Further excerpts from Victor Lee Austin's Up With Authority: Why We Need Authority to Flourish as Human Beings (London: T & T Clark, 2010), chapter 5: (pages 106-110):
Hooker discerns that those who would dismiss the power of the church to decide on matters of order are putting their own reason in the place of the authority of the church; and thus they undermine that authority, with the result being the diminishment of the ability of the church to be a society. he does concede--indeed he emphasizes--that if the church is doctrinally in error (a position which for Hooker means the teaching of doctrines that are contrary to that which the Scripture lays out clearly or to that which can be clearly deduced from Scripture), then the individual must speak prophetically in opposition to authority. But in matters of ceremony, as in all matters on which Scripture does not speak clearly...the church has the necessary function of making authoritative determinations that are appropriate for [107] the time, and which might also be changed. [See Laws V.viii.2]
Still the epistemic question remains, How can it be determined, authoritatively, that a doctrine is clearly stated in Scripture or immediately deducible therefrom? How, that is, can we know that the church authority is truly handing on that which is contained in Scripture? [108] Hooker faces this question. While he emphatically ascribes Scripture a preeminent place in all knowledge of truth concerning doctrine, he points out that, not only does Scripture not say everything, it may not be a simple matter to determine what Scripture does in fact say. Thus authority is necessary, both to acquire the skills needed to read Scripture correctly, and also to perpetuate the knowledge of the truth that is held by tradition. [See Laws II.viii.5]
[109] Hooker calls upon his opponents to recognize what he takes to be an obvious fact, that "God hath endued [some people] with principal gifts to aspire unto knowledge by; whose exercises, labours, and divine studies he hath so blessed that the world for their great and rare skill that way hath them in admiration." He asks by what daring of intellect would we reject their judgment? "For mine own part," Hooker says, "I dare not so lightly esteem of the Church, and of the principal pillars therein" (Laws II.vii.4).
[110, citing Anthony Quinton, The Politics of Imperfection, 28] The Puritan opponents of Hooker were guilty of "a cognitive sin," namely, "intellectual pride." The Puritans thought the traditions of the church were of no weight; they would apply their own reason directly to the Scriptures and reach all conclusions in isolation from any need for epistemic authority."
