Iustifying faith, or The faith by which the just do liue A treatise, containing a description of the nature, properties and conditions of Christian faith. With a discouerie of misperswasions, breeding presumption or hypocrisie, and meanes how faith may be planted in vnbeleeuers. By Thomas Iackson B. of Diuinitie and fellow of Corpus Christi Colledge in Oxford.

CHAP. III. What Assent is, whence the certainety, firmenesse, and stability of it properly arise.

1. CReatures of euery kinde haue seueral propensi∣ons, or inclinations to such others as suite best vnto their natures, and hardly admit of anie rest, vntill they get some manner of vnion, or coniunction with them. That which in sub∣stances liuelesse, or meerely naturall, wee call propension; de∣scending to such as are endued with knowledge or apprehensi∣on, is differenced by the title of desire. The propension most na∣tiue to the intellectiue faculty is desire of truth; vnto which found out, the adherence must needs be correspondent; and this adherence we properly call Assent: which notwithstanding by a great a Artist is defined, to be a knowledge or apprehension of conue∣nience betwixt things compared in any enuntiation. But this defini∣tion he chiefely intended, in oposition to such as restrain Assent onely vnto the reflexiue, or examinatiue acts of the vnderstan∣ding. Neither I think would haue denyed this adherence, (where∣in Assent more properly consists then in knowledge, which it necessarily supposeth) to be an vnseperable concomitant to all acts of knowledge, whether reflexiue or direct; especially if their obiects bee worth the contemplation. For vnlesse that proportion, which breeds a mutuall liking betwixt the obiects apprehended, and the apprehensiue facultie varie: continu∣ance of vnion is alwaies as much desired after it is gotten, as the

vnion it selfe was before. Wherefore, as desire of truth brings foorth motion, by impelling our soules vnto the search of it: so the apprehension of it necessarily infers a setling, or fastening of them to it found. For as test terminates the naturall motions, or actuall propensions of liuelesse bodies: so the desires of the sensitiue or intellectiue nature, attaining their proper obiects, are alwaies crowned with ioy, pleasance, and complacency in their purchase.

2. That such is the nature of Assent, as wee haue said, may appeare from its contrary, dissent: which, ouer and aboue know∣ledge or apprehension, includes an auersion in the intellectiue facultie, or a bearing off from what it apprehends as false. Whence he that beares testimony to an vntruth, may as truely be said to assent vnto it; as his action may bee accounted volua∣tarie, that casts his goods ouerboord in a storme: which kinde of action the Philosopher makes to be mixt, though more in∣clining vnto voluntary, because it takes the denomination, es¦pecially from the present resolution. So likewise in the former testimony there is a mixture of Assent; because albeit the partie simply knew it for vntrue, and therefore dissonant to his in∣tellectiue nature, (which can no better brook the apprehension of apparant disconuenience betwixt things compared in enunci∣ations, then the sense of touch can the impression of heate and cold together: yet, for the time present, hee is not auerse from it, but rather adheres vnto it, as it lies in his way to honor, gaine, promotion, or other sinister ends, vpon which his minde is mole strongly set, then vpon truth.

3. Doubt likewise, which is the meanes betwixt Assent and dissent, if it proceed from want of examination, is but a suspence or inhibition of the soule from any determinate inclnation one waie or other: if from apprehension of reasons diuerse or contrarie, drawing neer to an equality in strength, it is but a tre∣mulous motion of the vnderstanding▪ not finding where to settle or fixe its approbation.

4. Certainty is but an immunity from change or mutabilite; and according to this generall notion, vniuocally agrees, as well to the obiect, knowne, as vnto assent or adherence to their know∣ledge. Those obicts are in thēselues most certain whose nature is

least obnoxious to alteration. Assent most certaine we likewise account all, of whose mutability or change there is no danger, as admitting no possibility or preiudice by oppositions of contra∣rie oppinions: whence we must of necessity distinguish between the Certainety, the Stability, the Strength or vigor of assent or ad∣herence vnto known truths. Certainty ariseth from cleernes of apprehensiō: Stability from the immutability or setlednes of the exact proportion betwixt the apprehensiue facultie and the ob∣iect on which the cleerenesse of apprehension is grounded. The Strength or vigour of euery Assent springs from the woorth, or right valuation of the obiect. For vnto all truthes alike cleerely apprehended, our adherence is not equall, but greater to such as are apprehended of greatest vse or worth; albeit the danger or possibility of dislike, or disproportion betweene the obiect and the apprehensiue faculty be more, then is betweene it and other obiects, the cleere apprehension of whose certaine truth may much lesse affect the soule.

5. That the certainety of Assent doth accrewe, partly from the certainety of the obiect, but more immediately from our apprehension of it, is set down at large in the first section of our first booke: that the strength of our Assent, or adherence vnto supernaturall obiects, doth naturally spring from a right appre∣hension or estimate of their worth, was intimated in the second Section of that Booke, and will manifest its truth throughout this whole discourse: what temper or disposition of the appre∣hensiue faculty is fittest for grounding the stability of certaine adherence vnto diuine truths, shall be generally shewed in the last section of this Booke, more particularly in the seuerall Articles, wherinthe danger of dissent or dislike is greatest. Now seeing cer∣tainety is the onely sure ground of all stability, or strength in perswasions, without which supposed to their beginnings, the greater they are the worse they proue in their endings: the sub∣iect of the next enquirie is, what measure of certainety or eui dence is required to the nature of that assent wherein Christian faith consists.

Notes

• This importāce of Assent, Tullie giues vs in that speech: Vberius ista quaeso: haec e∣nim spinosiora, ori∣•••• ut confitear, me cogunt, quam vt assentiar. ••. lib. Tuscul. et initio.
• a

  Vid Vasquez. in j•••• secundae dis∣putat. 79. cap 3. num. 12. vide eun∣dem disput. 62. cap. 3. num. 9
• Vide Aristot, Ethic. 3 Cap.▪