Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	according_a	faith_n	spirit_n	2,347	5	5.0849	4	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

perfection and remove the contrary he being therefore incomprehensible because infinite in perfection whence albeit I do not comprehend his nature yet can I rationally conclude him not corporeal because that necessarily subjects him to varietie of imperfections 6. This doth not prejudice the use of Reason in other matters any more then the Asymptoticks of the Mathematicks the cruces logicorum the Insolubilia of other sciences do prejudice our getting knowledge in these matters by the use of Reason Corol. Hence evident it is That Scripture must not alwaies be interpreted according to the Letter or Grammatical importance of the words because that often is contradictory both to reason tradition and the Analogie of Faith this cannot be disputed by any person who is not professedly industrious to render Scripture odious and ridiculous there being nothing more abhorrent from humane nature then some Scriptures are in their Grammaticall importance but you object Ob. If Reason must guide you sometimes so as to denie the clear letter of Scripture or to deny the Spouse of Christ is properly whatever she is stiled in the Canticles by what principles must Reason be regulated in this enquiry Whether God hath hands and feet c. pag. 193. Ans 1. By Principles of Faith or those perspicuous Scriptures which dogmatically aver that he is a Spirit invisible and without all shape lastly attribute unto him many things repugnant to a body this you see is done antecedently to the known sence of some Scriptures though not of all And 2. by Reason assuring me that corporeity is incompatible with that power which is every where infinite That it is an imperfection and so not incident to this all-perfect Being that it interferes with his simplicity and independance degrades him beneath the ranke of Angels and humane Souls which Scriptures represent as incorporeal that to ascribe such Phrases properly unto him must represent him the worst of Monsters as having wings and seaven eyes and putting on more shapes then ever Proteus did and render his reproofs of Heathen Images irrational and absurd Ob. But is not this to flie back for refuge to the old rule Humane Reason which you seemingly renounced when you had found your new Rule of Faith Ans It s power to pass judgement of the truth of what is revealed in Scripture I did and do renounce its assistance in finding out the sence of Scripture I cannot renounce without the sorfeiture of Reason Corol. 2. Hence it must follow that to be expresly contained in Scripture is not to be the mind of God contained in Scripture for that God is a Shepheard and a Roaring Lyon a Lanthorn and a wall of fire that he begat Israel and doth continue to beget Believers That the Messiah is a Lamb a Lyon and a Stag a Worm Plant Fagle Root and Cedar this and much more is expressly told us from Scriptures letter but to infer hence that Reason guided by Scripture cannot otherwise interpret them but it must Violently wrest the Scripture and be so absolutely the Rule of Faith as to controle and baffle Scripture though clearly revealing p. 192. is to make Christ the worst of Monsters to out do all the Fables of the Poets and represent the God of Heaven more ridiculous then an Heathen Jupiter Secondly I defire to know whether the Church of Rome doth own and sence these places according to the letter or contradict and wrest baffle and controul the clearest revelations of the word of God by doing otherwise Qu. But if to be in express terms in Scripture be not to be clearly revealed there what is it to be thus revealed Ans T is manifestly to be the mind of God contained in Scripture Which being so if you continue to imagine that every thing contained in Scriptures letters is clearly manifested to be the mind of God in Scripture then must you either contradict what is clearly manifested so to be or cut off hands and feet and pluck out eyes that you may be Christs Disciple if you enquire farther amidst all the varietie of Tropes and Figurative Expressions used in Scripture how any thing can be manifested to be the mind of God revealed I Answer by the very same means and circumstances by which we know the mind of one another notwihstanding all the variety of Tropes and Figures which we use in ordinary Discourse or Writing how often doth the Divine the Poet the Historian and especially the Orator flourish in all the arts of Rhetorick and Grace his subject with the chiosest flowers of Eloquence and yet presents it in a dress as clear as it is pleasant and were not men wilfully perverse they would have less reason to complain of the obscurity of the Scripture in matters necessary to Salvation upon this account When therefore you thus Argue That God hath Hands Feet Nostrils is plainly writ in your Rule of Faith p. 121. and therefore is revealed in it the inference must be weak the Foundations of it are already overturned And yet however you suppose it all along I peremptorily deny that it is possitively asserted in any Scripture that God hath Hands Feet Nostrils True we are told the Heavens are the Workmanship of his hands c. But to infer it from such places would force you to acknowledge that the Word of God is Milk and that Milk is Rational because Saint Paul hath stiled it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here therefore is no need to captivate my Reason much less to Answer as you would have me That the contrary is plain in Scripture too pag. 191. and so that Scripture holds forth plainly contradictions this Answer so dishonourable to God and Scripture so repugnant unto Faith Reason and Tradition I permit to be your own CHAP. III. Of the Rule of Faith Prop 1. SEeing Divine Faith in the proper import of the words is an assent to Divine Authority revealed whatever I assent to as an Article of Faith I must assent to as being the revealed will of God whence evident it is That the mind or will of God revealed and nothing else must be my Rule of Faith Again What is the proper office of a Rule but to examine what is to be ruled by it Must we not pass a Judgement on our Weights and Measures by bringing them to the Rule and Standard In like manner Do we not examine each Theological conclusion by this Enquiry Whether it be the minde of God revealed or not and from the Answer made unto it pass Judgement on the thing in Question This therefore is the Rule of every Theological conclusion And so of Faith Corol. 1. Hence it will follow That not Tradition but the minde of God revealed in Scripture or Tradition is the Rule of Faith And indeed Tradition where it as certain as Mr. S. supposeth it would be the formal Object but not the Rule of Faith which two things are miserably confounded through the whole Series of my Friends Discourse

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

very Argument against your Church I wonder how you would avoid the blow Secondly Your next Assault runs thus Do not these Skills clear the letter of Scripture that is make known Gods sence to you if so since their immediate effect is to clear it 't is impossible to deny but they are at least part of the Revelation as if it were impossible to deny the Comment to be a part of that Text it cleareth for revealing is clearing and Gods sense was not clearly revealed but by these means that is by humane Maxims and so they are at least the more formal part of your Rule of Faith Answ I remember when I learn'd my Grammer that I had a Construing Book the immediate effect of which was to clear to me the sence of my Rules cōtain'd in Propria quae maribus Quae Genus c. but never was I so happy as to know that my Construing book was part of them or to which special Rule it did belong I knew indeed that revealing was clearing and that the sence of these special Rules was not clearly revealed to me but by means of my Construing Book but was not so inured to Science and versed in true Logick as to be able to infer thence That it was at least the most formal part of the Rules forementioned but must thank my Friend for his Instruction in so deep a Mystery and confess I owe that Light I have received in this Point to his noon-day Sun of self-evidence For a close you ask Might I not have mistaken the true sense of Scripture without these humane Maxims if so then they not Scriptures-letter are my Rule of Faith p. 191. Answ And must that necessarily be my Rule of Faith without which I might possibly have mistaken any portion of it then good Eyes and Ears and diligence in using of them good Dispositions Judgement Instruction c. must be my Rule of Faith for without these 't is very probable I may be frequently mistaken in the sense thereof Prop. 2. That notwithstanding any thing M. S. hath pleaded to the contrary Scripture may be a Rule of Faith for to object That Christian Religion had descended many steps ere the Scriptures parts were much scattered much less the whole collected is effect to argue thus Scripture was not a Rule to those that wanted and therefore cannot be such unto those that have it 't was not the onely Rule to those who were assisted by the infallible guidance of the Authors and Propounders of it graced with the extraordinary assistance of the same Spirit who drank even from the Fountain and Spring-head of Tradition and therefore it cannot be so to us who are removed from it 16 Centuries and destitute of all those Priviledges and Advantages which they enjoyed And yet remarkable it is That amidst all these Enjoyments the new-born Christian is sent unto his Scripture Rule his word of Prophesie bid to give heed unto it as a thing more certain then a voice from Heaven writ designedly for his instruction able to make his wise unto salvation perfect both in Faith and Manners and make him throughly furnished unto all good Works and after all the Apostles are inspired to indite and to deliver the New Testament unto them to be the pillar and the ground of Faith and can it be imagined that Scriptures so comparatively obscure so purposely designed for and accommodated to the Jewish Paedagogy should be thus commended and enjoyned by the Spirit of God as a Rule unto the Christian when graced with all the helps fore-mentioned and yet that Scripture which was indited by the same unerring Spirit in a more familiar way with great plainness of speech 2 Cor. 3.12 13. and not obscured by a vail as was that of Moses which is exceedingly more full of moral Precepts and Rules of Faith and Manners of gracious Promises to comfort and Exhortations to perswade to Patience and every other Vertue which lastly was Indited not in a Tongue peculiar to the Land of Jury but such as was most generally spoken throwout all the World should never be intended as a Rule unto them when destitute of those assistances Obj 2. 'T is objected secondly That that can never be a Rule which many follow and yet their thoughts straggle into many several Judgements in Points of so great moment as the Trinity ibid. Answ If you imagine that these straglers do indeed keep close unto the minde of God revealed in Scripture you blaspheme the Holy Ghost and make the Word of God the very sourse of Heresie if you affirm that cannot be a Rule which such pretend to follow you in effect assert the Law of Nature and right Reason could not be the Gentiles rule and that he had no Pharaoh's to guide him to the knowledge of the Being and Attributes of God because they generally took up with such uncouth notions and gross absurdities in matters which are evident from the light of Reason That neither Scripture nor Tradition could be a Rule unto the Jew who branched into such Sects as either did evacuate the Law of God by their Traditions or denyed the Resurrection That Tradition is no Rule of Faith or otherwise That no pretender to it was ever guilty of an Heresie And lastly That the denyal of Tradition must be the onely Heresie all which are monstrous Absurdities and yet the natural Results of your Assertion To conclude this Section I must crave leave to minde my Friend of an early brood of Carpocratian Hereticks who being confounded by the Scriptures to be revenged of them gave it out Cum ex Scripturis arguuntur in accusationem convertantur ipsarum Scripturarum quasi non rectè habeant neque sint ex authoritate dy quia varie sunt dictae quia non possit ex his inveniri veritas ab his qui nesciunt traditionem non enim per literas traditam illam sed per vivam vocem Iren. lib. 3. cap. 2. 1. That they were not as they should be viz. the Original copies being not preserved entire Disc 2. S. 5. 7. had not authority sufficient there being no means to convince the Sceptick the acute Adversary yea the rational doubter of their trath no certainty of Scripture in it self and no ascertableness of it unto as Disc 4. S. 1. c. And 3 That they were spoken variously or so as to admit of diverse sences Disc 2. S. 6.8 And lastly That in them the truth could not be found by such a were ignorant of Tradition it being not delivered by writing but by oral Tradition Good Sir I do not in the least suspect that you have Carpocratians Manuscript or that this passage of the Father did supply you with the heads of your Discourse however it will let you see that he adheres firm to your Rule p. 589. If then your inference stand good the Carpocratian must be owned for your Brother Catholick if bad then blush hereafter to