8. Ibid. § 107 (p. 265).
9. Ch vii. § 13 (p. 452). Vide also vol. i. pp. 115, 121, 196, 236, 242, 411.
(2.) Passages inconsistent with the above:—
1. Ch. ii. § 25 (vol. i. p. 177). An argumentum ad hominem.
2. Ibid. § 28 (p. 180).
3. Ibid. § 45 (p. 189). An argumentum ad hominem.
4. Ibid. § 149 (p. 263). An argumentum ad hominem.
5. Ibid. § 154 (p. 267). Quoted in the text, p. 226.
6. Ch. v. § 45 (vol. ii. p. 391). He is arguing on his opponent’s principles.
2. Also, I have to express my obligation to another Correspondent, who called my attention to a passage of Hooker (“Eccles. Pol.” ii. 7) beginning “An earnest desire,” &c., which seemed to anticipate the doctrine of Locke about certitude. It is so difficult to be sure of the meaning of a writer whose style is so foreign to that of our own times, that I am shy of attempting to turn this passage into categorical statements. Else, I should ask, does not Hooker here assume the absolute certainty of the inspiration and divine authority of Scripture, and believe its teaching as the very truth unconditionally and without any admixture of doubt? Yet what had he but probable evidence as a warrant for such a view of it? Again, did he receive the Athanasian Creed on any logical demonstration that its articles were in Scripture? Yet he felt himself able without any misgiving to say aloud in the congregation, “Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.” In truth it is the happy inconsistency of his school to be more orthodox in their conclusions than in their premisses; to be sceptics in their paper theories, and believers in their own persons.