Richard Hooker: The Virgin Mary Was a Sinner

The following quote is from Hooker's "Learned Discourse on Justification." I will be posting more quotes from this discourse in coming days to show that Hooker is not via media but Protestant through and through. The truth speaks for itself in this case as my quotes will show.

Now concerning the righteous, there neither is nor ever was any mere natural man absolutely righteous in himself: that is to say, void of all unrighteousness, of all sin. We dare not except, no not the blessed Virgin herself, of whom although we say with St. Augustine, for the honour's sake which we owe to our Lord and Saviour Christ, we are not willing, in this cause, to move any question of his mother; yet forasmuch as the schools of Rome have made it a question, we must answer with Eusebius Emissenus,[The quotation that follows has not been traced, but it probably comes from a treatise or homily wrongly attributed to Eusebius of Emesa.] who speaketh of her, and to her, to this effect: "Thou didst by special prerogative nine months together entertain within the closet of thy flesh the hope of all the ends of the earth, the honour of the world, the common joy of men. He, from whom all things had their beginning, hath had his own beginning from thee; of thy body he took the blood which was to be shed for the life of the world; of thee he took that which even for thee he paid. The mother of the Redeemer herself, otherwise than by redemption, is not loosed from the band of that ancient sin." If Christ have paid a ransom for all,[1 Tim 2:6] even for her, it followeth that all without exception were captives.