Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On Justification · Book III: On the Uncertainty, Mutability, and Inequality of Justice
Chapter 1: On the various errors of the recent heretics concerning justification
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. VI, De Justificatione, Book III. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
From that form of justification which the Lutherans constitute, many and various errors are deduced, which in this third book, by the grace of God helping, we shall endeavor to rout. The chief errors seem to be four. For first, from this, that they have persuaded themselves that the formal cause of justification is not some gift infused by God and inhering in us, but the justice of Christ apprehended by faith, they gather that all can and ought to determine for certain that they are just. And in this error plainly all the heretics of this time agree. Then, since according to their opinion justification is not the infusion of some gift, but the acceptance unto grace and benevolence through Christ, and thereby places nothing in a man, but is an immutable and everlasting action of God, and altogether the same with election and predestination, they gather, secondly, that men ought to believe for certain not only that they are just, but also that they are elect and predestined. Which error the Calvinists boldly teach, but the Lutherans more timidly. Third, from the preceding error the Calvinists gather that faith and justice once attained can at no time ever be lost; and accordingly that those who after faith and justification return to sins never had either true faith or true justice. Fourth, from the same sources of imputative justice all the Lutherans gather that one is not juster than another, since the justice of all is the very obedience of Christ, apprehended by faith and imputed by the Father. These four errors, then, in this book — which for that reason we have entitled On the Uncertainty, Mutability, and Inequality of Justice — we shall set about refuting; but chiefly the first, which is of wider extent, and finds as patrons not only all the heretics of this time, but also some of the Catholics.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT PRIMUM. De variis erroribus recentium haereticorum , circa Justificationem . Ex ea Forma Justificationis, quam Luthe- rani constituunt, multi ac varii deducuntur errores, quos in hoc tertio libro, Dei gratia adjuvante, profligare conabimur. Errores praecipui quatuor esse videntur. Primum enim ex eo, quod sibi persuase¬ runt, justificationis formalem causam non esse donum aliquod infusum a Deo, atque in nobis inhaerens, sed justitiam! Chi’isti, fide apprehensam, colligunt, posse ac debere omnes certo statuere, se esse justos. Et in hoc errore conveniunt plane omnes hujus temporis haeretici. Deinde, quoniam ipsorum sententia justificatio non est doni alicujus infusio, sed acceptatio ad gratiam et bene¬ volentiam per Christum; ac per hoc nihil ponit in homine, sed est actio Dei immuta¬ bilis, ac sempiterna, et eadem omnino cum electione et praedestinatione. Colligunt secundo, debere homines certo credere, non tantum se esse justos, sed etiam electos ac praedestinatos. Quem errorem au¬ dacter docent Calvinistae, timidius autem Lutherani. Tertio, exprecedente errore colligunt Cal¬ vinistae, fidem, ac justitiam semel adeptam, nullo unquam tempore posse perdi : proinde qui post fidem, et justificationem ad peccata redeunt, eos nec veram fidem, nec veram unquam habuisse justitiam. -Quarto, cx iisdem fontibus imputativae justitia;, colligunt Lutherani omnes, non esse unum alio justiorem, cum omnium justitia si ipsa Christi obedientia, fide apprehensa, et a Patre imputata. Hos igitur quatuor er¬ rores in hoc libro, quem de incertitudine, mutabilitate et inaequalitate justitiae idcirco* inscripsimus , refutare aggrediemur , sed praecipue primum, qui latius patet, et non solum haereticos hujus temporis omnes, sed etiam aliquos ex Catholicis patronos in¬ venit.