Adversaries press recognition of books and Protestant discord as against immediate Spirit persuasion
But the adversaries keep pressing. If the faithful received Scripture immediately by the Spirit's inward illumination and persuasion, and not because of the Church's teaching and testimony as their rule of faith, then — they say — those who have God's Spirit could, without the Church's authority and testimony, infallibly and certainly tell divine books from ones that are not. Experience, they claim, says otherwise.
Before the Church judged and determined, many truly divine books were doubted — for example the Epistle to the Hebrews, John's Apocalypse, and several other New Testament books. Others that were not Canonical or divine were ignorantly taken as such even by pious people.
And to press harder: You Protestants, they say, who boast you have that Spirit of God by which sacred and divine books are told from the apocryphal, are not agreed among yourselves; Lutherans doubt the Epistle of James and some others that Calvinists admit.
To set the matter before the eyes and refute us among our own by experience, they read someone from our common people a chapter of an Apocryphal book and a chapter of a Canonical book with the author's and book's name hidden, then ask whether he can tell by the Spirit's help which is divine.
Latin
XI. Sed urgere nos pergunt adversarii. Nam, inquiunt, si fideles immediate Scripturam reciperent per internam Spiritus illuminationem et persuasionem non vero propter Ecclesiae doctrinam et testimonium, tanquam suae fidei regulam, futurum esset ut fideles, qui Spiritum Dei habent, absque authoritate et testimonio Ecclesiae, possent infallibiliter et certo dignoscere libros divinos sibi propositos ab iis qui divini non sunt. At contra est experientia. Siquidem, ante Ecclesiae judicium et determinationem, de multis libris qui vere divini sunt dubitatum fuit; ut ex. gr. de Epistola ad Hebraeos et Joannis Apocalypsi, et de pluribus aliis Novi Testamenti libris. Alii vero qui non erant Canonici et divini pro talibus ignoranter a piis etiam viris habiti sunt. Utque magis nos urgeant. Vos, inquiunt, Protestantes, qui jactatis vos habere illum Dei Spiritum quo libri sacri et divini ab apocryphis dignoscuntur, non estis inter vos de his libris concordes; siquidem Lutherani de Epistola Jacobi, aliisque nonnullis dubitant, quas admittunt Calviniani. Atque ut rem quasi oculis subjiciant, et sententiam nostram apud nostros redarguant ipsa experientia, alicui ex plebe nostra praelegunt caput libri Apocryphi, itemque caput libri Canonici, celato authoris et libri nomine. Tum rogant an possit ope Spiritus discernere, utrum divinum sit, utrum non.
About this text
Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu - Sedan Theological Theses, newly rendered from the 1675 London Latin. Covers De Theologia through Angelorum & Hominum Sanctorum Cultu Romana I-LXXVII and Pars Secunda (Reformata) I-XL. Not the collected folio.
English follows locked Pitt Latin through Imaginum CLOSED + Sanctorum Cultu Romana CLOSED + Pars Secunda Reformata I-XL. 1675 PDF ~384-390 (book ~370-376); Vision OCR + pdftotext + tess. No modern English. This slice densifies Sanctorum Pars Secunda I-XL. Next: Pars Secunda XLI–fin (~CI). Claim stays claimed (book densify not done).
Catalogue & scope
ESTC R17887; Wing L802. IA bub_gb_eOkHAW4G0-wC (+ EEBO 1675 for gap leaves). Densify through Sanctorum Cultu Romana I-LXXVII + Pars Secunda Reformata I-XL (Pars Secunda not closed; not whole folio).
Witnesses
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Theologia I-XLIII (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
- Checked print Internet Archive PDF of the 1675 Pitt folio (Latin)
- Checked print pdftotext of De Theologia pages (Latin)
- Checked print Internet Archive DjVu OCR of the 1675 Pitt folio (Latin)
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Fide I-XXII (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Authoritate Scripturae Pars I I-XLVII + Pars II I-XXXV + Pars III I-VIII (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Scripturae plenitudine densify (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.