Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	church_n	reason_n	see_v	1,882	5	3.4169	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65702	Dos pou sto, or, An answer to Sure footing, so far as Mr. Whitby is concerned in it wherein the rule and guide of faith, the interest of reason, and the authority of the church in matters of faith, are fully handled and vindicated, from the exceptions of Mr. Serjeant, and petty flirts of Fiat lux : together with An answer to five questions propounded by a Roman Catholick / by Daniel Whitby ...	Whitby, Daniel, 1638-1726.	1666 (1666)	Wing W1725; ESTC R38592	42,147	78

believes such Articles or asserts their truth he presently replyes because revealed in Scripture by that God who cannot lye whereas the Catholick must Answer because revealed by that Tradition or that Churches voice which is infallible to assure me of the Churches voice is the business of my Eyes and eares to ascertain me of the infallibility of that voice is the work of Reason Is now the faith of Catholicks resolved into their eyes or ears Is it resolved into the use of Reason and not into the Churches voice If not why must this be objected to the Protestant because his Reason doth assist him to evince his Scripture to be the product of Divine Veracity If then you take this prayse in its largest sense as it imports the enquiry into all its causes in their several kinds both Catholicks and Protestants do resolve their faith into humane Reason as giving them assurance of the infallibility both of Scripture and Tradition if in its proper notion as it it implyes the principal efficient cause of Faith 't is evident that neither of them do it Nevertheless I freely grant that all the certainty of our Faith in things not punctually expressed in Scripture depends upon the certainty of our Reason working upon the never sayling Rules of Logick which as it is no disparagement to the certainty of Faith so is it a thing common unto us with Catholicks who must acknowledge with my good Friend That many things have been delivered by the Church which were not formally contained in her tradition or the Rule of Faith but only thence concluded by the help of Reason Sure Footing P. 206. Prop. 3. The Fundamentals of Christianity i. e. all doctrines necessary to the Salvation of each person delivered in the Rule of Faith must be both evident and obvious to the eye of Reason for seing the proper end of a Rule is to regulate and direct and nothing unevident and obscure whilst such can do that office unto those to whom it is so for this were to require the intellect to be regulated by what it cannot know to be a rule what ever is the the Rule of Faith and so of Fundamentals must evidently declare them to such persons to whom it is a rule and is it not monstrous to imagine that God should have suspended our Salvation and Christ the very being of his Church on what 's obscure and void of evidence And secondly seeing what is not obvious cannot be evident to such persons as are unable to search into the depths of Reason and see into the coherence of a continued train of consequences that this Rule may be evident to such it must be obvious Obvious I say in delivering the affirmative heads of Christian Faith not in affording means to extricate the understanding from all the Sophistry of a Learned Adversary which to require from the Rule of Faith especially as applyed to the illiterate person and his certainty thereof is as absurd and monstrous as to require in order to his certainty that he sees walks or hears that he should have ability to Answer all the quirks of Zeno and demurs of a Gascendus to the contrary As therefore in these matters the clear and immediate evidence of sense is a sufficient preservative to the rudest person from all the Sophisms of Zeno and his Academy even so the full and pregnant evidence of Fundamentals especially if joynd with that internal evidence of the Holy Spirit which is promised by our Saviour to all those that do his will is sufficient settlement unto the meanest person capable of Religion against all the Fallacies of a subtle Heretick Coroll Hence I conceive it Sophistically objected by my Friend That we prove and defend our Faith by skils and languages history and humane learning and so make them our Rule of Faith For we aver the Fundamentals of our Faith are so perspicuously revealed in Scripture as to need no farther skill to apprehend them then what is necessary to understand that language in which our Rule of Faith is writ yea what is equally necessary to understand the Churches voice which constantly is delivered by her representatives in Greek or Latine and therefore the preceding skils are not of absolute necessity to Faith in General but only to some portions of it of which we may be ignorant without considerable prejudice to our eternal welfare of which nature is the legitimacy of Baptism conferr'd by Hereticks the Millenium c. and if we use such mediums in matters of the highest nature we do it still ex abundanti either to conclude the same things from obscurer places which are perspicuously revealed elsewhere or to obviate the evasions and confute the cavils of the Hereticks all which the Catholick doth and must do both when engaged with him and us Thus when again he tels us That our Rule is deal Characters waxen-natured and plyable to the Dedalean Phancy of the ingenious moulders of new opinions P. 194. Ans 'T is true some passages there are in it which are may be wrested to such evil purposes but still the Fundamentals of our Faith are such as are by no means plyable to any other sence Prop. 4. Reason in judging of the sence of Scripture is regulated partly by principles of Faith partly by Tradition partly by Catholick maxims of her own 1. By Principles of Faith for Scripture is to be interpreted secundum analogiam Fidei that is say we particular Texts of Scripture when dubious are so to be interpreted as not to contradict the Fundamentals of Faith or any doctrine which evidently and fully stands asserted in the Word of God and 2ly since Scripture cannot contradict it self When any Paragraph of Scripture absolutely considered is ambiguous that sence must necessarily obtain which is repugnant to no other paragraph against what may be so and thus may Scripture regulate me in the sence of Scripture and what I know of it lead me to the sense of what I do not Secondly By tradition for since tradition is necessary to assure us that there were once such men as the Apostles who delivered that Christianity and these Scriptures to us which we now embrace to question the sufficiency of the like tradition to assure me of the sence of Scripture is virtually to call in question the motives which induce us to believe it such this then would be an excellent help unto the sence of Scripture only the mischief is that where it can be had we do not want it and where we want it 't is but too visible it cannot be had Note only that I speak here of a like tradition to which two things are requisite First That it be as general as that of Scripture And Secondly That it be such as evidenceth it self by Reason to have been no forgery as here it doth it being morally impossible that the whole Church in the delivery of Scripture to us should deceive or be deceived For the

That they should talk so much of the Catholick Church and not one title of its infallibility That in their descants on these Passages which are so often pleaded by the Romanist they should never intimate unto us that in the Judgement of the Catholick Church or at least their own they taught infallibility That the Nicene Fathers albeit they had so great occasion from the multiplying of Heresies to have insisted upon this so Fundamental Doctrine that each Mans Soul must bottom on it or be built upon the Sand should not onely wave the stating clearing confirming or the trying of it but compose a Creed and never mention it That the Catechumeni should never be taught this foundation of their Faith That it should never be required at Baptism That none of the Treatises ad Calechumenos Institutiones Mystagogice Enchiridia Doctrina Christianae None of the Treatises of the Church her self should once make mention of this great and principal Funamental is as if a Man should write of the chief Cities in England and leave out York and London or of the degrees of Hierarchy in the Church of Rome and leave out Pope and Cardinal lastly That whereas since the Usurpation of this Prerogative by the Church of Rome there have been hundreds of Disputes touching the subject of its infallibility whether Christ were here or there without determining of which to affirme in gross the Churches infallibility is to leave us perfectly in a maze say just nothing that not any of those disputes should ever be started nor any thing resolved upon These are things morally impossible and consequently this pretended infallibility must be so this being so 't is superfluous to refute the pretence of a General Council to it for besides what already hath been said can it be that what 's so necessary to the welfare to the Church should by an all-wise God be left at infinite uncertainties A general Council is infallible say they provided that it be legitimately called that the members of it be legitimate that they be legally elected and in due number from every part and portion of the Church that being thus convened they vote freely and without constraint and packing after due Means of Study Prayer and fasting used provided lastly that the decree conciliarly have these decrees confirmed by the Pope and accepted by the Church diffused if one of these conditions be wanting to the greatest Councils they take liberty to reject them yet who knows not what animosities and feuds there are in the now present Church of Rome and much more in the Church of God touching the greater part of Councils styled Oeconomical whether all these conditions have been punctually observed by them in the whole and each particular Decree how more then probable it is that like uncertainties should arise touching the definitions of future Councils how impossible it is for any but especially for persons illiterate far removed from the place of their Convention to attain to any tolerable satisfaction in all these particulars This objection is by the wiser sort of Papists handsomely passed over as knowing it to be unanswerable but Fiat Lux hath ignorance enough to warrant his attempts upon it which are these 1. That we may as well except against the obliging power of the decrees and Acts of King and Parliament and say is that power in the King alone or in the Parliament what if they run counter what if they should not be rightly Chosen p. 190. Ans But dares he say that one of these particulars are undetermined by our Law Dares he avouch that the obliging power of our Acts of Parliaments depends on such a multitude of things of which no tolerable assurance can be had If so he evidently stands guilty not only of Rebellion but justifies the late Phanatick assuring him that he may safely question and oppose the power both of King and Parliament as depending on some hundreds of uncertainties as hotly contested and as unresolved by the Lawyers of the Land as the forementioned Decrees of Councils are in the Church of Rome If not how gross most his impertinence and folly be in bringing such comparisons which both his conscience and his reason tell him are vastly different from what his adversary produceth And yet secondly who knows not that a less degree of certainty may suffice in civil then in sacred matters But secondly he takes Sanctuary in Titulus colovatus and moral evidence and tels us that if this suffice not we can be sure of no Authority either Spiritual or Civil in this world ibid. Ans And is this that Fiat Lux who writ a pamphlet of infallibility Made it so necessary for the Churches welfare that without it nothing can hang firm nor Christ be just p. 5 6. had he not provided such assurance for our faith to build upon is he now content to sit down with Titulus Coloratus moral evidence And to confess that Catholick Faith and the Authority of the Church depends upon so many and such various conditions for which they do pretend but moral evidence Is not this moral evidence the very thing at which the Romanist doth so much quarrel in the resolution of our Faith And must it now become the refuge of those very men who do so vehemently cry out against it in the Protestant See here the triumph and the Victory of Truth which forceth her professed adversaries to agnize and own her though to the ruine of their cause and credit and yet manifest it is that few of the particulars objected will admit of moral evidence or any tollerable degree of probability Corol. 1. Hence see the excellency of our Churches method for peace and unity beyond what Rome can boast of seeing then only she require our assent when the revelation is so clear and palpable that he who runs may read it and when the thing is such as hath the testimony and approbation of the whole Christian World handed down from the Apostles to this present age and acknowledged to be such by Catholicks themselves And in other things rests contented with that submission which is consistent with mens liberty of conscience and each mans duty to afford her whereas Rome doth not only bind the conscience to what 's unnecessary unheard of in the Churches Creeds till now of late and so obscure as to be matter of contest through the Christian world but doth all this upon pretence of that infallibility woh were it only questionable must subject us to the peril of embracing the most destructive errors for divinest truths without all hopes of a redress dispose us unto Atheisme and irreligion by making all our Faith and piety depend on what is disputable and lay us open to continnal fears and jealousies doubts and uncertainties Schisms and dissentions about the rule and foundation of our Faith but being evidently false must be most certainly productive of these fatal consequences and yet we must be