Theological Theses · §131 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Salvation does not require knowing every canonical book; reception may still be immediate

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It is not necessary for anyone's salvation to receive and acknowledge every book of Scripture and every part of them.

So it is no wonder if all who have received the spirit of faith and revelation, even in some measure, still miss certain parts of Scripture — taking a truly divine book for human, or conversely taking a mere product of human wit for something written by divine inspiration.

It is plainly unjust, and against reason, to demand that any ordinary believer be able at once by himself to tell any scrap of a Canonical book from a scrap of an Apocryphal one. Salvation does not require that.

Yet it does not follow that those who embrace books some have rejected or not known, and take them on faith, do so only through the Church's testimony and authority as faith's foundation, and not immediately by the Spirit's inward testimony and illumination — with which they have been given a greater supply in this part.

Latin

XIII. Jam autem ad salutem cujusque non est necessarium ut singulos Scripturae libros, et singulas eorum partes recipiat et agnoscat. Itaque non mirum est si omnes qui spiritum fidei et revelationis, aliquo saltem gradu, acceperunt, ignorent tamen quasdam Scripturae partes, et in eo fallantur quod aliquem librum, qui vere divinus est, humanum esse opinentur: Et vicissim librum aliquem, qui tantum est foetus ingenii humani, divinitus conscriptum existiment. Ac plane injustum est, et contra rationem a simplici quovis fideli exigere ut per se statim internoscere possit quamvis Canonici libri particulam a portiuncula libri Apocryphi. Nec enim ad ejus salutem hoc requiritur. Inde tamen non sequitur eos qui libros istos a quibusdam rejectos, aut ignotos amplectuntur, et fide suscipiunt, eos inquam istud non facere immediate per testimonium et illuminationem internam Spiritus sancti, quo majore hac in parte copia donati sunt, sed mediante Ecclesiae testimonio et authoritate, tanquam fidei suae fundamento.

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About this text

Louis Le Blanc, a Reformed professor at Sedan, sets out theology in theses argued against Rome: Scripture, faith, grace, free choice, good works and the saints.

This volume holds the Theses on Theology I–XLIII and On Faith I–XXII, in eighteen sections.

Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu (1614–1675) was minister and professor of theology at the Academy of Sedan, the Reformed school on France's eastern border. His Theses were disputed by students over many years and collected in a London folio (1675).

The Theological Theses range across the whole Reformed system — Scripture, God, predestination, grace, and justifying faith — in the crisp thesis-and-proof form of the seventeenth-century schools.

Date1675 AD (Sedan theses; London collection)

No modern English.

Reference

ESTC R17887; Wing L802. IA bub_gb_eOkHAW4G0-wC (+ EEBO 1675 for gap leaves).

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Translated from Latin (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
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