Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A61552
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The doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome truly represented in answer to a book intituled, A papist misrepresented, and represented, &c.
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Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing S5590; ESTC R21928
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99,480
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174
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to help them out when Sense and Reason fail them And therefore Cajetan well said We ought not to dispute about God's Absolute Power in the Doctrine of the Sacraments being things of such constant use and that it is a foolish thing to attribute to the Sacrament all that God can do But we must consider what he saith against Sense and Reason For the believing this Mystery he does not at all think it meet for any Christian to appeal from Christ's Words to his own Senses or Reason for the examining the Truth of what he hath said but rather to submit his Senses and Reason to Christ's Words in the obsequiousness of Faith What! whether we know this to be the meaning of Christ's Words or not And thus we shall be bound to submit to every absurd Interpretation of Scripture because we must not use our Senses or Reason for examining the Truth of what is said there Can any thing be plainer said in Scripture than that God hath Eyes and Ears and Hands Must now every Man yield to this in the obsequiousness of Faith without examining it by Principles of Common Reason And we think we are therefore bound to put another Sense upon those Expressions because they imply a Repugnancy to the Divine Perfections Why not then where something is implied which is repugnant to the Nature of Christ's Body as well as to our Senses But the Question about judging in this Matter by our Senses is not as our Author is willing to suppose viz. Whether our Senses are to be believed against a clear and express Divine Revelation but whether the Judgment of our Senses and Reason is not to be made use of for finding out the true sense of this Revelation And we think there is great reason for it 1. Because we have no more certain way of judging the Substance of a Body than by our Senses We do not say our Senses go beyond the Accidents but we say our Senses by those Accidents do assure us of the bodily Substance or else it were impossible for us to know there is any such thing in the World 2. Because Christ did himself appeal to the judgment of his Disciples Senses concerning the Truth of his own Body after the Resurrection Behold my Hands and my Feet that it is I my self handle and see for a Spirit hath not Flesh and Bones as ye see me have Now we think we have Reason to allow the same Criterion which Christ himself did about the very same Body Unless he had then told his Disciples that there was to be another supernatural manner of Existence of the same Body concerning which their Senses were not to be Judges 3. Some of the most important Articles of the Christian Faith do suppose the Judgment of our Senses to be true As about the Truth of Christ's Body whether he had really a Body or only the outward Accidents and Appearance of a Body if he had not he did not really suffer upon the Cross and so the Sacrifice of Propitiation there offered up to the Father for the Sins of Mankind is lost There was a great Controversy in St. John's Time and afterwards Whether Christ had any real Body Those who denied it brought Revelation for it those who asserted it proved it by their Senses as S. John himself That which we have seen and heard and our hands have handled c. He doth not tell Men they must submit their Sense and Reason to the pretence of Revelation but they ought to adhere to the Judgment of their Senses concerning the Reality of Christ's Body Since therefore Christ himself appealed to it the Apostles made use of it without any Caution or Limitation we have great reason to rely still on the Judgment of our Senses concerning the same Object viz. the Body of Christ. 3. But we must now consider his Instances to overthrow the Judgment of our Senses and Reason in this Point 1. He believes Christ to be God though to Senses he seemed nothing but Man Do we ever pretend to judg of Christ's Divinity by our Senses How then can this be pertinent when our only Dispute is about judging his Body and the Substance of Bread and Wine by them And yet the Senses were of great use as to the proof of his Divinity by the Miracles which he wrought which if they had been like the pretended Miracles in Transubstantiation could have convinced no Man because they could never see them 2. He believes the Holy Ghost descended on our Saviour though Senses or Reason could discover it to be nothing but a Dove If there were no reason to judg otherwise the Judgment of Sense were to be followed but since the Scripture declares it was the Holy Ghost descending as a Dove we have no reason to question that Revelation For we do not pretend that our Senses are so far Judges of Divine Appearances as to exclude the possibility of God's assuming the shape and figure of his Creature when he pleases by moulding the substance of a real Body into such a Representation Thus we do not deny the possibility of an appearance of the Holy Ghost under Bread and Wine if God thought fit any more than under a Dove and in this Case we do not pretend that our Senses can exclude the presence of a Spirit under the Elements but that is very different from the present Case for here the Substance is supposed to be gone and nothing but Accidents remaining and no spiritual Presence of Christ is denied but that of his Body the very same Body which suffered on the Cross. 3. He believes the Man who appeared to Joshua ch 5. 13. and the three Men to Abraham Gen. 18. were really and substantially no Men notwithstanding all the Information and Evidence of Sense to the contrary from their Colour Features Proportion Talking Eating and many others And what follows from hence but that Spiritual Invisible Substances may be under the appearance of Bodies and that our Senses cannot be Judges of them Which is not our Question but Whether Bodies can be so present after the manner of Spirits as to lose all the natural Properties of Bodies and whether a Material Substance can be lost under all the Accidents proper to it so as our Senses cannot be proper Judges of one by the other But our Author seems to grant this in a natural way of the Existence of a Body but he saith Christ gives to his Body a supernatural manner of Existence by which being left without extension of Parts and rendred independent of Place it may be one and the same in many Places at once and whole in every part of the Symbols and not obnoxious to any corporeal contingencies This is to me a Mystery beyond all comprehension by Sense or Reason and there is certainly a great difference between governing our Understandings and giving them up as we must do if this Doctrine hold good for it overthrows any
me that when their Divines say that Infidels shall not bâ— damned for their Infidelity where the Gospel hath not been sufficiently proposed to them and no Christian for not believing any Article of Faith till it be so proposed that we must be damned for not believing the Articles of the Roman Faith which never have been and never can be sufficiently proposed to us Methinks such men should Study a little better their own Doctrine about the sufficient Proposal of matters of Faith before they pass such uncharitable and unlearned Censures XXXVI Of Ceremonies and Ordinances HIS Discourse on this Head is against those who refuse to obey their Superiours in things not expressed in Scripture which is no part of our Controversy with them But yet there are several things about their Ceremonies we are not satisfied in As 1. The mighty Number of them which have so much mussled up the Sacraments that their true face cannot be discerned 2. The Efficacy attributed to them without any promise from God whereas we own no more but decency and significancy 3. The Doctrine that goes along with them not only of Obedience but of Merit and some have asserted the Opus Operatum of Ceremonies as well as Sacraments when the Power of the Keys goes along with them i. e. when there hath been some Act of the Church exercised about the Matter of them as in the Consecration of Oyl Salt Bread Ashes Water c. XXXVII Of Innovation in matters of Faith THE Substance of his Discourse on this Head may be reduced to these things 1. That the Church in every Age hath Power to declare what is necessary to be believed with Anathema to those who Preach the Contrary and so the Council of Trent in declaring Transubstantiation Purgatory c. to be necessary Articles did no more than the Church had done before on like Occasions 2. That if the Doctrines then defined had been Innovations they must have met with great Opposition when they were introduced 3. That those who charged those points to be Innovations might as well have laid the scandal on any other Article of Faith which they retained These are things necessary to be examined in order to the making good the charge of Innovation in matters of Faith which we believe doth stand on very good Grounds 1. We are to consider Whether the Council of Trent had equal Reason to define the necessity of these Points as the Council of Nice and Constantinople had to determin the point of the Trinity or those of Ephesus and Chalcedon the Truth of Christ's Incarnation He doth not assert it to be in the Churches Power to make new Articles of Faith as they do imply new Doctrines revealed but he contends earnestly That the Church hath a Power to declare the necessity of believing some points which were not so declared before And if the Necessity of believing doth depend upon the Churches Declaration then he must assert that it is in the Churches Power to make points necessary to be believed which were not so and consequently to make common Opinions to become Articles of Faith But I hope we may have leave to enquire in this Case since the Church pretends to no new Revelation of matters of Doctrine therefore it can declare no more than it receives and no otherwise than it receives And so nothing can be made necessary to Salvation but what God himself hath made so by his Revelation So that they must go in their Declaration either upon Scripture or Universal Tradition but if they define any Doctrine to be necessary without these Grounds they exceed their Commission and there is no Reason to submit to their Decrees or to believe their Declarations To make this more plain by a known Instance It is most certain that several Popes and Councils have declared the Deposing Doctrine and yet our Author saith It is no Article of Faith with him Why not since the Popes and Councils have as evidently delivered it as the Council of Trent hath done Purgatory or Transubstantiation But he may say There is no Anathema joined to it Suppose there be not But why may it not be as well as in the other Cases And if it were I would know whether in his Conscience he would then believe it to be a necessary Article of Faith though he believed that it wanted Scripture and Tradition If not then he sees what this matter is brought to viz. That altho the Council of Trent declare these new Doctrines to be necessary to be believed yet if their Declaration be not built no Scripture and Universal Tradition we are not bound to receive it 2. As to the impossibility of Innovations coming in without notorious opposition I see no ground at all for it where the alteration is not made at once but proceeds gradually He may as well prove it impossible for a Man to fall into a Dropsy or a Hectick-Fever unless he can tell the punctual time when it began And he may as well argue thus Such a Man fell into a Fever upon a great Debauch and the Physicians were presently sent for to advise about him therefore the other Man hath no Chronical Distemper because he had no Physicians when he was first sick as because Councils were called against some Heresies and great Opposition made to them therefore where there is not the like there can be no Innovation But I see no Reason why we should decline giving an Account by what Degrees and Steps and upon what Occasions and with what Opposition several of the Doctrines defined at Trent were brought in For the matter is not so obscure as you would make it as to most of the Points in difference between us But that is too large a Task to be here undertaken 3. There is no Colour for calling in Question the Articles of Faith received by us on the same Grounds that we reject those defined by the Council of Trent for we have the Universal Consent of the Christian World for the Apostles Creed and of the Four General Councils for the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation who never pretended to determin any Point to be necessary which was not revealed in Scripture whose sense was delivered down by the Testimony of the Christian Church from the Apostles times But the Council of Trent proceeded by a very different Rule for it first set up an Unwritten Word to be a Rule of Faith as well as the Written which although it were necessary in order to their Decrees was one of the greatest Innovations in the World and the Foundation of all the rest as they were there established An Answer to the CONCLUSION HAving thus gone through the several Heads which our Author complains have been so much Misrepresented it is now fit to consider what he saith in his Conclusion which he makes to answer his Introduction by renewing therein his doleful Complaints of their being Misrepresented just as