good gifts for his existence and the preservation of his writings.


B. viii. c. ix. 2. vol. iii. p. 537.

As there could be in natural bodies no motion of anything, unless
there were some which moveth all things, and continueth immoveable;
even so in politic societies, there must be some unpunishable, or else
no man shall suffer punishment.

It is most painful to connect the venerable, almost sacred, name of
Richard Hooker with such a specimen of puerile sophistry, scarcely
worthy of a court bishop's trencher chaplain in the slavering times of
our Scotch Solomon. It is, however, of some value, some interest at
least, as a striking example of the confusion of an idea with a
conception. Every conception has its sole reality in its being referable
to a thing or class of things, of which, or of the common characters of
which, it is a reflection. An idea is a power, [Greek: dunamis noera],
which constitutes its own reality, and is in order of thought
necessarily antecedent to the things in which it is more or less
adequately realized, while a conception is as necessarily posterior.




SERMON OF THE CERTAINTY AND PERPETUITY OF FAITH IN THE ELECT.


Vol. iii. p. 583.