St. Pius V, 1566-1572

1013. 13. Good works, performed by the sons of adoption, do not receive a consideration of merit from the fact that they are done through the spirit of adoption which lives in the hearts of the sons of God, but only from the fact that they are conformable to law, and because through them obedience is preferred to law.

1014. 14. The good works of the just do not receive on the day of the last judgment a fuller reward than they deserve to receive by the just judgment of God.

1015. 15. The reason of merit does not consist in this, that he who works well should have grace and the indwelling Holy Spirit, but in this only, that he obeys the divine law.

1016. 16. That is not true obedience of the law, which is done without charity.

1017. 17. They are in agreement with Pelagius who say that it is necessary for reason of merit, that man through the grace of adoption be lifted up to a deified state.

1018. 18. The works of the catechumens, as faith and penance performed before the remission of sins, are merits for eternal life; and they will not attain this life, unless the impediments of preceding faults are first taken away.

1019. 19. The works of justice and temperance which Christ performed, have not obtained greater value from the dignity of the person operating.

1020. 20. No sin is venial by its own nature, but every sin deserves eternal punishment.

1021. 21. The sublimation and exaltation of human nature in participation with the divine nature has been due to the integrity of the first condition, and hence must be called natural, and not supernatural.

1022. 22. They agree with Pelagius who understand the text of the Apostle to the Romans: "The nations, who do not have a law, do naturally the things, which are of the law" [Rom. 2:14], concerning nations who do not possess the grace of faith.

1023. 23. Absurd is the opinion of those who say that man from the beginning, by a certain supernatural and gratuitous gift, was raised above the condition of his nature, so that by faith, hope, and charity he cherished God supernaturally.

1024. 24. By vain and idle men, in keeping with the folly of philosophers, is the opinion devised which must be referred to Pelagianism, that man was so constituted from the beginning that through gifts added upon nature by the bounty of the Creator he was raised and adopted into the sonship of God.

1025. 25. All works of infidels are sins, and the virtues of philosophers are vices.

1026. 26. The integrity of the first creation was not the undeserved exaltation of human nature, but its natural condition.