Theological Theses · §2649 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Remonstrants and Augsburg theologians agree in substance

Thesis LXVII. From what has been set out so far it is easy to conclude that the Remonstrants and the theologians of the Augsburg Confession differ somewhat in method and in their ways of speaking about sufficient and efficacious grace, but agree on the substance.

The Augsburg theologians deny that grace is properly divided into efficacious and sufficient; the Remonstrants affirm it and strongly approve the distinction. Yet the Augsburg theologians do not mean that those who hear God's Word and are not converted lack some help on God's part without which they cannot be converted; nor, therefore, that the grace given and offered them falls short of producing faith and repentance in them.

On the contrary, they say that the grace offered to these unbelieving and impenitent people deserves to be called not only sufficient but efficacious too, because of itself it is efficacious to bring them to repentance and faith, unless they go on of their own accord putting an obstacle in its way.

Latin

LXVII. Porro ex iis quae hactenus exposita fuerunt, colligere promptum est Remonstrantes, & Theologos confessionis Augustanae, circa doctrinam de gratia sufficienti atque efficaci, methodo quidem & dicendi formulis aliquatenus differre, sed quoad summam rei inter eos esse consensum. Nempe negant Augustanae confessionis Theologi gratiam recte dividi in efficacem & sufficientem, id affirmant autem Remonstrantes, & distinctionem illam maxime probant. Verum Theologorum confessionis Augustanae mens non est illis qui Verbum Dei audientes non convertuntur, ex parte Dei aliquod auxilium deesse sine quo converti non possunt; adeoque gratiam quae ipsis datur & offertur, minime sufficere ad fidem & poenitentiam ipsis ingenerandam. Contra enim asserunt gratiam quae offertur ipsis incredulis & impoenitentibus, mereri nomen non solum sufficientis, sed efficacis quoque: quoniam ex se efficax est ad ipsos, nisi ultro obicem ponere pergant, ad resipiscentiam & fidem adducendos.

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