Theological Theses · §2541 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

The free acts of faith and the infused habit

Thesis CIII. 'Even when these two motions of prevenient grace have helped and roused it, free choice remains free to command the assent of faith or to withhold that command. Suppose the will decides to embrace the faith and orders the intellect to believe. Then, as the motion of prevenient grace it possesses flows in alongside, the will produces within itself a supernatural act: in that act it wills to embrace the faith, and by that act it orders the intellect to assent.

In the same moment the intellect, set in motion by the will's supernatural command and aided by God's light, produces a supernatural act of assent to what God has revealed. A person rightly prepared by these two supernatural acts, one of intellect and one of will, then receives from God alone the infused, supernatural habit of faith, which enables him afterwards to produce further acts of the same supernatural kind.'

Latin

CIII. Porro liberum arbitrium his duobus motibus gratiae praevenientis adjutum & excitatum, liberam adhuc habet potestatem imperandi, aut non imperandi assensum fidei. Quod si voluntas fidem amplecti velit, actumque credendi imperet intellectui, influente simul motu gratiae praevenientis, quam habet, elicit in seipsa actum supernaturalem, quo fidem amplecti vult, quoque assensum imperat intellectui: simulque intellectus motus imperio illo supernaturali voluntatis, illustrationeque divina adjutus, elicit actum supernaturalem assentiendi revelatis, hisque duobus actibus supernaturalibus intellectus & voluntatis homo rite dispositus suscipit habitum fidei supernaturalem, a Deo solo infusum, quo deinceps similes actus supernaturales valeat producere.

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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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