Louis Le Blanc On Reprobation in the Reformed School (Theses 17-23)
On the effects of reprobation. On whether sin is rightly called an effect of reprobation.
17. Again, just as many Reformed theologians define reprobation variously, and more or less of them understand it as an act of divine providence, so they also variously assign to it effects, or indeed as they want to say, its consequences, and the means by which it is ordered to its execution. And, since those who define reprobation so loosely that it covers the decree of creating man and the permission of the fall of human kind, each want God to have created some certain people for that end that he might show and highlight the glory of his justice in their just condemnation, they, I say, must necessarily number among the effect or means of reprobation the creation of the reprobates, and the permission of every sin which is the cause or occasion of perdition itself. So, according to Zachary Ursinus, the effects of reprobation are: 1. The creation of the reprobates. 2. The privation or desertion of divine grace. By which language he seems to understand the permission of every sin. Institution of the Catechism part 2. on predestination. q. 4.
18. This is the same position which Zanchi has in his Summa Praelectionum, 7th book, tract on predestination, 22. “To be created,” he says, “to be permitted to fall into sin and death, are effects of predestination common to the elect and reprobate. But to be left in sins perpetually, to be blind, to be hardened, and finally to be damned, are the proper effects of the reprobation of the impious.” Also, William Perkins teaches that the creation of man and the permission of the fall is a common means of the predestination of man, both to life as well as to death. But he understands permission as that by which God justly permitted the defection of Adam and his posterity, by not impeding it when he was able. This can be seen in his little book on predestination, right near the beginning. Polanus agrees with this in his Syntagma, book 4, ch. 10, thes. 3. where he teaches that the effects of reprobation are the causing or creation of the reprobates in order that God might show his own power and justice in them; then, the permission of the fall or sin in which the reprobates died.
19. Similarly, Bucanus, in Locus 36 question 38 places among the common means of reprobation the creation of man in integrity and righteousness, then the fall of man and their corruption. And in question 39, among the specific means of the execution of the decree of reprobating, he assigns to men the infinite offspring of actual sins. Which [sins], if they are the means of reprobation, their permission is an effect of reprobation.
20. But although he and other Reformed theologians number the various sins of the reprobates among the means or consequences of reprobation—indeed even the fall itself of the first man— they nevertheless do not want any sin to be called an effect of reprobation, and they teach that God indeed wished to permit them, but not to actually effect them. This can be seen in Ursinus and Bucanus in the places cited above, especially with Polanus in the 14th book, where dealing with the effects of reprobation, he proves by many arguments that sin is not an effect of eternal reprobation. Nor does he want sins to be the means per se in service of the end of predestination or reprobation, but only accidently, and from the ordination of God eliciting a good from bad. This can be seen with Perkins in the place already cited.
21. Nevertheless, at this point, some theologians distinguish among sins, as they are sins, and among those same sins, as when they are the punishments of other sins. And indeed, they deny that sins, simply as they are sins, are effects of reprobation. But they insist that certain sins in the reprobate both are and are rightly called the effects of reprobation, insofar as they are punishments of preceding sins. This is the condition of those who have been delivered over to a reprobate mind, a blindness of the mind, and a hardness of heart. Which clearly, as it is a penalty of preceding sin, it ought to be understood as a cause of reprobation. Although in itself [per se] and under the notion of sin [sub ratione peccati], it is not properly called an effect of reprobation.
22. This is the position of Zachary Ursinus in the already cited place where also, what is harsher, he clearly and expressly places perseverance in sins as being among the effects of reprobation. Nevertheless, this is neither proved by others nor ought it be. If indeed perseverance in one’s sins is itself the greatest of sin, then it is not able to be assigned to God’s decree as a cause, without God, as a consequence, being made the author of sin.
23. No, it seems that it should not even be said that sin, as it is a penalty, is from reprobation, and inflicted by God, as Ursinus speaks. For sin is never a penalty, properly speaking, inflicted by God, but when God leaves a sinner under the punishment of some sin, and leaves him to himself, whence it happens that he becomes more wicked, and falls into greater guilt, that which has the nature of a penalty is that desertion and abandoning of God; But then the expression “that sins are punished with sins” is an improper expression.