Theological Theses · §70 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

If the light of truth determined assent, faith would be evident; Scripture sets faith against sight

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Next: if the proper and chief ground of faith were the very light of truth discerned in the things to be believed, the light that necessarily determines the mind to assent, then faith would be an evident assent, and the dogmas of faith would be evident. For what is evident is what convinces the mind by its own light and compels assent. But it is almost an axiom of the schools, founded in the Scriptures, that faith is an inevident habit of the mind. Scripture sets faith against sight, and teaches that faith is of things that are not seen.

Latin

XXVIII. Deinde, si propria et potissima fidei ratio esset ipsa lux veritatis, quae in rebus credendis cernitur, quaeque mentem ad assensum necessario determinat, fides esset assensus evidens, et dogmata fidei essent evidentia. Siquidem illud est evidens quod luce sua mentem convincit, et cogit ad assensum. At est veluti quoddam scholarum axioma, in Scripturis fundatum, fidem esse habitum mentis inevidentem; quandoquidem Scriptura fidem opponit aspectui: et docet fidem eorum esse quae non videntur.

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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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