To Florus 2.16

But the feeble protection offered by blind opinion increases sins; it does not diminish them. This itch of miserable people who willingly make themselves sick will carry no weight against reason itself. Yet they claim that certain scriptural passages, especially the words of the apostle Paul, establish natural sin. I postponed explaining those passages until the second book, and now it is time to fulfill that promise. First, to equip the reader better, I will briefly distinguish what has been done from what remains. We have shown that nothing can be proved from holy Scripture which justice cannot uphold. If God’s law contains justice in its perfect form, then its adversary, injustice, can gain no strength through that law. Consequently, authority cannot defend what reason disproves. Next we proved that God is known to us by his virtues. We must therefore confess his justice just as we confess his almighty power. If his justice is allowed to collapse, his whole majesty will begin to totter. God is just in such a way that, if he were proved unjust, he would be proved not to be God. We concluded that we worship God in the Trinity as perfectly just, and it became irrefutably clear that he cannot charge infants with someone else’s sin.