New eyes for Scripture's light; moral evidence alone may not yield faith's full certainty, especially in the dimmer books

Click or tap any sentence to jump there. The side buttons skip a paragraph.

Our first settled point: when the Spirit leads someone to faith, he so shapes and moves that person's mind — otherwise groping and blind here — that it can see and own the light of God's Word and of Scripture. The mind seriously watches the arguments, marks, and axioms that prove the Word true and divine; it judges them rightly; and then, as it should, it is persuaded of that divine truth. While he works within, the Spirit is said to give new eyes.

Moses speaks of those eyes (Deuteronomy 29): "You have seen all that the Lord did before you in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, the great trials your eyes saw, those signs and huge wonders: and the Lord has not given you a heart to understand, or eyes to see, or ears that can hear, to this day." David asked for the same help (Psalm 119, pause Ghimel): "Open my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law." By "wonders of the law" he means the tokens of divine wisdom sown through God's law. Our fleshly mind cannot judge those rightly while dullness, crookedness, and ignorance — a veil over the mind's eyes — stand in the way. The Holy Spirit lifts that veil in the faithful.

May we doubt, though, whether this Spirit work alone — simply making the mind attend to Scripture's shining light and take it in — is enough to birth a full, sufficiently certain faith about sacred Scripture? We may. The light under discussion is only moral evidence. It does not compel the mind the way self-evident principles do, or the way logical and mathematical proofs do. So it yields a lower grade of certainty, as the previous disputation taught.

That leaves a fork. Either the faith we give Scripture, by its own kind, never reaches the certainty human sciences enjoy — against what theologians commonly hold — or the Spirit, when he stamps that faith on us, does more than merely open eyes to Scripture's light. Take the sacred books one by one and, if we speak honestly, many simply do not carry enough light of themselves to make it wholly certain and plain both that they hold true teaching and that God wrote and inspired them. Old Testament examples: Esther, Ruth, and the Song of Songs. New Testament examples: some epistles, such as Jude and James.

So to receive those books as divine with firm, certain faith, spotting the light in them is not enough. That light cannot force the assent faith requires. And that assent belongs to faith's object, because those books stand inside the rule of faith and are counted among faith's principles.

Latin

VII. Primo igitur certum et indubitatum nobis est Spiritum sanctum, hominis, quem ad fidem adducit, sic disponere et afficere mentem, quae alioqui in his caligat et caecutit, ut verbi Dei et Scripturae lucem percipiat et agnoscat, hoc est, serio advertat ad ea argumenta, notas, et ἀξιώματα, quibus verbum Dei verum et divinum probatur, et de iis recte judicet, indeque, sicuti par est, de illius divina veritate persuadeatur. Quod dum Spiritus intus agit, inde dicitur nobis novos oculos. De quibus Moses Deut. 29. Vos vidistis, inquit, universa quae fecit Dominus coram vobis in terra Aegypti Pharaoni et omnibus servis ejus, universaeque terrae illius, tentationes magnas quas viderunt oculi tui, signa illa portentaque ingentia: et non dedit vobis Dominus cor intelligens, et oculos videntes, et aures quae possint audire usque in praesentem diem. Et hanc Dei opem implorabat David Psalm. 119. pausa Ghimel, Revela, inquit, oculos meos, et considerabo mirabilia de lege tua. Nam, per legis mirabilia, intelligit divinae sapientiae documenta, quae per legem Dei sparsa sunt: de quibus mens nostra carnalis rite judicare non potest, obstante nativa nostra hebetudine, pravitate et ignorantia, quae sunt veluti quoddam velum mentis nostrae oculis oppansum, quod Spiritus sanctus in fidelibus tollit. VIII. An autem illa Spiritus sancti operatio, qua sic mentem nostram afficit, ut advertat ad lucem in Scriptura fulgentem, eamque percipiat, praecise et sola per se considerata, sufficiat ad plenam et certam satis fidem de Scriptura sacra nobis ingenerandam, dubitari jure potest. Etenim lux illa Scripturae, de qua jam quaestio est, moralis est tantum quaedam evidentia, quae mentem non ita convincit ut principia per se nota, aut demonstrationes Logicae seu Mathematicae, ac proinde non parem certitudinem gignit, sed inferioris cujusdam generis; ut disputatione praecedenti docuimus. Ideoque, vel dicendum est, fidem, quam sacrae Scripturae adhibemus, per se et ex suo genere, non admittere tantam certitudinem, quanta reperitur in scientiis humanis: quod est contra communem Theologorum sensum: vel Spiritum, ut nobis fidem illam imprimat, aliud quid agere, quam ut simpliciter aperiat oculos, ad Scripturae sacrae lucem videndam et percipiendam. Praesertim, si singulos Scripturae sacrae libros consideremus, multi reperientur, qui, si velimus fateri quod res est, tantum in se lucis non habent, ut eos non solum veram doctrinam continere, sed etiam divinitus esse conscriptos et inspiratos, inde reddatur omnino certum et manifestum. Ut ex. gr. in Vet. Testamento, liber Esther, liber Ruth, et Canticum canticorum: et in Novo quaedam epistolae, ut Judae, et Jacobi. Quapropter, ut aliquis libros illos agnoscat, et recipiat pro divinis certa et firma fide, non satis est cernere eam lucem quae in illis est: quandoquidem lux illa tanta non est, ut possit eum assensum extorquere, quem requirit fides, ad cujus objectum pertinent, cum sint pars regulae fidei, et inter principia fidei connumerentur.

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.