Theological Theses · §244 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Only perpetual Christian consensus could count — Rome's traditions fail that test

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If any tradition deserves to be true, it is one marked by the perpetual, constant consensus of Christians.

Rome's traditions fail that test: they stand outside Scripture, often against it, and many were unknown in the ancient Church and contrary to its faith and practice.

Examples: papal indulgences; saint-canonization; public worship in a tongue the people do not share; bans on vernacular Scripture without special leave; communion in one kind; and religious image-making and image-worship — easy to show absent, even opposed, in the primitive Church.

So they are human inventions, and it is impious to set them equal in authority with the writings of Apostles and Prophets.

Pars II closes here; Pars III opens next.

Latin

XLIV. Denique, si qua traditio pro vera habenda sit, illa est quam commendat perpetuus & constans Christianorum consensus. Sed hoc minime convenit traditionibus Ecclesiae Romanae, quia non tantum sunt extra Scripturam, & in plerisque Scripturae adversantur, sed etiam earum plurimae sunt in Ecclesia antiqua inauditae, & ejus fidei & praxi contrariae. Cujus generis sunt indulgentiae, quales a Papa conceduntur, sanctorum canonizatio, celebratio cultus publici lingua non communiter a populo intellecta, prohibitio ne Scriptura sacra in vulgares linguas transferatur, & sine speciali permissione a plebe legatur: praecipue vero mos administrandi sacram Eucharistiam sub altero tantum symbolo, & plurium hujusmodi; item effingendi & cultu religioso prosequendi imagines Dei & sanctorum, quae facile est ostendere locum non habuisse in Ecclesia primitiva, & contrarium plane observatum fuisse. Unde manifeste patet illas esse commenta hominum, nec absque impietate posse cum Apostolorum & Prophetarum scriptis authoritate comparari.

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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)
Also checked PDF of the 1675 (Latin)
Also checked pdftotext of De Theologia pages (Latin)
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