Theological Theses · §2305 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Pareus: the charge that Protestants deny free choice altogether is a calumny

Thesis XLV. So they complain that Bellarmine and others slander them by charging that they teach that man never has free choice in moral matters, whether with grace or before it.

'Who could say without flagrant slander,' asks Pareus, 'that on our view man never has free choice? In the state of sin choice is free only for evil, because it is captive as regards good; in the state of grace it is free for both. Does it never have free choice, then?' (on Bellarmine, On grace and free choice, book 5, chapter 28).

Latin

XLV. Itaque queruntur sibi per calumniam a Bellarmino & aliis imputari, quod sive cum gratia, sive ante gratiam, doceant hominem in moralibus nunquam liberi arbitrii esse. Quis, inquit Paraeus, hominem per nos nunquam habere liberum arbitrium, dixerit citra insignem calumniam? In statu peccati arbitrium habet liberum tantum ad malum, quia captivum ad bonum: In statu gratiae liberum ad utrumque. An nunquam ergo habet liberum arbitrium? In lib. V. Bellar. de gratia & libero arbitrio cap. 28.

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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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