28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.



Ver. 28. A man is justified by faith] Here St Paul shows himself a pure Lutheran, and is therefore sharply and blasphemously censured by some Jesuits for a hot-headed person, who was so transported with the pangs of zeal and eagerness beyond all compass in most of his disputes, that there was no great reckoning to be made of his assertions. (Speculum Europae.) Yea, he was dangerous to read, as savouring of heresy in some places, and better perhaps he had never written. Four years before the Council of Trent, Cardinal Contarenus asserted the doctrine of justification by faith alone, in a just treatise, and was therefore soon after poisoned. Cardinal Pole is thought to have been sound in this point. Bellarmine reproves Pighius for consenting to Luther herein, whom he undertook to confute, and yet Bellarmine himself with his tutissimum est, it is most safe. doth as much upon the matter. Magna est veritas, et valebit, Great is the truth, and shall prevail.