Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	catholic_n	church_n	communion_n	2,927	5	9.4030	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65715	A sermon in confutation of R. H. the author of The guide in controversies Shewing that his most plausible arguments produced against Protestants, do more effectually conclude for Judaism against Christianity. By Daniel Whitby, D.D. chantor of the church of Sarum.	Whitby, Daniel, 1638-1726.	1679 (1679)	Wing W1736A; ESTC R222007	21,763	39

imagin that these Pharisees and Rulers should be the men ordained by God for Controversies and by whose words they must be tried and yet should be such blind and stupid Guides as by your Jesus they were said to be that he who was led by them must fall into the ditch Moreover were no assistance from above to be expected in this case is it not reasonable to think that these great Doctors of the Law those numerous Priests who made it their whole business to study Vid. Answ in Numb xi 16 17. and search out the meaning of the Law of Moses those Members of the Sanhedrim who were still chosen out of the most Learned Persons and the most eminent for wisdom I say may we not reasonably conceive such Persons to be fitter and more able Judges of the sense and meaning of that Law or of the truth of any miracles pretended to be wrought by Christ or his Apostles than was that rude and giddy Multitude which had no knowledg of the Law They therefore considering their Superiors study and Learning in such things Divine and also their own ignorance R.H. discourse Chap. 13. p. 13. they considering both the special ordination and commission of their Superiors from God to teach them in necessary truths and his charge laid upon them to obey their Ecclesiastical Superiors ought to depend upon and adhere to their directions so much the more in any point of faith by how much it is esteemed more necessary as wherein there is a much greater hazard if they should err 3. All that your Gospel doth suggest or reason may pretend for the exemption of the first Jewish Converts from obedience to these decrees of their Superiors in the Jewish Church may saith the Jew be fully answered from the plain Principles and almost in the words of Roman Catholicks For to proceed in the expressions of R. H. the Guide in Controversies with very little variation of them 1. Will you affirm that all the Priests and Rulers Scribes and Pharisees and the whole Sanhedrim acted against their faith and conscience in these determinations by which your Jesus was condemned as an Impostor Answ Discourse 1. Ch. 3. §. 37 38. p. 26. R. H. will tell you there is a moral certainty that so many such persons cannot conspire in such a matter viz. a necessary to Salvation to falsifie the truth against their own belief and conscience to their Subjects and Posterity with an Anathema to all dissenters or an excommunication of all who preached and believed that Christ was the Messiah promised to the Jews and was already risen from the dead when their own consciences could tell them that these things were true Ibid. p. 25. If any can be so uncharitable as to credit of them so great a wickedness that the Supream Councils of the Jewish Church should with design decree an error contrary to their faith or knowledg in this necessary matter and then enjoyn all their Subjects to believe it under Anathema he must believe that they most certainly do devote themselves to eternal perdition And therefore if not out of Charity or reverence to such sacred persons yet from the irrationality of such a defence it is much better to pass over this objection 2. Will you say that these Superiors were only to be appealed to in doubtful matters and that this thing whether the Scriptures declared your Jesus to be the true Messiah was not doubtful Answ R. H. informs you that a right judgment cannot but account all those places doubtful Disc Chap. 3. §. 44. p. 29. in the sense whereof either the Antient or present major part of Christianity are of a contrary judgment from himself That must be therefore doubtful according to the ground and reason of this Rule which you presume not to be doubtful since it was that in which the major part of the then present Jewish Church was of a contrary judgment from the Christian Convert 3. Will you plead in favour of the vulgar that they were bound to hearken to these Jewish Guides no longer than they followed the Rule of Scripture Answ Ibid. p. 28. Be it so But saith R. H. Who is appointed judg of these supreme Judges when they transgress against this Rule their Subjects who are from them to learn the sense of the Rule where difficult and disputed and who are bidden to follow their faith The right exercise of Judgment will not judge so For if the vulgar may pass this judgment of the Decrees of many Councils and the concurring judgment of their Superiors and Church Guides I hope the matter must be evident even to the vulgar sort that notwithstanding the contrary judgment of Chief Priests and Rulers Scribes Pharisees and Elders and almost all the Jewish Nation that sense of Scripture must be false which their Ecclesiastical Guides alledged to prove that Jesus was not the true Messiah and that according to their Law he was to die and that sense of the Scripture must be true which by the Apostles and their few Converts was alledged to prove that Jesus was the Messiah promised to the Jew Ibid. p. 143. Now how vainly saith R. H. doth any one pretend or promise himself a certainty of any thing wherein so many Councils and a much major part of the Church having all the same means of certainty as he judgeth contrary Rational account disc 3. Chap. 4. §. 42. p. 179. where it seems the Scripture may be so doubtful that the sense of the then Catholick Church or its greatest Councils they say can be to them no certain or infallible interpreter of it where the judgment or common Reason of these Councils thinks it self so certain of the contrary as to Anathematise dissenters or cast them out of the Church On what grounds here these private Persons or new erected Churches could assure themselves of their own sense of Scripture to be true they having left that of the Churches Councils and of a major part of Jews who also judged their sense false I understand not Surely they will not say they have this certainty from the Scripture because the true sense thereof is the thing so mainly questioned and the certainty or infallibility of the traditive sense of the Jewish Church they renounced and then which only is left their own judgment or their own common reason when that of their greatest Councils or major part of their Church-Guides differs from it one would think should be a more fallible ground to them than the judgment or common reason of the Church For a man to presume himself certain in a matter of faith Ibid. disc 2. Chap. 2. §. 15. p. 95. or in his own sense of Scripture though the literal expression he never so clear where so many Learned and his Superiours comparing other Texts c. are of a contrary judgment this saith R. H. is the same as if in a matter of sence a dim

sighted Person should profess himself certain that an object is white when a multitude of others the most clear sighted that can be found having all the same means of a right sensation as he hath pronounce it black or of another colour V. Rational account disc 2. Chap. 5. §. 42. p. 141. Moreover if these Scriptures or reasons be so clear even to the ignorant and unlearned Jew must they not be as clear to their Church-Guides and may not then their judgments more securely be rely'd upon at least for any thing which is presumed to be clear Disc Chap. 3. §. 37. p. 24. For if Scriptures be maintained so clear in necessaries that every one using a right endeavour cannot mistake in them then shall the Church Governours much rather by reason of this clearness obvious to every Rustick not err in them and so shall the people the more the Rule of faith is proved to be clear the more securely rely on and be referred in them to their direction 4. If you pretend a more sincere endeavour in those few converts to find out the sense of Scripture or search out the truth in these matters which in the case of the Beraeans your Scripture seemeth to assert Answ I Answer still with the same Author Disc Chap. 1. p. 4 5. that since all parties do pretend sincere endeavour in the right understanding of the Scriptures and after it do differ so much in their sense of it it follows that such sincere endeavours being indifferently allowed to all parties the sense of Scripture and the verdict of true reason ought to be pronounced clear if on any on that side as the major part doth apprehend it which certainly was not the Primitive Converts but the unbelieving Jews and their Ecclesiastical Superiors Ibid. p. 24. For surely we have reason to presume that the Chief Guides of the Church in their consults concerning a point necessary to Salvation delivered in Scripture as that of the Messiah was use at least so much endeavour as a plain Rustick doth to understand the meaning of it And whatsoever other thing is supposed necessary besides sincere endeavour or is understood to be included in it as freedom from passion and secular Interest or also a freely professing the truths which their sincere endeavour discovers to them none can rationally imagin but that these supream Church Governours should be as much or more disengaged herein than private men Ibid. p. 145. And that passion and interest blind private men or our selves sooner than General Councils or a major part of the Church See therefore here the wisdom of the unbelieving Jews who to preserve themselves from erring in this matter made use of the securest way that reason could imagine Rat. Account Disc 1. Chap. 7. §. 77. p. 74. saith R. H. or that Christians are prescribed whilst for the sense of the Scriptures that were controverted in this point of the Messiah they chose not to rely on their own judgments but on that of the Supremest Guides of the Church and Judges of Divine Truth that were afforded them on earth and so if they erred yet took the wisest course to have missed erring that Religion or Reason could dictate To which Guides also the subjects of this former Communion all believed submission of their private judgments to be due and to be commanded from whence also it follows that till they are convinced of error in this point viz. that no submission was due to the Decrees of all these Councils and the concurring judgment of those Spiritual Guides by whom your Jesus was condemned they are not capable of being convinced in any other matter If lastly you affirm that the common people had conviction and demonstration from the Miracles of Christ of the falshood of the Decrees and the Interpretations of their Church Guides in this matter and of the truth of that Christianity which they embraced in opposition to those said Decrees Answ This I confess is a great truth but then the Roman Doctors cannot plead it without rejecting most of their professed Tenets and their strongest pleas for absolute submission to the Major part of their Church Guides For 1. Admit our Saviour and his Apostles wrought true Miracles how did the vulgar perceive them so to be but by their senses and how did they infer from them the truth of Christianity but by their private Reasons Rat. Account Disc 1. Chap. 6. §. 62. p. 63. Now the evidence of sense and reason must be both neglected saith the Romanist when a Divine Revelation declares any thing contrary to them This and this only being their defence of Transubstantiation against the common sense and reason of mankind Now of the certainty of a Divine Revelation or the true sense of Scripture they make the judgment of the Major part of their Church Guides to be sufficient evidences and so there was sufficient evidence according to this Rule that all the Miracles which Christ and his Apostles seemed to work were done in opposition to Divine Revelation or the true sense of Scripture 2. Certain it is that the Rulers of the Jews and the prevailing part of the whole Nation differed from the converted Christians in their apprehensions of these Miracles and judged them all Diabolical Impostures or trials of their Faith c. Rat. Account Disc 4. Cons 2. p. 384. Now this seems necessary to be granted saith R. H. that in what kind of knowledg soever it be whether of our sense or reason in what ever Art or Science one can never rightly assure himself concerning his own knowledg that he is certain of any thing for a truth which all or most others of the same or better abilities for their cognoscitive faculties in all the same external means or grounds of the knowledg thereof do pronounce an error So that where all or most differ from me it seems a strange pride not to imagine this defect in my self rather than them especially when as all the grounds of my science are communicated to them and when as for my own mistakes I cannot know exactly the extent of supernatural delusions According therefore to this Rule it was strange pride in the first Converts to Christianity among the Jews to judg the Miracles of Christ or his Apostles true when most of their own Nation as well as Heathens differed from them in that apprehension and spake so freely every where against the Sect of Christians 3. The truth of the pretences of our Lord and his Apostles depended on two things Stillingfl ibid. p. 42. viz. the fulfilling of Prophesies and the truth of his Miracles Now according to the Roman Principles no man could be certain of the truth of either of these without the Authority of the then present Church For the fulfilling of Prophesies depended on the sense of many obscure places of Scripture of which say they the Major part of the Church-Guides must judg And