Theological Theses · §2326 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Jansenius on the two kinds of help (De gratia Christi 2.4)

Thesis VII. For he observes that the will's helps are of two kinds. One is a help without which the will cannot will, yet in such a way that willing or not willing, using the help or not using it, is left to its free choice. The other is a help by which it is determinately brought about that the will wills.

He holds that the grace of man in his integrity was a help of the first kind, and that the grace by which Christ heals corrupt man is a help of the second kind. 'The difference between the two graces, of health and of healing,' he says, 'lies in this: the help of that first integrity so helped the will that the will itself might work with it, if it chose; now the help itself makes it will.

That is, before the ruin the help was such that its influence on the work, just like the will's, hung on the free will's own nod, so that the indifference of liberty, able to bend either way, remained intact. Now, after the ruin, it is such that it makes the will assent, and flow into the work, and will' (De gratia Christi salvatoris, book 2, chapter 4).

Latin

VII. Nam observat vir ille adjutoria voluntatis duplicis esse generis. Adjutorium unum esse sine quo voluntas velle non potest, sic tamen ut velle & nolle, uti vel non uti adjutorio, in ejus libero relinquatur arbitrio: aliud quo fit determinate ut voluntas velit. Ac gratiam hominis integri pertendit adjutorium fuisse primi generis, gratiam vero qua Christus hominem corruptum sanat adjutorium secundi generis. In eo, inquit, utriusque gratiae, sanitatis & medicinalis differentia in eo sita est, quod illius primae integritatis adjutorium sic adjuvabat voluntatem, ut cum eo operaretur ipsa, si vellet; nunc autem ipsum adjutorium facit ut velit. Hoc est, adjutorium ante ruinam erat tale, ut influxus adjutorii, perinde atque voluntatis in opus, ab ipso liberae voluntatis nutu penderet, adeoque salva maneret illa libertatis in utramque partem flexibilis indifferentia: nunc vero post ruinam tale est, ut faciat annuere, & influere, & velle voluntatem. De Gratia Christi salvatoris lib. 2. cap. 4.

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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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