A53737:171
A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux
A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux wherein the principles of the Roman church, as to moderation, unity and truth are examined and sundry important controversies concerning the rule of faith, papal supremacy, the mass, images, &c. discussed / by John Owen.
London: printed for Ph. Stephens, 1664
A Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat Lux. › Chapter 7
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
notwithstanding the first pretended infallible Proposition, your faith will be found to be resolved immediately into a fallible information. For, what will it advantage me, that the proposal of your Church cannot deceive me, if I may be deceived in the Communicating of that Proposal unto me? And I can with no more firmness, certainty, or assurance, believe the thing proposed unto me, than I do believe that it is the Proposal of the Church wherein it is made. For you pretend not unto any self-evidencing efficacy in your Churches Propositions, or things proposed by it; but all their Authority, as to me, turns upon the Assurance that I have of their relation unto your Church, or that they are the Proposals of your Church; concerning which I have nothing but very fallible evidence, and so cannot possibly believe them with Faith Divine and Supernatural. If you shall say that there are many things concurring unto this Communication of your Churches Proposals unto a man, as the notoriety of the Fact, suitable proceedings upon it, books written to prove it, Testimonies of good men, and the ⟨p. 127⟩like; I cannot but mind you, that all these being sigillatim, every one apart fallible, they cannot in their Conspiracy improve themselves into an Infallibility. Strengthen a Probability they may, testify infallibly they neither do nor can. So that on this account it is not only impossible for a man to know whether he holds the Unity of Faith or no; but indeed whether he believe any thing at all with Faith Supernatural and Divine; seeing he hath no infallible evidence for what is proposed unto him to believe, to build his faith upon.
notwithstanding the first pretended infallible Proposition, your faith will be found to be resolved immediately into a fallible information. For, what will it advantage me, that the proposall of your Church cannot deceive me, if I may be deceived in the Communicating of that Proposall unto me? And I can with no more firmness, certainty, or assurance, believe the thing proposed unto me, than I do believe that it is the Proposall of the Church wherein it is made. For you pretend not unto any self-evidencing efficacy in your Churches Propositions, or things proposed by it; but all their Authority, as to me, turns upon the Assurance that I have of their relation unto your Church, or that they are the Proposals of your Church; concerning which I have nothing but very fallible evidence, and so cannot possibly believe them with Faith Divine and Supernaturall. If you shall say that there are many things concurring unto this Communication of your Churches Proposals unto a man, as the notoritty of the Fact, suitable proceedings upon it, books written to prove it, Testimonies of good men, and the