Theological Theses · §1769 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Ames: free choice is free from all necessity as to the exercise of its act, though it acts infallibly under God's ordination

William Ames, formerly theologian at the Academy of Franeker, takes this view. In his Bellarmine Disarmed (volume 4, book 4, chapter 1) he writes: "We grant that free choice, in what it does, is free from all necessity.

"Properly speaking it cannot act by necessity as regards the exercise of its act, even though, with respect to God's ordaining, it acts certainly and infallibly."

Latin

XVII. Haec est sententia Gulielmi Amesii olim in Academia Franekerana Theologi, Nos, inquit, concedimus liberum arbitrium, in eo quod agit liberum esse ab omni necessitate, ut proprie non possit necessario agere quoad exercitium sui actus, quamvis respectu divinae ordinationis certo & infallibiliter agat. In Bell. Enervato tom. 4. lib. 4. cap. 1.

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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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