Theological Theses · §175 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Perfect sufficient rule — ministry and Spirit stay; no second rule

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Since everything that belongs to faith is in sacred Scripture in the way already shown, Scripture is a perfect and sufficient rule of faith.

That sufficiency does not cancel the Church's ministry. By God's order, heavenly teaching is drawn from Scripture and given to the faithful through their pastors and teachers. It also does not cancel the Spirit's inward teaching, by which believers come to know the doctrine drawn from Scripture and set before them — without which they cannot discern it or embrace it for salvation.

Scripture's perfection and sufficiency shut out only one thing: the need of another rule that must be joined to Scripture before we have the whole doctrine of faith.

So Rome's doctors gain nothing when they argue that Scripture is not enough for salvation because otherwise the Church's ministry would be useless. Scripture itself urges that ministry.

Latin

XIII. Quandoquidem autem omnia quae ad fidem pertinent Scriptura sacra continentur, quomodo jam expositum est, inde colligitur Scripturam esse fidei regulam perfectam & sufficientem. Quae tamen sufficientia non excludit necessitatem ministerii Ecclesiastici, quo, juxta ordinem a Deo constitutum, doctrina caelestis ex Scriptura hauritur, & fideli populo per suos pastores & doctores traditur: tum quoque interni Spiritus magisterii, quo fideles ducuntur in notitiam doctrinae ex Scriptura haustae atque propositae, & sine quo illam discernere, & salutariter amplecti non possunt. Sed ista Scripturae sacrae perfectio & sufficientia, excludit solummodo necessitatem alterius regulae, quam Scripturae sacrae adjungi necesse sit, ut integram fidei doctrinam habeamus. Unde patet nihil agere Ecclesiae Romanae Doctores, qui nobis ad salutem Scripturam non sufficere inde probare conantur, quod alioqui frustra foret ministerium Ecclesiasticum, cujus tamen necessitas in ipsa sacra Scriptura commendatur.

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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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Also checked pdftotext of De Theologia pages (Latin)
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