Theological Theses · §286 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Scripture is not so dark that necessary doctrine cannot be gathered — pastors help without replacing it

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Whatever Scripture's obscurity, necessary faith-and-life doctrine can still be gathered certainly by an attentive, skilled reader.

Clarity is not instant ease without labor — weighing words, context, parallels, and purged affections still matter.

Pastors and teachers rightly go before the flock in private, pulpit, and writing.

God gave them to open Scripture's sense — not to replace Scripture as another divine word.

Latin

XLII. Qualiscunque ergo sit Scripturae obscuritas, negamus illam ita obscuram esse, quin tota doctrina ad fidem & mores necessaria ex ea indubie & certo colligi possit ab attento & perito lectore. Nec enim asserimus Scripturam ita claram esse in omnibus quae sunt ad fidem & salutem alicujus momenti, ut ad scopum ejus assequendum, & doctrinam sacram inde eruendam, nullo sit opus labore, studio & diligentia: sed per se fidelis quisque statim & sine ullo adjumento illam satis intelligere possit. Quamvis enim Scripturae sensus saepe ita in promptu sit, ut probatione non egeat, & ingerat se vel invitis, nonnunquam tamen, ut sensus Scripturae eruatur, & splendeat, verba diligenter ponderanda sunt, praecedentia & sequentia accurate expendenda, & parallela loca conferenda, sepositis praejudiciis, & compositis animi affectibus. Qua in re opus est ut Pastores praeeant plebi curae suae commissae, tam privatis sermonibus, quam publicis concionibus, ac etiam, quum res exigit, editis scriptis diversi generis, in quibus Scripturam explicent & applicent ad varios usus populi Christiani. Ad hoc enim inter alia Deus Ecclesiae dedit Pastores & Doctores, ut Dei verbum in Scriptura contentum exponerent, Scripturae sensum aperirent, & in ejus intelligentiam plebem fidelem quasi manu ducerent.

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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)
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