Theological Theses · §2184 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Those who speak otherwise mean the same: a mere dispute about words

Those who use different language here do not hold a different view. They call man's inability regarding spiritual good moral because it is voluntary and comes from vice, not because they think that man can do or even attempt anything of this kind by himself, however hard, rare and difficult the attempt.

They readily grant that this inability is ingrained in man from birth. Their only reason for not calling it physical is that it does not come from the lack of some natural power or faculty but solely from that faculty's vicious and blameworthy corruption, which the others do not deny at all. Among the Reformed, then, this is purely a quarrel over words.

Latin

XXXVII. Sed qui aliter in hac materia loquuntur, non aliud tamen sentiunt. Nam impotentiam hominis circa bonum spirituale ideo moralem vocant, quia voluntaria est, & a vitio profecta: non quod putent in hoc genere hominem ex se posse quicquam facere vel conari, licet aegre, rarissime atque difficillime. Et ultro etiam concedunt talem impotentiam homini a primo ortu insitam esse, eamque propterea solum Physicam dici nolunt, quia non procedit ex carentia potentiae seu facultatis alicujus naturalis, sed tantum ex vitiosa & culpabili ejus corruptione: quod alii minime negant: adeoque hic est merum inter Reformatos de vocibus certamen.

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