Theological Theses · §2721 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Conclusion: both sides grant the essential perfection

Thesis LI. From all this it is easy to conclude, first, that in the obedience the regenerate give the law by Christ's grace, Protestants readily acknowledge the essential perfection the doctors of the Roman Church contend for, the perfection that consists in its being true and sincere.

Second, that the doctors of the Roman Church, when they say believers can fulfil the law perfectly, do not on that account mean to ascribe to their obedience the perfection called perfection of degrees, which Protestants deny it. That perfection consists in the most exact and absolute conformity with the law, taken in the strictness with which man could and had to keep it when God first created him.

So the doctors of the Roman Church have no ground for misrepresenting our churches' teaching on this point, as though it took away the power of Christ's grace and greatly weakened believers' zeal for godliness. In reality Protestants teach nothing here that the Roman doctors themselves are not forced to admit on their own principles.

Latin

LI. Ex quibus omnibus colligere promptum est in obedientia quam Renati per Christi gratiam legi praestant, Protestantes ultro agnoscere perfectionem illam essentialem, quae consistit, in ejus veritate & sinceritate, pro qua pugnant Doctores Ecclesiae Romanae. Et vicissim Doctores Ecclesiae Romanae, quum dicunt fideles legem perfecte adimplere posse, per id tamen eorum obedientiae tribuere non velle perfectionem quae graduum dicitur, quam Protestantes ab ea removent, & quae consistit in exactissima & absolutissima conformitate cum lege, considerata juxta rigorem illum, secundum quem observari poterat & debebat ab homine, quum primum a Deo creatus est. Proindeque Doctores Ecclesiae Romanae immerito traducunt Ecclesiarum nostrarum hac in parte doctrinam, quasi tolleret gratiae Christi efficaciam, & pietatis studium in fidelibus multum imminueret, cum revera nihil hic doceant Protestantes, quod ipsi Doctores Ecclesiae Romanae, juxta propria placita, fateri non cogantur.

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