To Florus 3.145

You not only removed this part from our definition; in its place you inserted your own, which could arouse hostility at first glance but would disappear under examination. You wrote that we say nature was made good by the good God, but is so healthy that it does not need Christ’s medicine. See how short of truth you are, when you do not shrink from such obvious theft even in terms called opposites! Having first put ‘good nature,’ you then added ‘so healthy.’ Is ‘healthy’ the opposite of ‘good’?

Surely when we say ‘good,’ its proper opposite is nothing but ‘evil.’ If the subject requires us to say ‘healthy,’ we put ‘weak’ or ‘sick’ opposite it: if it is healthy, it is not weak; if weak, it is not healthy. But when we say ‘This is good,’ we identify its contrary with the word ‘evil,’ not with ‘healthy.’ You should therefore have said that we define human nature as created good by God, and as so good in infants that it needs no one to correct the way it was made. Or, if you preferred to indicate goodness by the different term ‘health,’ you should have marked the entire statement with consistent language.

Instead you slip like a little eel between the rocks of definitions. Truth forced you to admit that we call human nature good and made by the good God. Seeing much reason but no grounds for hostility in that part of the statement, you immediately shifted to other words, adding that we defend it as so healthy that we do not believe Christ’s medicine necessary for it. If you stumble into all this through ignorance, you prove utterly dull; if you do it by cunning, utterly crafty.