Free choice of itself cannot cooperate in its conversion, but can receive the power, as a stone cannot
So Bellarmine teaches in the same place that a sinner's free choice does not have from itself the ability to cooperate in its own conversion, but receives the power to cooperate from grace.
'Just as a stone,' he says, 'does not have from itself the ability to cooperate if it should happen to be turned into flesh, so free choice does not have from itself the ability to cooperate in its own conversion. Yet it can receive from God, through prevenient grace, the power to act, which a stone cannot.'
Latin
XI. Itaque Bellarminus eodem loco docet liberum arbitrium hominis peccatoris ex se non habere ut cooperetur ad ipsius conversionem, sed cooperandi potestatem a gratia recipere. Sicut lapis, inquit, ex se non habet, ut cooperetur, si forte convertatur in carnem; sic etiam liberum arbitrium ex se non habet, ut cooperetur ad suam ipsius conversionem: potest tamen a Deo recipere potestatem operandi per gratiam praevenientem, quod non potest lapis.