Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	church_n	faith_n	infallibility_n	2,066	5	11.7830	5	true

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

infallibility of Tradition doth not consist entirely in the delivery of such a Doctrine but in the assurance which it gives my reason that it could not possibly have been imbraced upon other terms The Baptism of Infants is at present as the communicating of Infants was of old the tradition of the Church but this gives no unquestionable assurance of the truth or derivation of these customs from our Lord and his Apostles for haply the Church embraced them upon other motives The 1. from a conceived analogy therein to Circumcision The 2d from a mistake of that of the Evangelist except you eat my flesh c. Coroll Hence you may see how injurious my Friend is in representing us as rejectors of Tradition whereas we manifestly own it where we can have assurance of it only we dare not boast of it as the Papist doth where 't is notoriously evident that both do want it we own the constant not the present Tradition of the Church Corol. 2. Hence see the stability of the Faith of Protestants above that of Papists The Protestant first denyes the Tradition which the Catholick pretends to to be sufficient ground of Faith And 2dly he denyes the Articles of his Faith to have the least Sure-footing in Tradition or his rule of Faith nay proves them wholy opposite unto it the Papist doth acknowledge that even by his own the Prorestants Rule of Faith must be infallibly certain and pronounceth her Anathema upon all who do not own both Scripture and Tradition for infallible and receive them both pari pietatis affectu with the like pious affection as the Trent Council phraseth it Sess 4. The Papists Faith is not to be found in the Protestants Rule of Scripture and this necessitates him to flie unto Tradition but the Protestants Creed and all his fundamentals are confessedly certain from the Papists Rule if therefore prudence doth direct us to the safer way and that be such which both sides do agree upon which they so frequently insist on to pervert the people it must be every mans concern to be a Protestant rather then a Papist Thirdly Reason is herein guided by her propper Maxims and cannot rationally admit of any thing as the sense of Scripture which is apparently repugnant to them for seeing 't is impossible to yield a rational assent without reason it must be more impossible to do it against reason Besides right Reason must be true and therefore should a Revelation be manifestly repugnant unto right Reason it must equally be opposed to truth Thirdly Do we not all endeavor to give Reasons of our Faith Would we not all be thought to follow it when we conclude our Faith from Scripture or Tradition Should we renounce her conduct might not the worst absurditys be imbraced as the sense of Scripture and finde their Patrimony from thence without all fear of refutation from that Reason which must not be admitted to dispute its sense must it not follow That no Controversie could be determined no Dispute resolved no Contest about the sense of Scripture finde an issue from any rational procedure Obj But doth not the Mystery of the Sacred Trinity the Resurrection of the Body the Hypostatical Vnion speak Contradictions unto Humane Reason Why therefore do you not expunge them from among the Articles of your Faith Answ These things as far as Scripture doth assert them are lyable to no immediate Contradictions but if your Curiosity proceed to dive into the Modes of their Existence you will presently discourse your self into perplexing Difficulties not in these onely but most other Matters That God is omnipresent speaks no contradiction to my Reason but to enquire into the Modus of this Presence is to be lost in mazes of them That he hath infinite Duration is a necessary truth but to call this Duration momentaneous or successive is to lay a foundation for endless Contradictions to assert Gods Omniscience is to assert a most received Article of our Faith but how this knowledge can consist with the contingency of things is beyond humane infirmity to shew that there is such a thing as motion we all see but whether it be a mode quality or substance successive only or instantaneous continued or intermixt with morula's needs an Elias to resolve us that there is quantity and corporeal Beings in the world our senses can assure us but how their parts are knit unto each other and how far they may be divided is indeed a Philosophick Trinity 't is then no prejudice to the forementioned Articles that we may discourse them into contradictions since this is common to them with the most ordinary things our senses view the reason of these perplexing difficulties in matters of this nature may happily be the exceeding greatness or parvitude of the thing which renders it impossible for us to frame Ideas of them from any thing which occurs unto our senses and consequently to pass judgment on them thus all the difficulties both of quantity and motion are bottomed upon instants and indivisibles and that which gravels still the mind in the consideration of a Deity is the infinity of his nature and therefore these affections of Goodness Wisdome and Mercy c. Which we stile communicable when once infinity is annexed to them do as much be jade the intellect as that amazing mystery of the holy Trinity but secondly I answer Ans 2. That Reason cannot think it proper to apply her maxims to these instances and consequently cannot judge them repugnant thereunto This will appear from these conclusions 1. That Reason Guided by her own maxims Tradition and by Scripture assures me that the divine nature is incomprehensible it being impossible that what is finite should comprehend what is infinite and certainly if Mathematicks have her Paradoxes and can vie demonstrations pro and con if matters obvious to sence do so be jade the intellect and lock it up in contradictions 't is little to be hoped she should conveigh her self through the infinite abyss of of divine perfections and not suffer shipwrack 2. That infinite perfection may deliver such things of it self which are incomprehensible because it may deliver what in it self it is 3. That Reason cannot pretend to judge by her own maxims of the Truth or Falsehood of what she doth acknowledge to exceed her reach For sure she cannot reasonably pretend to know what thus exceeds her knowledge much less to judge of what she doth not know 4. That Reason cannot conclude that to be repugnant to her maxims which she acknowledgeth to be such of which her maxims cannot judge for this is to apply these maxims where they ought not to be applyed and to frame consequences upon terms whereby the things they signifie are not understood and in effect to reject the proportions of the Sun and Stars unto the Earth which Mathematicks gives us as repugnant to the sense 5. That notwithstanding this Reason doth force me to attribute to God all that is

be possible for many handreds of Lateran or Basil Nice or Constantinople to pretend Tradition falsly because in contradiction to each other and shall it not be possible for 52 Bishops met at Trent to do so But what if she hath actually deceived us Is it infallibly evident that she cannot do what she hath done already and that as sure as History can make it For in the sixteenth Century we have several Translations of the Bible set forth with special Prefaces before them such were that of Santes Pagrinus the Dominician at Lyons that of Antonius Braciolus in Italy every one delivering and declaring the distinction that we make and was then commonly receiv'd between the Canonical Books of Scripture and Apocryphal may in that famous Edition of the compleat Bibles set forth by Ximenius the Cardinal and Arch-Bishop of Toledo in Spain and published by the Authority of People Leo we are told that Tobit Judith Wisdom Ecclesiasticus and the Macchabes with the additions to Hester and Daniel are no Canonical Scripture but such as the Church read rather for edification of the people then confirmation of her Faith Yea the vulgar Bible printed at Basil with Lyra's Commentary and the ordinary Gloss do not onely number her Books Canonical and un Canonical as we do putting that difference between them is be ween what is dubious and what is certain but farther tells us That she did it for the Information of them who being not much used to Scripture did not know how to put a difference betwixt them and so became ridiculous to the Learned Picus Mirandula assured us Admitto igitur Hieronymum in ea fuisse opinione Bellar de verbo Dei l. 1. c. 10. That the Testimony of St. Jerome in this matter which punctually accords with us even our Adversaries being Judges was esteemed most sacred by the Church And Cardinal Caietan that common Oracle of the days he lived in saith as expresly What he received into the Canon that do we what he rejected we also do reject Nay That the Latine Church was very much obliged to S. Jerome who by making this distinction had freed us from the reproaches of the Jews left them no ground to say of her what now they may of the Latine Church That she had forged a new Canon of her own with which the Jews had no acquaintance 'T is true Catharinus opposed this Sentence as being contrary to what one or two Popes had held before him but he was presently derided for it by one of his Brother Monks as an unlearned fellow And to conclude Johannes Ferus in his Book called An Examination of Persons to be Ordained See this and much more in Dr. Cosens's Canon of Scripture Cent 16. informs them of nine Apocryphal Books the same which are so called by our Church which were not anciently used in the Church and whose Authority was not pressing To him you may adde Faber Stapulensis Jodochus Clictovaeus Ludovicus Vives Fr Georgius Erasmus and Driedo all in this sixteenth Century This being so Can any man imagine that the Canonical Authority of these Books was look'd upon in this Century as an Apostollick Tradition by the Church of Rome and a thing necessary to be taught Posterity and yet they are pronounced Canonical by a few Men at Trent in the same Century and a Tradition is pretended for it in defiance to their own and other Churches If then we cannot be infallibly assured that the Church of Rome kept to Tradition when she most pretended it yea are abundantly certain That in her first Decree she contradicted the prevailing Doctrine of that very age What assurance can we reasonably expect that she always did so Obj The Attestation of One thousand Men of good repute touching a matter pretended to be seen by them and confirmed by their Oath obligeth to belief And must not then the Attestation of the Church of Rome incomparably more ample render the matter so indubitable c as that onely irrational vicious and wilfully blinde persons can recede from it by unbelief p. 196 197. Answ 1. I desire to know Whether it were absolutely impossible that One thousand hypocritical Pharisees should have procured the repute of honest men it being Proverbial amongst the Jews That if Heaven were designed but for two persons the one would be a Scribe the other a Pharisee or whether it were absolutely impossible for One thousand of such persons who were confessedly guilty of greater sins and frequently accustomed to swear a lye by any thing but the name Jehovah to attest falshood with an Oath and if not Why should it be impossible to our Modern Pharisee who can equivocate as well as he Whether the Priests of Apolio were not many Thousands in the World Whether they might not be reputed honest Men and whether it were impossible for them to consent in an Attestation of such a falshood which might gain reputation to that Idol especially considering that the Frauds and Artifices of the Priests were the usual ways of keeping up the credit of their Idol-worship Secondly In some cases such a Testimony will oblige unto Belief But what if these Witnesses should be confronted by the Testimony of Two thousand equally Judicious and Pious Men What if these Witnesses should very in their Testimonies and when met in Councels contradict each other What if Scripture and History delivered to us from the unquestionable Tradition of many Millions of which this Thousand were a part should manifestly condemn them of a lye What if the thing they undertook to testifie depended not entirely on their Attestation but required also the Testimony of the next Age and so up to the Apostles days What if the Attestation were visibly for their own Interest or they were partly ignorant of what they did Attest Would not all or any of these things sufficiently null their evidence and vet this is manifestly the case of your Churches Testimony Fifthly It is no sufficient prejudice against the reasonableness or certainty of Faith to confess it to be built upon foundations not absolutely infallible This is the natural result of what hath been already proved but 1. That it is no prejudice unto the prudence and reasonableness of our Faith is sufficiently concluded hence That the most weighty Affairs of Life are built upon Foundations not absolutely such No Childe hath an infallible assurance of his Parents no Subject of his Prince and would it not be madness hereupon to deny Obedience and Homage to them our Title to our Estates derived from Ancestors our assurance of the Laws of the Land we live in is but moral nevertheless to doubt or question them upon this account would be extreamly foolish moreover Reason and Prudence oblige us to believe what is highly credible and exceedingly more probably then it 's contrary And sure it is That Christian Religion is upon various accounts more credible and built on grounds incomparably more rational then either

irreligion or any contrary Religion can pretend to and consequently I stand bound in Prudence to embrace it Obj But what is fallible may be false and if so you have no certainty that it will be true Answ What is fallible not because equally poysed betwixt truth and falshood but onely because not demonstrable by Mathematical mediums or because the contrary doth not imply a contradiction may yet be of sufficient certainty to produce assurance The judgement of sense cannot be proved infallible to the Sceptick he will argue from experience That it may once or twice deceive you and thence that 't is not absolutely impossible that it should frequently do so that it may deceive you for a minute and then ask what infallible assurance you can have that it cannot do so for five ten twenty minutes If you reply Your senses are infallible but with such limitations as having a due medium Organ distance and the like he will call for your infallible assurance that neither God nor the devil do at any time infect the Medium dis-tort the Eye alter the Species and the like Now tell me notwithstanding this denyal of the infallibility of Sense Whether we have any just temptation to question what we daily see and hear Whether he that walls in London streets may not be certain that he sees a Man or Woman and yet less reason had the Primitive Christians to distrust those Miracles which for some Hundreds of Years employed not onely their own Senses but the Eyes and Ears of all the World Again The testimony of ten yea of an hundred Men is fallible as we have seen already and hence 't is evident That the testimony of Two hundred yea a Thousand may be so for seeing all you adde is fallible their Testification most be so Tell me now Whether I have reason to distrust the Existence of such a Man as Alexander Mahomet or that the Alcoran was published by him if not What reason can I have to doubt of what 's delivered to me with greater evidence of general Tradition touching Scripture Christianity you see now what little ground of fear our Doctrine gives you that it might happen to be otherwise p. 196. because we dare not pretend infallibility even as little as you have to fear the constant Testimony of sense or your own sure footing And when you adde That 't is a damnable and diabolical Tyranny to oblige men to the hazards of falshoods in the matters of Faith and in the mean time profess our selves ignorant whether they be false or no. Answ True And 't is as great a falshood that we do so No Sir in matters Fundamental we profess as much assurance as Scripture and Tradition can afford in matters which admit not of the greatest Evidence we oblige not unto Faith but to Submission and Obedience and in neither do we profess what you so dis-ingeniously impose upon us That we are ignorant whether they be false or no. CAP. II. Of the Guide of Faith THat Reason still must be my guide after it hath brought me to my Rule of Faith Prop. 1. and were it otherwise since we have no express from the old Testament that Jesus of Nazareth or the Son of Joseph was to be the Saviour of the world why are we sent to Scripture to be convince of it Why is this word of Prophecy esteemed a surer evidence thereof then a voice from Heaven John 5.39 2 Pet. 1.17 Matt. 22.29 Luk. 24.25 Why doth our Saviour quarrel with the Jew for not concluding that from Scripture which was not to be found expressly there Or rebuke the slowness of his own Disciples to believe all the Prophets had delivered touching his Death his Resurrection and Ascention into Glory When visibly they could not do it without comparing circumstances and using a long train of inferences Why lastly are the Beraeans so much commended for their search of Scripture Judgement of Pauls Doctrine thence seeing his business was to prove that Christ must needs have suffered be raised from the dead that Jesus was the Christ Act. 17.3.11 should this way be rejected as fallacious and unsufficient to establish faith In vain must be Apollos wisdome endeavouring hence to convince the Jew that Jesus was the Christ Act. 18.22 And 't was their weakness to be over-powred by it whilst he produced no express from Scripture in vain did Peter attempt to prove the Resurrection of our Lord from that of David Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell Act. 2.27 and S. Paul to convince the Jew by Reasoning from Scripture Act 17.2 In vain did he compose his whole Epistle to the Hebrews so full of Rational deductions thence in a word to infer the unlawfulness of Divorce for any cause from that of Genesis They twain shall be one flesh of Corban from that of Moses Honor thy Father and thy Mother to infer the Lawfulness of plucking ears of corn upon the Saboth from Davids eating the Shew bread And lastly to conclude the Resurrection from that of Moses I am the God of Abraham must be according to the contrary Assertion to argue upon Grounds fallacious and to interpret Scripture against or else besides the tenour of the Churches voice Secondly If Reason may not be my Guide in these conclusions as well as others then 1. must not all Arguments produced by the Romanist against our Church or upon any other subject be pronounced null when bottomed only on the inferences of Humane Reason from the Rule of Faith and must not Vanity be writ upon the labours of their greatest Champions Must it not follow that no promise of the Scripture can administer comfort no threatning terror to the Soul that is not either expressly contained in it or otherwise ascertained and expounded to us from the Tradition of the Church And must not then the greatest part of Scripture-threatnings prove bruta fulina and its Promises be as unsignificative And thirdly might not Jew and Gentile Sadducy and Pharisy have still excepted against Christ his Apostles whose infallibility they little dreamt of for making faith depend on the fallacious deductions of their Reasons for moulding Scripture according to their Daedalean Phancies in opposition to the Churches living voice Had Mr S. been a Traditionary Catholick or which is much the same a Pharisee in those days he would have doubly schoold them 1. For chusing a wrong rule of Faith viz. Scripture so to avoid the Church and next for glossing it as seems best unto their Reasons and that in opposition to the Church who by her practical tradition must interpret Sure footing p. 193. Prop. 2. That to assert Reason as my Guide in matters of Faith is not to resolve Faith into humane Reason for Faith is properly resolved into its Principal efficient or formal object which is not Reason but to the Protestant Divine Veracity to the Catholick the Churches voice for aske the Protestant why he