Continuous use does not freeze tradition — vernacular languages keep changing

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Rome adds: their traditions survived intact by continuous use among Christians — like vernacular languages, which endure even without grammars because a people keeps speaking them.

Experience says the opposite. People are inconstant; whatever lives only in use keeps changing, often slowly and unnoticed — unless something else holds it fast.

Their own analogy proves it: vernaculars continually shift until, after centuries, they look like another dialect. Ancient customs diverge from today's for the same reason.

Church history shows the same: set the second- and third-century Church beside Rome's present rites and discipline, and the gap is obvious.

So the Church needs a firm, stable rule that does not hang merely on memory and good faith — a rule by which creeping abuses can be corrected. That rule is sacred Scripture alone, not unwritten tradition.

Latin

XXXV. Addunt Pontificii traditiones suas conservatas fuisse, & ad nostra tempora integras pervenisse per continuum usum in quo apud populum Christianum fuerunt; quemadmodum, inquiunt, conservantur linguae vulgares, etiamsi nullae quandoque exstent grammaticae propter earum usum continuum in aliqua gente. Sed contra est experientia. Sicut enim homines natura sunt inconstantes & valde mutabiles, ita quaecunque sunt in eorum usu, nisi quid aliud obstet, hoc ipso continue mutantur atque alterantur; licet plerunque sensim & sine sensu. Quod manifestum est ipso exemplo quem illi afferunt. Etenim linguae vulgares perpetuo mutationem aliquam recipiunt, quae post aliquot saecula ita notabilis est ut videantur in aliam dialectum transiisse. Et ita quoque in quolibet populo antiqui mores, & consuetudines ab hodiernis plurimum discrepant, saeculorum lapsu semper rebus humanis mutationem aliquam afferente. Idemque facile animadverti potest in Ecclesia ipsa Christiana. Si quis enim peritus historiae Ecclesiasticae, ob oculos sibi ponat Ecclesiae faciem, qualis erat secundo & tertio post Christum saeculo, prout illam ex istius aevi scriptoribus colligere licet, agnoscet statim Ecclesiam Romanam in ritibus & disciplina hodie multum ab ea distare: nec est qui negare possit istis in rebus magnam factam esse mutationem. Unde magis patet necessitas regulae cujusdam firmae atque stabilis, nec simpliciter pendentis ab hominum memoria & bona fide, ad quam corrigi possint abusus & errores in Ecclesia sensim enascentes: qualis regula est sola Scriptura sacra, minime vero traditio non scripta.

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.