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truth_n	authority_n	church_n	infallible_a	2,088	5	9.4927	5	false

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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

told with so much confidence p. 200. That plainest common sence will teach us and every man who considers it that unless we settle some indisputable method of arriving at Christs sence or faith that is some self-evident and so all obliging Rule of Faith the Protestant Church can never hope for power to reduce their dissenters nor to hold together or govern efficaciously their own subjects that is they can never hope for unity within themselves or union with them that have it Which in effect is thus much That both his sacred Majestie and all his Peers and Prelates Laity and Clergy are profest opposers of what plainest common sence and each mans Reason must suggest unto him as the sole expedient of the Churches welfare for which great charity and worthy thoughts of our whole Nation 't is pitty but it should be ordered by the King and Parliament that due thanks be given to Mr. S. especially seeing he hath been at the vast expence of an ipse dixit to confirm the charge hower contenti sumus hoc Catone nor have we need to add homine imprudenti at que imperito nibil quicquam injustius Cor. 2. This shews what spirit of Divination had possessed my friend when thus he talks Hence we may see confessedly in the Protestant principles the Reason of their present and past distractions and divine of the future for mens fancies being naturally various no power in her to keep them in union they must needs ramble into multitudes of Dissenting Sects which to strive to unite in one were to force both nature and conscience too Nature in striving to unite their understandings in Faith without offering them evidence of Authority conscience in binding them to act as Protestants do whereas they are ready to stake their Salvation upon it that their best reasons working upon the very Rule of Faith Protestants recommend obliges them to the contrary For first in fundamentals in which onely we think it necessary to unite the understandings of our people we have confessedly all the evidence that Scripture and Tradition the Role of Protestants and Papists can afford And secondly in other matters we have power to silence such disputes and prevent the spreading of such opinions as may cause divisions and inflict the Churches censures upon those that do so and consequently have sufficient provisions for that peace and unity which is necessary to the Churches welfare And thirdly either we do not bind the conscience and therefore cannot force it or else we do it upon that pregnant evidence now mentioned and therefore cannot be said to oblige the will against the understanding And lastly we are as ready to protest that our best reason working upon the very rule of Faith which Romanists recommend unto us obligeth us to renounce their faith and that to force us to act with them would be to force our consciences unto sin For a close to cry quit with you this shews the reason of that General Atheism Scepticism and Irreligion which is spread over the face of the whole Roman Church which prevails so much in France and Italy and makes Rome Christian little differ from her self whilst Heathen for having built her Faith upon that infallibility which stands liable to multitude of doubts and is confuted by variety of Arguments and Experiences what remains but that Religion perish in its ruines Once more this shews the reason of the sudden growth of Atheism in this our Nation for Catholicks having by experience found that all their endeavours must be fruitless whilest we have Scripture for our Rule that whilst Christianity stands upon its old foundations their politick profession of it cannot find sure footing in our Nation have at last made it their professed business to draw the night upon her to wipe out Scripture at one dash and pronounce all those arguments which the first Champions of Christianity made use of unsatisfactory and null that being thus benighted even by a fiat lux we might take up with an implicite faith and being first made Atheists be in a nearer disposition to act the Papist And lastly that finding no sure footing in the Scriptures we might run unto Tradition for it An Appendix containing an Answer to those few passages in Fiat Lux which beare some shew of Reason and might possibly deceive the unwary Reader 1. THerefore 't is asserted That the power of appealing to the Bishop of Rome mentioned in the Council of Sardica was ad Julium Romanum not ad Papam Romanum and so a personvl priviledge which might cease on the death of Julius p. 59. that is quoth Fiat Lux not to the pope who then was Julius but to Julius who then was Pope p. 55. Whereas he should have said not to him as Pope but as Julius i.e. as one deposed and reviled by the Fastern Bishops against whom this Council did oppose themselves endeavouring to advance him as much as they endeavoured to depress and vilifie him but alas materialiter and formaliter are terms which the poor man is wholly unacquainted with and this answer was grounded upon History which neither his Don Quixot nor Hudibras would afford him and therefore 't was above his shallow capacity T was secondly asserted that the Doctrine stigmatized by Saint Paul as a Doctrine of Divels was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that of those in general that forbid marriage not condemn it upon such and such particular accounts And therefore though the Encratite Montanist were deeper yet they also did participate in the guilt p. 210. To convince this answer of folly falsehood it is thus rejoyned That if so 't would follow that the Church of England must be guilty of the Doctrine of Divels by prohibiting marriage in the times of Lent and Advent p. 182. A. as if it were all one to forbid the thing and to restrain the doing of it at times unseasonable and S. Paul had been as great a criminal for advising abstinence from due Benevolence at times of extraordinary prayer and fasting as they who alwaies thought it necessary to do so and lastly to forbid flesh in general and to forbid it upon daies of fasting and humiliation were things equivalent t is I confess the same to forbid it at times unfit and unto persons to whom it is so but never will it be evinced that that marriage which is honourable in all be undecent in the Clergy 3. But do you not acknowledge their fundamentals to be so perspicuous as what is written with a Sun beam and therefore such as none but fools can possibly mistake in and is it not then justly wondred by Fiat Lux that any Protestant writers should affirm that general Councils who have Authority from Christ of deciding controversies greater assistance in and means of finding out the truth then others should lye under a possibility of erring in what is so perspicuous and cleare Ans 1. This objection doth as much concern the Catholick as us who albeit he pretends infallible and so the greatest evidence for matters of his Faith yet cannot but acknowledge that they are contradicted not only by the Eastern but a confiderable part of the Western Church Doth not my Friend and all his brother Catholicks assert That the authority of their Church is such a motive to beliefe that only irrational vicious and willfully blind persons can recede from it by disbelief S.F.p. 197. yet have not its definitions been solemnly condemned by Arriau Councils as great as any they stile general And by the Provincial Councils of the Reformed Churches are not these condemnations subscribed propugned and adjusted by far greater multitudes of learned men then ever did convene in General Councils and what is incident to them diffused why may it not be incident to a far less number when convened Nay secondly was not the law of Nature were not the Notions of a Deity so manifest and obvious as to render the offender 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or condemned of his own conscience And yet were not the greater part of men such fools for many hundreds of years together to act in contradiction to them Was not the Doctrine of our Saviour confirmed by such Miracles such Prophecies and other signal evidenes as rendred it unquestionably true and the rejectors of it inexcusable and did not yet the Sanhedrim and Jew reject it and Blaspheme it though convinced of its truth nay is not the generality of the learned world much more the giddy and unruly muititude so inconsiderate as to run headlong to that ruine which dayly lays before their eyes and no wonder that it should be so since the Church story shews too plainly that interest pride and faction prejudice false principles and a mistaken Rule of Faith have but too often acted in the Rulers of the Church yea even Reason and Experience informs us that such persons have most subtilty to elude the plainest arguments and most concluding Reasons to find out contrary pretences to oppose against them and many other artifices to bind their Faith unto their interests FINIS

believes such Articles or asserts their truth he presently replyes because revealed in Scripture by that God who cannot lye whereas the Catholick must Answer because revealed by that Tradition or that Churches voice which is infallible to assure me of the Churches voice is the business of my Eyes and eares to ascertain me of the infallibility of that voice is the work of Reason Is now the faith of Catholicks resolved into their eyes or ears Is it resolved into the use of Reason and not into the Churches voice If not why must this be objected to the Protestant because his Reason doth assist him to evince his Scripture to be the product of Divine Veracity If then you take this prayse in its largest sense as it imports the enquiry into all its causes in their several kinds both Catholicks and Protestants do resolve their faith into humane Reason as giving them assurance of the infallibility both of Scripture and Tradition if in its proper notion as it it implyes the principal efficient cause of Faith 't is evident that neither of them do it Nevertheless I freely grant that all the certainty of our Faith in things not punctually expressed in Scripture depends upon the certainty of our Reason working upon the never sayling Rules of Logick which as it is no disparagement to the certainty of Faith so is it a thing common unto us with Catholicks who must acknowledge with my good Friend That many things have been delivered by the Church which were not formally contained in her tradition or the Rule of Faith but only thence concluded by the help of Reason Sure Footing P. 206. Prop. 3. The Fundamentals of Christianity i. e. all doctrines necessary to the Salvation of each person delivered in the Rule of Faith must be both evident and obvious to the eye of Reason for seing the proper end of a Rule is to regulate and direct and nothing unevident and obscure whilst such can do that office unto those to whom it is so for this were to require the intellect to be regulated by what it cannot know to be a rule what ever is the the Rule of Faith and so of Fundamentals must evidently declare them to such persons to whom it is a rule and is it not monstrous to imagine that God should have suspended our Salvation and Christ the very being of his Church on what 's obscure and void of evidence And secondly seeing what is not obvious cannot be evident to such persons as are unable to search into the depths of Reason and see into the coherence of a continued train of consequences that this Rule may be evident to such it must be obvious Obvious I say in delivering the affirmative heads of Christian Faith not in affording means to extricate the understanding from all the Sophistry of a Learned Adversary which to require from the Rule of Faith especially as applyed to the illiterate person and his certainty thereof is as absurd and monstrous as to require in order to his certainty that he sees walks or hears that he should have ability to Answer all the quirks of Zeno and demurs of a Gascendus to the contrary As therefore in these matters the clear and immediate evidence of sense is a sufficient preservative to the rudest person from all the Sophisms of Zeno and his Academy even so the full and pregnant evidence of Fundamentals especially if joynd with that internal evidence of the Holy Spirit which is promised by our Saviour to all those that do his will is sufficient settlement unto the meanest person capable of Religion against all the Fallacies of a subtle Heretick Coroll Hence I conceive it Sophistically objected by my Friend That we prove and defend our Faith by skils and languages history and humane learning and so make them our Rule of Faith For we aver the Fundamentals of our Faith are so perspicuously revealed in Scripture as to need no farther skill to apprehend them then what is necessary to understand that language in which our Rule of Faith is writ yea what is equally necessary to understand the Churches voice which constantly is delivered by her representatives in Greek or Latine and therefore the preceding skils are not of absolute necessity to Faith in General but only to some portions of it of which we may be ignorant without considerable prejudice to our eternal welfare of which nature is the legitimacy of Baptism conferr'd by Hereticks the Millenium c. and if we use such mediums in matters of the highest nature we do it still ex abundanti either to conclude the same things from obscurer places which are perspicuously revealed elsewhere or to obviate the evasions and confute the cavils of the Hereticks all which the Catholick doth and must do both when engaged with him and us Thus when again he tels us That our Rule is deal Characters waxen-natured and plyable to the Dedalean Phancy of the ingenious moulders of new opinions P. 194. Ans 'T is true some passages there are in it which are may be wrested to such evil purposes but still the Fundamentals of our Faith are such as are by no means plyable to any other sence Prop. 4. Reason in judging of the sence of Scripture is regulated partly by principles of Faith partly by Tradition partly by Catholick maxims of her own 1. By Principles of Faith for Scripture is to be interpreted secundum analogiam Fidei that is say we particular Texts of Scripture when dubious are so to be interpreted as not to contradict the Fundamentals of Faith or any doctrine which evidently and fully stands asserted in the Word of God and 2ly since Scripture cannot contradict it self When any Paragraph of Scripture absolutely considered is ambiguous that sence must necessarily obtain which is repugnant to no other paragraph against what may be so and thus may Scripture regulate me in the sence of Scripture and what I know of it lead me to the sense of what I do not Secondly By tradition for since tradition is necessary to assure us that there were once such men as the Apostles who delivered that Christianity and these Scriptures to us which we now embrace to question the sufficiency of the like tradition to assure me of the sence of Scripture is virtually to call in question the motives which induce us to believe it such this then would be an excellent help unto the sence of Scripture only the mischief is that where it can be had we do not want it and where we want it 't is but too visible it cannot be had Note only that I speak here of a like tradition to which two things are requisite First That it be as general as that of Scripture And Secondly That it be such as evidenceth it self by Reason to have been no forgery as here it doth it being morally impossible that the whole Church in the delivery of Scripture to us should deceive or be deceived For the

ΔΟΣ ΠΟΥ ΣΤΟ 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 M. A. Coll. Trin. Oxon. Soc. And let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall Rom. 11. OXFORD Printed by W. Hall for R. Davis 1666. Imprimatur ROBERTUS SAY VICE-CANCELLARIUS OXON TO THE READER Courteous Reader THe Animadversions of Mr. Serjeant being confused and immethodical would not admit an Answer in that Order in which they lie wherefore I have reduced them to their several heads and as I hope sufficiently discovered the weakness of them in the following Chapters still being careful that I did not actum agere or say any thing which might interfer with his two great Antagonists I have since been assaulted by a second Sampson willing perhaps to shew the world what Execution he could do with the Jaw bone of an Asse He hath three passages in his Epistle which seem guilty of a little reason and shew he has some lucid Intervals which therefore shall receive an Answer But as for his continual falsifications of my words and arguments his Wit and Drollery his Any mad versions and his white Boys that is the residue of his Epistle I shall leave them to be bound up with Asdriasdust Tosoffacan And rest Thy Friend and Servant DANIEL WHITBY CHAP. I. Of the certainty of Faith and the use of Reason in matters of Faith Prop 1. REason is that faculty which God hath given us to discern betwixt true and false good or evil just and unjust For that we do discern betwixt these things is every Mans experience and that we do it by the exercise of Reason is most evident for Judgement must be either brutish or founded upon Reason Coroll If then my reason doth determine what is just or unjust good or evil true or false and consequently what is to be done believed thought or not Reason must be my judge in every case Secondly To judge is to determine from some ground and that is to infer or reason and therefore nothing can be judge in any case but Reason Thirdly The Papist must acknowledge Reason for his Judge in every case for either Reason must assure them that the Church in her Traditions is infallible or else they must believe it they know not why this done what is unquestionably the Tradition of the Church cannot be matter of a doubt and when 't is doubted or disputed what is the voice of holy Church Reason must still become their Judge for sure they must have motives to encline them either way And they are Reasons wherefore in all cases Reason is their Judge and were it not the greatest folly to offer Reasons to convince us of the Roman Faith and at the same time tell us its judgement is not to be taken Object But here you presently throw in p. 187. The existence of the Trinity and then cry out To work now with your Reason and see how you evince it Answ Do you believe the assertion to be true or not if true Why do you then disupte against it if not Why do you not return some Answer to those Arguments wherewith it was confirmed nay why do you acknowledge That in great part of the whole Section and especially at the beginning the Discourse is rightly made p. 180. since that Discourse is visibly a Complex of Arguments professedly evincing this conclusion But Secondly I conclude the existence of a Trinity by rational Inference from such Scriptures which affirm That God is one and that the Father Son and Holy Ghost are truly God and therefore do assert it because my reason judgeth these Inferences to be valid and the Sacinian who rejects the Article doth not reject the Authority of those Scriptures upon which I ground it but onely endeavors to evade the Inferences of my reason from thence Thus then you see that Reason acting on my rule of Faith produceth this assent And tell me Are we not enjoyned to give a reason of our Faith and so of this as well as other Articles and consequently to acquaint the Enquirer why we judge it necessary to believe the Existence of a Trinity You indeed teach me to speak thus That I have reason to believe Authority and Authority to believe the Trinity Answ True but I must still have reason to conclude it from Authority for it is not formally contain'd in Scripture but onely thence inferr'd by reason so that I have here Divine Authority for my Rule and Reason for my Guide to apply the Rule unto the Article and infer it thence Object Belief is as properly relative to Authority as Science is to an act of Reason whence 't is as incongruous to say I must have reason to believe such a Point as to say I know such a Point scientifically by Authority p. 187. Answ As incongruous as it is I hope you do believe the existence of a Diety the Divine Authority of Scriptures and the truth of Christs Miracles and that you have reason so to do and do you not now see the strange and monstrous incongruity of saying You have reason to believe Exerc. 3. Art 3. Sect. 6. Baronius his hand maid to Divinity will teach you to distinguish betwixt Faith strictly taken for an assent built upon the Testimony of another in which sense it is relative to Authority or more generally and so in Scripture and approved Authors it denotes any manner of assent thus we are said to believe our eyes and Heathens without a Revelation to believe a Diety And lastly this or that to be the sense of Scripture Prop 2. It is confess'd on both sides and in it self most certain That the foundation of all our Faith depends on Reason and is ultimately resolved into it the Protestant hath his internal and external Arguments to induce him to believe the Divine Authority of Scripture the Papist for his upstart Tradition pretends no less then a Demonstration and for his Churches Authority he hath his motives of credibility to produce And certain it is that all our Faith and Religion depends upon the Being of a God and that assurance which we have That his veracity is such as will not suffer him to deceive us His goodness such as will not suffer us to be invincibly deceived to our souls destruction nor let his providence be wanting in providing for and preserving to us that rule of Faith without which salvation cannot be attained unless we are assured of these things how know we but that God may have deceived the World with false Miracles yea that he hath not Imprinted in us such dispositions as may continually incline us unto Error That he hath not

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