Theological Theses · §1972 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Even the Socinians grant that God pleads with the hardened, as with Pharaoh

Our opponents themselves can be convinced that it is not unworthy of God's wisdom to urge, exhort and invite to repentance, by every means, those he knows for certain will never obey his warnings, exhortations and commands. They admit that some, by God's judgment punishing their stubborn wickedness, are so blinded and hardened that they cannot repent.

Yet they cannot deny that toward those very people, whom he knows perfectly well to be in that state, God uses the warnings and pleas by which he ordinarily calls human beings to their duty, as the example of Pharaoh alone makes plain.

If, then, by our opponents' own admission, God's earnest pleas, threats and complaints can have a place with such people, without any breach of his justice or loss to his wisdom, why can the same not hold for all the others whom God knew from eternity would not obey, out of the free purpose of their own will and mind?

Latin

XXI. Caeterum non dedecere sapientiam divinam, ut illos quos Deus certo scit monitis, hortatibus, & praeceptis ipsius nequaquam obtemperaturos, nihilominus compellat, hortetur & invitet modis omnibus ad resipiscentiam, convinci possunt illi ipsi quibus cum nobis res est. Fatentur enim quosdam, divino judicio pertinacem eorum malitiam ulciscente, sic excaecatos & induratos esse, ut resipiscere nequeant. Et tamen negare non possunt Deum erga illos ipsos quos optime novit sic affectos & dispositos esse, uti monitionibus, & obtestationibus quibus homines solet ad officium compellere, ut vel ex solo Pharaonis exemplo manifestum est. Si ergo in his, aut circa hos, fatentibus adversariis, locum habere possunt seriae Dei obtestationes, comminationes, querelae, sine ulla justitiae Dei violatione, aut sapientiae imminutione, cur idem in caeteris, quos Deus ab aeterno, ex libero voluntatis & mentis proposito, novit non obsequuturos, locum habere non valeat?

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