocates of that position, led by Winthrop, were vehemently opposed to the democratic political theory that Hooker favored. Winthrop and Hooker debated this issue at great length, both personally and in written correspondence.

Ultimately, Hooker and thirty-five families—the majority of his congregation—left the colony and settled in the Connecticut valley at Hartford. They sold their homes to the latest arrivals from England, who were led by Thomas Shepard.

Though Hooker had opposed the chief leaders of the Bay Colony and had led a seceding group, he still had a good reputation in Massachusetts. In 1637, he returned to Boston to serve as one of the moderators of the synod that condemned the teachings of Anne Hutchinson and her followers.

Hooker devoted considerable time to political matters. As Albert Hart wrote, "He was to Connecticut what John Winthrop was to Massachusetts, and what Roger Williams was to Rhode Island—the grand old man, the trusted leader" ("Thomas Hooker," in Charles Perry, Founders and Leaders of Connecticut, 1633–1783, 52–53). When the General Court of Connecticut began drafting a constitution, Hooker preached a sermon on Deuteronomy 1:13, which advocated democratic principles. The constitution that Connecticut adopted in 1639, called the Fundamental Orders, embodied those democratic views. Still, it is extravagant to call Hooker, as some have done, "the father of American democracy."

In 1642, Hooker, John Davenport, and John Cotton were invited to represent New England at the Westminster Assembly of Divines. Hooker declined the offer, but sought to influence the assembly by publishing three books in London, two on the Lord's Prayer (A Brief Exposition of the Lord's Prayer and Heaven's Treasury Opened), and a catechism on the fundamental principles of religion (An Exposition of the Principles of Religion). Though these books agree with the Westminster Standards at nearly every point, there is no evidence that the Westminster Divines were greatly impacted by them. All three of these books, together with Hooker's The Immortality of Man's Soul and The Saint's Guide in Three Treatises, were published in London in 1645.

Meanwhile, Hooker was fully involved in leading his own congregation and contributing to the ecclesiastical life of the colonies. In 1643, he served as moderator of a conference assembled to combat Presbyterian tendencies, which were beginning to show up in some churches. He wrote a book to refute those tendencies and to promote Congregationalism; it was a point-by-point refutation of Samuel Rutherford's 800-page The Due Right of Presbyteries (1644). The book was sent to England, but the ship carrying the original manuscript was lost at sea. Reluctantly, Hooker rewrote his book. It was not published until after Hooker's death (A Survey of the Sum of Church Discipline, 1648). It has been described as the most profound and "reasoned statement of the practical program of New England Puritanism" (Miller and Johnson, The Puritans, 802).

In the thirty-six publications of five thousand pages of sermons and treatises that he wrote, Hooker primarily dealt with the doctrine of salvation; his favorite themes were regeneration and experiential grace, or as he called it, the application of redemption. His major series of books, drawn from a lengthy series of sermons preached in Cambridge, Chelmsford, and Hartford, trace the experiential work of the Holy Spirit in the soul from the preparatory stages of conviction through the entire order of salvation to glorification. The sermons were first published from auditors' notes as The Soul's Preparation (1632), The Soul's Humiliation (1637), The Soul's Effectual Calling (1637), The Soul's Implantation (1637), The Soul's Exaltation (1638), and The Soul's Possession of Christ (1638). In New England, Hooker revised these sermons for publication as The Application of Redemption. They were published in two volumes after his death in 1656, as was his treatise on glorification, the final step in the soul's ascent to heaven.

Hooker advocated covenant or federal theology with its ethical and social implications. He taught that the covenant of grace, entered upon savingly in regeneration, provides a basis for ethical motivation. Consequently, he strongly supported both the church covenant that became the Congregational polity of New England and the social covenant that became the basis of a political system that subjugates magistrates and citizens to the demands of God's righteousness.

In 1647, Hooker became ill during an epidemic that was spreading across the country. On his deathbed, he communicated to Thomas Goodwin that his "peace was made in heaven and had continued for thirty years without alteration." A close friend said to him just before he died, "You are going to receive the reward of all your labors." Hooker responded, "Brother, I am going to receive mercy." He died on July 7, 1647, his sixty-first birthday.

Hooker's contemporaries often called him "The New England Luther." Hooker was a man of many gifts: an astute statesman, a dedicated churchman, a sound theologian, a voluminous writer, and a beloved pastor. He played a formative role in the development of religion in the New World. But it was as a preacher that Hooker rose "to his grandest stature." His sermons were peppered with colorful illustrations that brought the truths of the gospel home to his hearers.

Hooker was a strong leader, gifted with grace and humility. He was an able debater, but he was also artful in reconciling differences. His influence has been considerable in experiential Christianity, homiletics, evangelism, colonization, political philosophy, and church polity. "The fruits of his labors in both Englands," wrote John Winthrop in his Journal, "shall preserve an honorable and happy remembrance of him forever."