12. Firmness of persuasion no Proof that any proposition is from God.
This cannot be otherwise, whilst firmness
of persuasion is made the cause of believing, and confidence of being in the right is made an argument of truth. St.
Paul himself believed he did well, and that he had a call to it, when he persecuted the Christians, whom he
confidently thought in the wrong: but yet it was he, and not they, who were mistaken. Good men are men still
liable to mistakes, and are sometimes warmly engaged in errors, which they take for divine truths, shining in their
minds with the clearest light.
