Stapleton's third proposition: more virtues than vices
Thesis XLII. His third proposition, in chapter 4, reads: 'Someone who observes the commandments of the law, however much he stumbles in many things, can still be righteous before God if he has more virtues than vices.'
On this he remarks that no one is righteous who does not have more venial sins than works of virtue. Here, he says, works of virtue are being compared with grave sins, and many light sins do not equal a single grave one.
The meaning, then, is that a person counts as righteous who, after his first conversion, throughout the progress of his righteousness and the whole course and struggle of this present life, has more excellent virtues than grave and deadly sins; or who gives himself to works of piety and love far more often and more steadily than he falls into some grave crime; in short, who wins more often than he loses.
Latin
XLII. Cap. 4. Tertia illius propositio sic habet. Qui mandata legis observat, utcunque in multis offendat, justus tamen coram Deo esse potest, si plures habet virtutes quam vitia. Circa quod observat neminem esse justum qui non plura habeat peccata venialia quam virtutum opera; sed hic comparari opera virtutum cum gravibus peccatis, quorum uni levia multa non aequiparantur: adeo ut sensus sit illum justum haberi qui post primam conversionem, in toto progressu justitiae suae, in toto cursu & conflictu praesentis vitae, plures habet praeclaras virtutes quam gravia & lethifera peccata: Vel qui multo frequentius magisque assidue pietatis & charitatis operibus incumbit, quam in grave aliquod flagitium delabitur: denique qui saepius vincit quam vincitur.