All this sounds sensible enough; though it is curious doctrine in the mouth of a bishop of that church. And this, in fact, is the starting-point of Law's analysis of Hoadly. No one who reads the unsparing vigor of his criticism can doubt that Law must have been thoroughly happy in the composition of his defence; and, indeed, his is the only contribution to the debate which may claim a permanent place in political literature. In one sense, indeed, the whole of Law's answer is an _ignoratio elenchi_, for he assumes the truth of that which Hoadly sets out to examine, with the inevitable result that each writer is, for the most part, arguing from different premises. But on the assumption that Hoadly is a Christian, Law's argument is an attack of great power. He shows conclusively that if the Church of England is no more than Hoadly imagines it to be, it cannot, in any proper historic sense, be called the Church of England at all. For every one of the institutions which Hoadly calls an usurpation, is believed by Churchmen to be integral to its nature. And if sincerity alone is to count as the test, then there cannot, for the existing world, be any such thing as objective religious truth. It subverted not merely absolute authority--which the Church of England did not claim--but any authority in the Church. It impugned the authority of the Crown to enforce religious belief by civil penalties. Hoadly's rejection of authority, moreover, is in Law's view fatal to government of any kind. For all lawful authority must affect eternal salvation insofar as to disobey it is to sin. The authority the Church possesses is inherent in the very nature of the Church; for the obligation to a belief in Christianity is the same thing as to a belief in that Church which can be shown to represent Christ's teaching. From Law's own point of view, the logic of his position is undeniable; and in his third letter to Hoadly, the real heart of his attack, he touches the centre of the latter's argument. For if it is sincerity which is alone important it would follow that things false and wrong are as acceptable to God as things true and right, which is patently absurd. Nor has Hoadly given us means for the detection of sincerity. He seemed to think that anyone was sincere who so thought himself; but, says Law, "it is also possible and as likely for a man to be mistaken in those things which constitute true sincerity as in those things which constitute true religion." Clearly, sincerity cannot be the pith of the matter; for it may be mistaken and directed to wrong ends. The State, in fact, may respect conscience, but Hoadly is no more entitled to assume the infallibility of private belief than he is to deny the infallibility of the Church's teaching. That way lies anarchy.