Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	believe_v	reason_n	see_v	1,394	5	3.2017	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

assisted the Apostles and first Promoters of Christianity in delivering to us a false Scripture and false Traditions And certain Secondly it is we have no evidence of these things but that of Reason and consequently that the whole certainty of Faith depends upon it and this is freely acknowledged by Mr. Serjeant in his fourth Section where he tells us That our assent unto Authority is at last resolved into Reason and clearly follows from his grand Assertion p. 181. That no Authority viz. whether of Church Scripture or Tradition deserves assent farther then true reason gives it to deserve and consequently it must be beholding to true reason for the assent we yield unto it And yet I am confidently rebuked for saying That if S.C. believes his church infallible because his reason judgeth it to be so the Church is beholden to the judgement of his private reason for his belief of her infallibility p. 96. as if her infallibility could be believ'd on this very account deserve assent upon no other and the rationalness of assenting to it could be resolved into reason and she not be beholding to the confessed yea the only cause of this assent for the belief of that infallibility which is the effect thereof and all this forsooth Because I therefore come to have that Judgment of her infallibility because she as an object wrought upon my apprehension and imprinted a conceit of her there as she was in her self and so obliged my Reason to conclude and my judgement to hold her such as she is pag. 182. A very deep discourse and able to evince that no man is beholding to his Reason for any thing he assents unto but contrarily his Reason is beholding to the Object for causing that assent Seing that object works upon his apprehension and imprints a conceit of it self there as in it self and so obligeth our Reason to conclude and our Judgment to hold it such as it is but Sir is your assent rational or not If not 't is Bruitish and Absurd it may he false nor have you any reason to believe it true If so then must you be beholding to your Reason for it Coroll Hence I infer That Reason cannot be rejected as unsure and unsufficient to ground an Article of Faith upon for the certainty of our whole Faith depending upon that of Reason it must fall together with it So that to quarel with the use of Reason upon that account as Papists usually do is in effect to quarrel with Religion and Christianity Prop. 3. The certainty of Faith cannot be greater then that of Science or Mathematical Demonstration for that supposing only as the fundation of all certitude that my faculties are true and not supernaturally enclined to falsehood is absolutely certain and such as takes away all matter of a doubt for who can question the truth of these assertions that nothing can produce it self and that from equals if you take only equals the remainder will be equal both which are conclusions arising with the clearest evidence from that first principle of Science 't is impossible for the same thing at once to be and not be Now seeing certainty consists in the removal of what is or might be matter of a doubt for whilest this matter of doubt remains we are not and when 't is once removed eo ipso we arrive at real certainty and seeing nothing can take off more then all no certainty can be greater then that which cuts of all matter of a doubt Nay secondly I ask whether this principle viz. it is impossible for the same thing at once to be and not be can possibly be doubted whether some Conclusions Scientifical be not immediately and unavoidably derivative from it for since all Truths are ultimately resolved into it some most immediately conclude from it and whether hence it will not follow That Scientifical Conclusions may remove all possibility of doubting Thirdly all Articles of Faith are ultimately founded upon Reason by Prop. 2d And so our assent unto them must terminate thereupon no reason can be of greater certainty then a Scientifical Conclusion as being wholy derived from and resoluble into that first Principle of Science impossibile est idem esse non esse Fourthly That any Article of Faith is true or not true is a Scientifical Conclusion from that of Logick one part of contradictories must needs be true nor can the truth of any article be greater then the truth of this since 't is impossible to be true but eo ipso it must be true or not true When therefore you pretend p. 181. to cleave more heartily and firmly to a point of Faith then to any conclusion of Science whatsoever your adherence must outgoe your Reason for what if Faith depend upon divine veracity and that be closely applyed by the Church unto you Seeing it depends also on your assurance of these two Assertions 1. That the Divine power could not be engaged to deceive the Church or attest a falsehood Which you owe to Reason And Secondly That the divine veracity is engaged for that which you esteem an Article of Faith which you must owe unto the Eyes and Eares and the Fidelity of other men since then each Article of Faith attested by Divine Veracity is nevertheless known to be so partly by reason which cannot rise beyond a Demonstration partly by the evidence of sence and the fidelity of other men which is not capable of demonstration it is not possible that your assent which bottoms on them should exceed its certainty But secondly I affirm that all our certitude of Faith is less then that of Science for notwithstanding all your motives unto Faith are there not many real Atheists and secret rejecters of Christianity Many that are still enquirers many that labour under continual doubts and scruples and have Faith only as a grain of Musterdseed Yea may we not all cry out with the Disciples Lord increase our Faith Produce your motives manage them with your utmost care and you will find the Sceptick will still make exceptions put in his scruples and ask might it not be otherwise Whereas Science compels assent puts the intellect beyond a feare and will not suffer us to scruple or demur upon her Theorems or labour under the least uncertainty Whether one part of contradictories be true or the three Angles of a Triangle be equal to two right ones Sith then 't is nothing but the clearness of the truth which expels fears and doubts and 't is the want of such convictive evidence which is the cause of their continuance that certitude must needs be greatest which is most effectual to this end but 't is superfluous to insist farther upon that which is so admirably confirmed by Mr Chillingworth p. 291. Ed. ult Yea thirdly I affirm that the certainty of Faith is not so great as that of sence for all its certainty depends on our assurance that the deliverers of it were infallibly assisted by

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