Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	authority_n	faith_n	formal_a	1,922	5	12.2586	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61580	Origines sacræ, or, A rational account of the grounds of Christian faith, as to the truth and divine authority of the Scriptures and the matters therein contained by Edward Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1662 (1662)	Wing S5616; ESTC R22910	519,756	662

Christ and his Apostles were sufficient evidences of a divine spirit in them and that the Scriptures were recorded by them to be an infallible rule of faith here we have more clear reason as to the primary motives and grounds of faith and withall the infallible veracity of God in the Scriptures as the last resolution of faith And while we assert such an infallible rule of faith delivered to us by such an unanimous consent from the first delivery of it and then so fully attested by such uncontroulable miracles we cannot in the least understand to what end a power of miracles should now serve in the Church especially among those who all believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God Indeed before the great harvest of Converts in the primitive times were brought in both of Iews and Gentiles and the Church sully setled in receiving the Canon of the Scriptures universally we find God did continue this power among them but after the books of the New Testament were generally imbraced as the rule of faith among Christians we find them so far from pretending to any such power that they reject the pretenders to it such as the Donatists were and plead upon the same accounts as we do now against the necessity of it We see then no reason in the world for miracles to be continued where the doctrine of faith is setled as being confirmed by miracles in the first preachers of it There are only these two cases then wherein miracles may justly and with reason be expected First when any person comes as by an extraordinary commission from God to the world either to deliver some peculiar message or to do some more then ordinary service Secondly When something that hath been before established by Divine Law is to be repealed and some other way of worship established in stead of it First When any comes upon an extraordinary message to the world in the name of and by commission from God then it is but reason to require some more then ordinary evidence of such authority Because of the main importance of the duty of giving credit to such a person and the great sin of being guilty of rejecting that divine authority which appears in him And in this case we cannot think that God would require it as a duty to believe where he doth not give sufficient arguments for faith nor that he will punish persons for such a fault which an invincible ignorance was the cause of Indeed God doth not use to necessitate faith as to the act of it but he doth so clearly propound the object of it with all arguments inducing to it as may sufficiently justifie a Believers choice in point of reason and prudence and may leave all unbelievers without excuse I cannot see what account a man can give to himself of his faith much less what Apology he can make to others for it unless he be sufficiently convinced in point of the highest reason that it was his duty to believe and in order to that conviction there must be some clear evidence given that what is spoken hath the impress of Divine authority upon it Now what convictions there can be to any sober mind concerning Divine authority in any person without such a power of miracles going along with him when he is to deliver some new doctrine to the world to be believed I confess I cannot understand For although I doubt not but where ever God doth reveal any thing to any person immediately he gives demonstrable evidence to the inward senses of the soul that it comes from himself yet this inward sense can be no ground to another person to believe his doctrine divine because no man can be a competent judge of the actings of anothers senses and it is impossible to another person to distinguish the actings of the divine Spirit from strong impressions of fancy by the force and energy of them If it be said that we are bound to believe those who say they are fully satisfied of their Divine Commission I answer First this will expose us to all delusions imaginable for if we are bound to believe them because they say so we are bound to believe all which say so and none are more confident pretenders to this then the greatest deceivers as the experience of our age will sufficiently witness Secondly Men must necessarly be bound to believe contradictions for nothing more ordinary then for such confident pretenders to a Divine Spirit to contradict one another and it may be the same person in a little time contradict himself and must we still be bound to believe all they say If so no Philosophers would be so much in request as those Aristotle disputes against in his Metaphysicks who thought a thing might be and not be at the same time Thirdly The ground of faith at last will be but a meer humane testimony as far as the person who is to believe is capable of judging of it For the Question being Whether the person I am to believe hath divine authority for what he saith What ground can I have to believe that he hath so Must I take his bare affirmation for it If so then a meer humane testimony must be the ground of divine faith and that which it is last resolved into if it be said that I am to believe the divine authority by which he speaks when he speaks in the name of God I answer the question will again return how I shall know he speaks this from divine authority and so there must be a progress in infinitum or founding divine faith on a meer humane testimony if I am to believe divine revelation meerly on the account of the persons affirmation who pretends unto it For in this case it holds good non apparentis non existentis eadem est ratio if he be divinely inspired and there be no ground inducing me to believe that he is so I shall be excused if I believe him not if my wilfulness and laziness be not the cause of my unbelief If it be said that God will satisfie the minds of good men concerning the truth of divine revelation I grant it to be wonderfully true but all the question is de modo how God will satisfie them whether meerly by inspiration of his own spirit in them assuring them that it is God that speaks in such persons or by giving them rational evidence convincing them of sufficient grounds to believe it If we assert the former way we run into these inconveniences First we make as immediate a revelation in all those who believe as in those who are to reveal divine truths to us for there is a new revelation of an object immediately to the mind viz. that such a person is inspired of God and so is not after the common way of the Spirits illumination in Believers which is by inlightning the faculty without the proposition of any new object as it

God I must necessarily apprehend him to be absolutely perfect because the grounds of my knowledge that there is a God are from those absolute perfections which there are in him and if I could suppose him not absolutely perfect I must suppose him not to be God for that is necessarily implyed in his definition Now then if all certainty doth suppose the existence of a being so absolutely perfect I must before I can know any thing certainly conclude that there is an infinity of knowledge wisdom power and goodness in this God for those are things which all who understand them will grant to be perfections and if they be in God they must be absolute i. e. infinite And if they be infinite it necessarily follows that they must transcend our apprehensions so that now we have gained this principle in order to faith that we must grant something to be unconceivable before we can come certainly to know any thing From whence it follows that those who will not believe any thing to be true because it is above their apprehensions must deny the foundation of all certainty which as we have proved doth suppose something to be infinite or above our capacity to comprehend That we have as great certainty of what-ever is revealed to us from God as we can have of the truth of any thing which we most clearly understand For the truth of knowledge depending on this supposition that there is a God whose goodness will not suffer us to be deceived in the things we clearly understand there is the same foundation for the act of faith as for that of knowledge viz. That God will not suffer us to be deceived in matters which himself hath revealed to us Nay there seems to be far greater on these accounts First That there is not so great danger to be deceived in reference to objects of sense as there is in reference to objects of Divine revelation because objects of sense make a continual impression upon the Organs of sense and as to these things we see the whole world agrees in them so far as they are necessary to life and withall they bear a greater correspondency to the present state of imperfection which the soul is now in but now matters of Divine revelation are of a more sublime and spiritual nature which mens minds on that account are more apt to doubt of then of things obvious to sense and withall they call the mind so much off from sense that on these accounts the proneness to doubt is greater and therefore the foundation of certainty from Gods not suffering us to be deceived must be stronger Secondly There is not so great danger in being deceived as to matters of sense or knowledge as there is in things of Divine revelation For we see granting sense to be deceived and that we have no certainty at all in natural things yet affairs of life are managed still mens outward welfare depends not on the judgement of sense the merchant hath never the less gold in his Ship because his sense deceives him in judging that the earth moves from him when the Ship moves from it The Sun doth never the less inlighten the world though our senses be a●l of Epicurus his mind that the Sun is no bigger then he seems to be but now as to matters of Divine revelation they are things of the most unspeakable weight and importance which depend upon our believing or disbelieving them And therefore if the goodness of God be such as it will not suffer us to be deceived in our judgement of material and sensible beings how much less in reference to the foundation of our certainty as to things Divinely revealed We see then what rational evidence there is not only consistent with but necessarily implyed in the foundation of faith even as great as in any thing which we do most perfectly know so that the in-evidence which is so much spoken of as an ingredient of the nature of faith must not be understood of the foundation whereon the act of faith doth stand but of the condition of the object which being a matter of divine revelation is a thing not obvious to our senses In which sense the Apostle speaks that faith is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the firm expectation of things hoped for and strong conviction of things which are not seen In which words as Erasmus well observes is contained only an high Encomium of faith and no Dialectical definition of it viz. that faith soars above things of sense or present enjoyment yea though the objects of it be never so remote from either yet where there is sufficient evidence of Divine Revelation faith boggles at no difficulties but is firmly resolved that that God who hath revealed these things can and will bring them to pass in his own time There is not then any such contrariety between the foundation of faith and knowledge as the Schoolmen have perswaded the world we see both of them proceed on the same foundation of certainty all the difference is faith fixeth on the veracity of God immediately in reference to a Divine Testimony knowledge proceeds upon it supposing no Divine revelation as to the things it doth discover We hence infer that if the certainty of our knowledge depends on this principle that God will not suffer us to be deceived then we are bound to believe whatever God doth reveal to us though we may not be able to comprehend the nature of the things revealed For as to these things we have the same ground of certainty which we have as to any natural causes for as to them we now suppose from the former principle that setting aside the existence of God we could have no certainty of them but that the formal reason of our certainty is resolved into this that Gods goodness will not suffer the understanding to be deceived as to these things the same I say as to spiritual mysteries revealed by God the ground of our certainty lies not in the evidence of the things but in the undoubted veracity of God who hath revealed them All that I can imagine possible to be replyed to this is that Gods veracity assures us in natural causes that we are not deceived only where we have a clear and distinct perception of the things but now in matters above our reason to comprehend there can be no clear and distinct perception To this I answer First it is evident in the foundation of all certainty of knowledge that there may be a clear and distinct perception of that which we cannot comprehend viz. of a being absolutely perfect for if we have not a clear and distinct perception of God the foundation of all certainty is destroyed which is the necessary existence of such a being and he that shall say he cannot have a clear perception of God without comprehending him doth contradict himself for if he be a being infinite he must be incomprehensible therefore