The first clear exposition of Hooker's ecclesiology came when he arrived in the Netherlands, although he had a reputation as a scholar of such issues long before his flight. From his long-standing friendship with William Ames we need not be surprised that his ecclesiology was already highly developed. When he became a candidate for the post of assistant to John Paget in the Amsterdam church in July 1631, Paget submitted twenty propositions, indicating his position and asking Hooker to make his own clear. On questions relating to salvation, Hooker found agreement easy and referred Paget to John Rogers' work; on relations with Separatists and the conduct of services he proved moderate and willing to seek agreement. On some questions, notably that of the lawful baptism of children whose parents are not church members, a question with a great future in New England, he pronounced himself insufficiently well read, but on the central questions of classical authority, he was already convinced and willing to dissent. There were four such questions. The first asked whether a particular congregation could call a minister without the approbation of the classis. Hooker answered by discussing the origins of the classis in terms derived from Ames, concluding that ‘particular congregations had power from Christ to call a minister and so did by that, their power choose and call their ministers fully and completely before there was a Classis, and therefore had their power not derived from a Classis’, although he acknowledged ‘that, if by mutual consent the congregation hath freely combined itself with the Classis, they shall do piously and expediently: freely to crave the approbation of the Classis, that they may be more confirmed or … better directed in their course’.