Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A59231
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The method to arrive at satisfaction in religion.
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Sergeant, John, 1622-1707.; N. N.
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1671
(1671)
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Wing S2578; ESTC R214763
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9,307
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46
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THE METHOD To arrive at SATISFACTION IN RELIGION TO THE TRULY VIRTUOUS the Lady T. E. THAT a Discourse of this nature should be addrest to Your Ladyship if it seems extraordinary it ought to argue a Judgment more than common in Her who is chiefly entitled to the perusal of it The Generality of your Sex through the unlucky disadvantage of their Education use to rellish nothing of a harder digestion than are the Delicacies of a Romance or at best a piece of History Nay many of the more knowing Sex who wear the repute of Learned do hardly even in this improoving Age so advance above the Sophister and the Pedant as to fancy any thing exceeds a pretty Probability trick't up with flowers of Rhetorick and gay Language And many of the greatest Wits if those may be justly called so who profess they know nothing have so unmann'd themselves by Scepticism that the solidest Principles in matters of this kind seem to them meer Air and the closest Consequences only worth answering by loose Drollery As if the Author of Nature I fear I do these Men too much right in thinking they hold any such had intended indeed to permit us the exercise of our Man-hood in Lines and Numbers but in things of infinitely highâ—r Concern had ordered us to be 〈…〉 that is as if Christ had erected a 〈◊〉 to educate and dispose Mankind towards Eternal Happiness and 〈…〉 done would not so much as 〈…〉 know the way to it Now 〈…〉 Your self should be held 〈◊〉 to penetrate and comprehend Discourses which pretend to a severity of Reason rescuing thus your own Sex from the imputation of inability for such performances and condemning the greatest part of ours is indeed a wonder if we consider the Generality of the world but none at all if we consider Your self Blush not Madam You are not singular in this Many other excellent Heroinae begin to get above their dull circumstances and the vogue of the World and own the glorious reproach of entertaining their best faculty Reason about the most noble and most profitable Subjects The high value you have for the sacred inviolableness of Catholick Faith Your earnest desire to render Faith lively and efficacious in your self by making out more and more to your thoughts how absolutely certain the Grounds of it are the Confidence You have in Gods Goodness not to deny us a clear easie and short way to make manifest this Certainty to our selves and others These good dispositions of Your Will give Your excellent Understanding such an attentiveness to the Proofs Faith stands under that I had fail'd your expectation and writ in a way much below You had I taken any other than I have here done that is to begin with the bottom-Principles and derive thence by a continued line of consequences my main Conclusion Had I produc'd Scripture-proofs or Quotations from any Authority of Fathers or Councils to evince the Point in hand Your piercing wit would have made this smart demand in behalf of my Readers that since none of those is a First Principle and so evident to all that heat them alledg'd I ought for their satisfaction make out by evident Reason that my Interpretation of Scripture could not fail to hit upon the right sence or those Authorities possibly mistake or mislead since no Authority deserves any Assent farther than Reason gives it to deserve So that still I was forc'd if I would appear before You to take this very Method I have here pursued that is to suppose nothing but prove all things that can possibly be questioned in this affair As for the following Discourse I only say that I could heartily wish Learned Writers of what Judgement soever would think fit to take the same short concluding Method and go about to settle some other Ground or Rule of Faith and thence by shewing who adhere to who reject that Rule conclude evidently who are truly Faithful who not The very attempting this would perhaps more readily discover on whose side Truth stands than many Books writ controver sially by way of mutual opposition where an obstinate Adversary may at pleasure still mistake wilfully every passage to make his impugnation the easier The maintainers of all Errors are as Experience teaches very free of opposition but only they who have certain Truth on their side will think fit to settle It will be wonder'd at Madam that I make no farther discovery of Your Person and Quality but You have will'd the contrary The Obedience to which Command obliges me by consequence to conceal my own Name and only to put instead of It the Title of my being Madam Your Ladiships most Devoted Honourer N. N. THE METHOD To arrive at SATISFACTION IN RELIGION 1. SInce all Superstructures must needs be weak whose foundation is not surely laid He who desires to be satisfy'd in Religion ought to begin with searching out and establishing the Ground on which Religion is built that is the First Principle into which the several Points of Faith are resolv'd and on which their Certainty as to us depends 2. To do this 't is to be consider'd that a Church is a Congregation of Faithful and Faithful are those who have true Faith Wherefore till it be known which is the true Faith it cannot be known which is the true Church Again A Council is a Representative A Father an Eminent Member of the Church and a witness of her Doctrine Wherefore till it be known which is the true Church it cannot be known which is a Council or who a Father Lastly Since we cannot know which is Scripture but by the testimony of those who recommend it And of Hereticks we can have no security that they have not corrupted it in favour of their false Tenets Neither can we be secure which is Scripture till we be satisfy'd who are the truly Faithful on whose Testimony we may safely relie in this affair 3. Wherefore he who sincerely aims at Satisfaction in Religion ought first of all to find out and establish some assured Means or Rule by which he may be secured which is true Faith For till this be done He cannot be secure either of Scripture Church Council or Father but having once done this is in a ready way to judge certainly of all Whereas if he begin with any of the other orindeed argue from them at all till the Rule of Faith be first settled he takes a wrong Method and breaks the Laws of Discourse by beginning with what is less certain and indeed to him as yet uncertain and in effect puts the Conclusion before the Premises unless he argue Ad Hominem or against the personal Tenets of his Adversary which is a good way to Confute but not to Satisfie 4. And because the Rule of faith must be known before Faith can be known and Faith before Scripture Church Councils and Fathers it appears that to the finding out this Rule no assistance of Books will be requisite for
they were taught by and practis'd with their Fathers and this from Age to Age and it is impossible but all succeeding Children which follow this Rule must needs from the Apostles time to the end of the World be of the same Faith which was taught at first For while they do thus there is no change and if there be no change 't is the same Tradition then thus understood has in it the Nature of the Rule of Faith as being able if held to to bring down infallibly what Christ and his Apostles taught 12 We have found the Rule of Faith there remains to find which body of men in the World have ever and still do follow this Rule For those and onely those can be infallibly assured of what Christ taught that is can onely have true Faith Whereas all the rest since they have but fallible grounds or a Rule for their Faith which may deceive them cannot have right Faith but Opinion onely which may be false whereas Faith cannot 13. And first 'T is a strong presumption that those many particular Churches in communion with the Roman which for that reason are called Roman-Catholicks do hold their Doctrine by this Infallible Tenure since they alone own Tradition to be an Infallible Rule whereas the Deserters of that Church write whole Books to disgrace and vilifie it And since no man in his wits will go about to weaken a Tenure by which he holds his Estate 't is a manifest sign that the Deserters of that Church hold not their Faith by the Tenure of Tradition but rather acknowledg by their carriage that Tradition stands against them and that 't is their Interest to renounce it lest it should overthrow their Cause Wherefore since Tradition § 11. is the only means to derive Christs Doctrine infallibly down to after ages they by renouncing it renounce the onely means of conveying the Doctrine of Faith certainly to us and are convinc'd to have no faith but onely opinion And not onely so but even to oppose and go point-blank against it since they oppose the onely-sure Method by which it can with certainty come down to us 14. Besides since Tradition which I always understand as formerly explicated to be the Teaching the Faith of immediate Forefathers by words and practise hath been proved the onely infallible Rule of Faith those who in the days of K. Henry VIII and since have deserted it ought to have had infallible certainty that we receded from it formerly for if we did not but still cleav'd to it it could not chuse but preserve the true Faith to us and if they be not sure we did not they know not but we have the true faith and manifestly condemn themselves in deserting a Faith which for ought they know was the true one but Infallible Certainty that we had deserted this Rule they can have none since they neither hold the Fathers Infallible nor their own Interpretation of Scripture and therefore unavoidably ship wrack themselvs upon that desperat Rock vvhich is aggravated by this Consideration that they built not their Reformation upon a zealous care of righting Tradition which we had formerly violated nor so much as Testimonial Evidence as shall be shown presently that we had deserted It but all their pretense was that we had deserted Scripture and because they assign no other certain means to know the sense of the Holy Books but the Words and those are shown to be no certain means § 10. 't is plain the Reformers regarded not at all the right Rule of Faith but built their Reformation upon a weak Foundation and incompetent to sustain such a building Whence neither had the first Reformers nor have their Followers Faith at all but onely Opinion 15. On the contrary since 't is known and agreed to by all the World at what time all Deserters of our Church of what name soever broke from us as also who were the Authors and Abetters and who the Impugners of such New Doctrines besides in what places they first begun and were thence propagated to others but no such thing is known of us even by our Adversaries whom it concerns to be most diligent Searchers after it seeing they are in a hundred minds about the Time when and the Persons who introduc'd these pretended New Doctrines of ours which they say vary from Scripture as may be seen by their own words in several Books and amongst others one call'd The Progeny of Protestants and this for every point in which they pretend we have innovated 't is plain that when we charge them with deserting the known Doctrine of the former Church and the Rule of Faith we speak open and acknowledg'd evidence when they accuse us of the same their charge is obscure and unknown even to the very Accusers nay plainly prov'd false by the necessity of â—he things being notorious if it happen'd and the constant disagreement of those who allege it when or how it happen'd 16. I say Notorious for since Points of Faith which ground all Christian practise are the most concerning Truths in the World it cannot be but the denyal of such Truths must needs raise great commotions before the opposite Tenets could be universally spread and the change of Christian Practise and Manners which depend on those Truths must be wonderfully manifest and known to every body wherefore had we been guilty of such a change and introduc'd New Tenets and propagated them over the Christian world as is pretended it must needs be manisestly and universally known that we did so neither is it possible the change should be so insensible and invisible that our very Adversaries cannot find it out especially this alone making their Victory over us so certain and perfect For seeing we own TRADITION as an In-fallible Rule We are irrecoverably overthrown if they make out that we ever deserted It and surely nothing should be more easie than to make out That than which if True nothing can possibly be more Notorious 17. Moreover since it can not be that Multitudes of men should profess to hold point's both infinitely concerning and strangely difficult to believe and yet own no ground upon which they hold them if we ever as 't is said we have deserted Tradition vve must till the time we took it up again have proceeded upon some other Ground or Rule of Faith And because none ever charged us with proceeding upon the Letter of Scripture or Phanaticism and besides these there is no other but Tradition 't is plain we never deserted but always stuck to Tradition 18. Besides 't is impossible that that Body of Men which claim for their Rule of Faith an uninterrupted Tradition from the Apostles days should not have held to that Rule of faith from the beginning For otherwise they must have taken it up at some time or other and by doing so profess to the World that Nothing is to be held of Faith but what descended by an uninterrupted delivery