Louis Le Blanc On Reprobation in the Reformed School (Theses 48-51)
Reprobation Comparatively and Absolutely Considered
1-6. 7-11. 12-16. 17-23. 24-29. 30-36. 37-43. 44-47.
48. But others add another distinction explained above by us. For if reprobation is considered comparatively, and one asks, for example, why Judas rather than Peter was reprobated, then they deny that the sins and demeriting bad actions of men to be its cause. This is true whether one has in mind that first negative act which is called non-election or preterition, or even that latter positive act, which they call predamnation. For although God had foreseen in Judas the merit of damnation before he ordained him to damnation by that decree, he foresaw in many elect as well sins which would suffice for their damnation, unless he decreed to use his mercy towards them.
49. But if reprobation is considered absolutely, and the question is whether this or that person had merited that God reprobate him, then they answer that the foreseen sins of the reprobate were a sufficient cause on account of which God justly could reprobate and reject them, and that, not only with respect to the second act which is predamnation, but also with respect to the former act, which is preterition or the denial of grace, although they affirm this point less expressly and openly than about the second act. This is the teaching of Rivet in his disputation about predestination. For he says this in his 13th thesis: “It is one thing to ask about the cause of why reprobates are worthy of damnation, but it is another thing to ask why God reprobated this person rather than another. The answer to the first is found and established in sin, but the latter question is answered in the sole hidden will of God.”
50. But Louis Cappel, in the first part of his theses on election and reprobation which were inserted in the second volume of the Saumurian theses, actually denies that the decree of non-electing or of passing over some people in the communication of saving and effectual grace has a cause on the part of man, if the elect and reprobate are compared among themselves. Although if this preterition is considered absolutely, they who have been reprobated have merited their reprobation by their sin, and were considered as such by God, when he established that decree of reprobation.
51. But when he focuses on the decree about damning certain people, in whatever way it is eventually considered, he affirms that its cause and merit is in the sins of men. Namely, their foreseen sins were not only the cause why they have been condemned to eternal damnation by the decree of God, but why this one and not that one. For he does not want any person to have been preordained to eternal damnation except on account of foreseen final impenitence and unbelief. This can be seen in his 36th thesis. But in the following thesis these are his words: “The cause of reprobation, if it is considered in itself and absolutely, is sin, that is, a person, insofar as he is a sinner, deserves to be reprobated by God, whether he has deserved to be one to whom God might deny, if he wishes, his own grace and the gift of faith, or is unworthy to whom God might confer such a benefit. But God reprobates or excludes from grace no person unless he has considered and eternally foreseen him/her as corrupted and ruined by sin.” Yet, thesis 38: “But there is no other cause of reprobation comparatively considered than the mere good-pleasure of God.”