A treatise on the Augustinian doctrine of predestination

A TREATISE

THE AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE

PREDESTINATION.

BY J. B. M 0 Z L E Y, B. D.

FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1855.

LONDON :

A. and O. A. SPOTTISWOOOR,
New-Jtreet-Square.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Page
Statement of the Argument for Predestination - 1

CHAPTER II.

Examination of the Argument for Predestination - -17

CHAPTER III.

The. Pelagian Controversy - - -50

CHAPTER IV.

Different Interpretations of Original Sin \ - - 107

CHAPTER V.

Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination - - - 134

CHAPTER VI.

Augustinian Doctrine of (draco ) - - - 157

CHAPTER VII.
Augustinian Doctrine of Final Perseverance } - 191

iv CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VIII.

Page

Augustinian Doctrine of Freewill - 209

CHAPTER IX.

Scholastic Theory of Necessity - - 250

CHAPTER X.

Scholastic Doctrine of Predestination - 278

CHAPTER XI.

Conclusion - - - - 314

NOTES - - 343

THE

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE

OF

PREDESTINATION,

CHAPTER I.

STATEMENT OP THE ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION.

THE design of this treatise is to give an account of S.
Augustine's doctrine of Predestination, together with such
comments as may be necessary for a due examination of, and
judgment upon, it. Before entering, however, on S. Augus-
tine's statements, some general description of the doctrine
itself, its grounds, and its defences, will be necessary : and
these will require special consideration, with a view to
ascertaining their soundness and validity. This introduc-
tory matter will occupy the following chapter, in addition to
the present one, in which I shall endeavour to give a general
description of the doctrine.

A distinction must, in the first instance, be drawn between
the predestinarian and the necessitarian or fatalist. The pre-
destinarian and the fatalist agree, indeed, in the facts of the
case, and equally represent mankind as acting necessarily,
whether for good or evil, in distinction to acting by an origi-
nal motion of the will. But the fatalist goes to philosophy
for the reason of this state of things, the predestinarian to
a truth of revelation ; the former argues from the nature of
things, the latter from a particular fact of which he has been

B

THE ARGUMENT

[CHAP. I.

informed by competent authority. The fatalist takes the
general ground that every event must have a cause ; and ap-
plying it to the case of human actions, argues that just as the
action must have a cause, so that cause, even if we say it is the
will's own choice, must have itself a cause ; this further cause
another cause. Being thus provided with an unlimited series
of causes in the case of every human action, while the past
existence of the agent is limited, he extends this series back-
wards till it reaches a point at which it goes outside of the
agent ; who is consequently proved to have acted ultimately
from causes over which he had no control.

There is another kind of necessitarianism, again, which
takes for its basis, instead of a physical assumption, like the
one just mentioned, a religious one — the attribute of the
Divine power ; and argues downwards from the First Cause,
instead of backwards from human action. To the meta-
physician who believes in a Creator or First Cause, and who
contemplates man in relation to that Being, one great and pri-
mary difficulty presents itself in the question how a being
can be a creature, and yet have freewill, and be a spring of
action to himself, a self- moving being. Our very notion of
cause and effect is of the cause as active, the effect as passive ;
and, therefore, if man is an effect, how is he an active being ?
A tool or instrument that we make, issues inert out of our
hands, and only capable of that motion which the maker of
it gives it. To make a machine is to cause the whole series
of motions which it performs. Our idea of creation is thus at
variance with the idea of free agency in the thing made. Man
as a self-moving being and the originator of his own acts, is a
first cause in nature ; but how can we acknowledge a second
first cause — a first cause which is an effect, a created origi-
nality ? l

Of course the fact of moral evil is at once an answer

1 If man be a self-determining agent,
will it not necessarily follow, that there
are as many First Causes (». e. in other
words, as many Gods) as there are

men in the world ? — Toplady, vol. vi.
p. 31. If I am an independent animal,
I am also necessarily self-existent. — p.
45.

CHAP. I.]

FOR PREDESTINATION.

to this line of argument ; so far, at any rate, as to disprove
the cogency and decisiveness of it. For unless we make
God the author of evil, moral evil must be referred to
some original source other than God; in which case
the attribute of the Divine omnipotence is seen to meet
in the first instance with something counter to it ; and so
cannot be argued upon as if it were the whole of the truth in
the question under consideration But so far as we attend
to this attribute exclusively, as is the fault with some
schools, this is the natural argument from it.

The necessitarian thus believes freewill not only to be
false, but to be impossible. On the other hand, the pre-
destinarian cannot believe it to be impossible, because he
admits, on the authority of Scripture, that the first man
Adam, in the state in which he was created, had it.1 He
only believes that man has since the fall been deprived
of it, and regards it as an historical fact, not an existing
one. He is thus excluded, on this question, from the
ground of philosophy, from the perfect and consistent theory
of the fatalist, and draws his conclusion from the revealed
doctrine of the fall.

But though predestinarians, as such, draw their conclusion
from the particular sin of Adam, such a ground is so unsa-
tisfactory to a philosophical mind, that few have, in fact,
confined themselves to it. Some have dispensed with it
altogether, and adopted the philosophy either of causes2,

1 Augustine endows Adam With free-
will : « Potuit non peccare primus
homo, potuit non mori, potuit bonum
non deserere. Nunquid dicturi sumus
non potuit peccare qui tale habebat li-
berum arbitrium." — De. Corr. et Grat.
c. 12. "Homo male utens libero ar-
bitrio et se perdidit et ipsum." Ench.
c. 30. Lombard (L. 2. Distinct 24. 1.),
Gotteschalus (Usher, p. 29.), and
Calvin, follow Augustine : " In his
praeclaris dotibus excelluit prima ho-
minis conditio. ... In hac integri-
tate libero arbitrio pollebat homo." —

Instit. 1. 1. c. 15. Though the latter
afterwards calls the notion of Adam's
freewill "frigidum commentum," and
asks why he should not have been the
subject of a decree, as his posterity
were : " Atqui predestinatio velint,
nolint, in posteris se profert. Neque
enim factum est naturaliter ut a salute
exciderent omnes unius parentis culpa.
Quid eos prohibet fateri de uno homine
quod inviti de toto humano genere
concedunt.r— Instit. 1. 3. c. 23.

2 Edwards, On the Freedom of the
Will.

B 2

THE ARGUMENT

[CHAP. I.

or of the Divine power : the latter being the ground of the
supralapsarian, who asks how such a universal effect could
follow from a particular sin, except by the will of God
ordaining it so, and so pushes back the ground of fact imme-
diately to one of philosophical principle.1 Others have not
without detriment to their consistency as reasoners mixed
the two grounds. The ground which S. Augustine adopted
and which the Jansenists revived, was in the main that
of Scripture, though the former joined to it occasionally
that of philosophy l : the medieval predestinarians took
in the main the ground of philosophy, mixing with it
occasionally that of Scripture. The theory of necessity
last described, was adopted under the name of ee the physical,
predetermination of the will " by this medieval school 2,
who maintained that there could be but one true cause
of every event, all other causes being secondary and inter-
mediate ; and applying it to the case of human actions, ex-
plained that though they had a " voluntary cause," or a cause
in the human will, this was only secondary and intermediate
between the agent and the first cause; protecting this
position from the consequence which it apparently in-
volved in the case of evil actions, that God was the author
of evil, by distinctions which it is not necessary here to
state; yet the same writers referred to the fact of the
fall as the ground of the doctrine of predestination.3
Predestinarian preachers, again, guided half by sentiment

1 NOTE L

At qui omnium connexionem rerum-
que causarum qua fit omne quod fit,
fati nomine appellant ; non multum cum
iis de verbi controversia certandum
atque laborandum est, quandoquidem
ipsam causarum ordinem et quandam
connexionem, summi Dei tribuunt vo-
luntati.— De Civit. Dei, 1. 5. c. 8.

2 Jansen draws the distinction be-
tween the theory of the " predeternii-
natio physica " of the will «' ex philoso-
phia profecta," and which " defenditur
a sectatoribus sancti Thomae," and the

predestinarian doctrine of efficacious
grace, which rests upon original sin.
" Predeterminatio physica necessaria
statuitur omnibus agentibus ex vi causae
secundse quae essentialiter tarn in operari
quam in esse suo subordinatur primae, a
qua ad agendum praemoveri debet ;
Christi adjutorium nequaquam sed laesae
voluntati propter solum vulnus necessa-
rium est. — De Grat. Christi Salvatoris,
1. 8. c. 1, 2.

3 Ratio reprobationis est originale
peccatum. Aquinas, vol. viii. p. 330.

CHAP. I.] FOtt PREDESTINATION. 5

and half by theory, are accustomed, though using the
scriptural ground as their basis on this question, to
speak of the doctrine of freewill as an insult to the
Divine Power, which is to mix the two grounds ; for
while the scriptural ground is one of fact, the argument
of the Divine power is an abstract argument.

Assuming, however, the doctrine of the fall or original
sin as the proper ground of the doctrine of predestination,
how, it will be asked, is the one doctrine the reason and
basis of the other ? In the following way.

The doctrine of original sin represents the whole human
race as in a state of moral ruin in consequence of the trans-
gression of the first man, incapable of doing anything pleasing
and acceptable to God, or performing any really good act 1 ;
that is to say, it represents the human race as without
freewill. And such being the condition of man, the Divine
mercy determines on his rescue out of it, on raising him
from a state of ruin to a state of salvation. But how
can the rescue of a ruined and powerless being be effected
except by an absolute act of power on the part of the
Deliverer ? The subject of this rescue is supposed to
be unable to do anything for himself; and therefore, if he is
saved at all, he must be saved without any waiting for
or depending upon his own individual agency.2 It may
perhaps be replied that, as God endowed man with free-
will, or the power to act aright, as distinguished from
a necessary virtue, at the creation ; so when he raises him
out of this state of ruin and slavery of the will, he may endow
him again with freewill only, leaving the use which he

1 We have no power to do good works
pleasant and acceptable to God, without
the grace of God by Christ preventing
us. — Art. x. Works done before the
grace of Christ are not pleasant to God,
. . . rather we doubt not but they
have the nature of sin.— Art. xiii.

2 So totally are we fallen by nature,

towards our own recovery. Hence it
was God's own arm which brought salva-
tion Conversion is a new birth,

and resurrection a new creation. What
infant ever begat itself? What in-
animate carcase ever quickened and
raised itself? What creature ever
created itself? — Toplady, vol. iiL p.

that we cannot contribute anything j 363.

B 3

6 THE ARGUMENT [CHAP. I.

may make of it to himself, as before. It may
be said that this would be a true act of grace or favour
on the part of God, and therefore that we need not
suppose that in the act of delivering man out of the
wretched and impotent state in which he is by nature,
God does anything more than this. But though such a
mode of acting on God's part does not involve any positive
contradiction, it must be allowed to be at variance with our
reasonable notions of the Divine dealings ; for what is this
but to institute the first dispensation over again, and repeat
a trial which has been undergone once, and had its issue ?
Suppose a man carried away by a torrent, to master which
he had proved himself unequal, would it be a reasonable
or consistent act to take him out only to recruit his strength
for a second resistance to it ? So, after man in the exercise
of freewill has fallen and lost freewill, is it not a mockery
to save him by giving him freewill again? What will
he do with the gift, but fall again ? On such a mode of
Divine dealing, the fall may be repeated indefinitely, and
the Divine purposes for the salvation of man may remain
in perpetual suspense, and never attain completion.

The principle, then, being acknowledged that God does
not repeat His dispensations, it follows that a second dispen-
sation cannot be the first one a second time instituted, but
must be a different one in itself; divided substantially from
the old one in the nature, character, and effect of the aid
which it supplies to man for attaining salvation. A dis-
pensation which left the salvation of man dependent on his
will, was highly suitable as a first one ; suitable alike to the
justice of the Creator and the powers of the untried creature,
and such as we should naturally expect at the beginning of
things: but such having been the nature of the first, the
second must, for that very reason, be a dispensation of a dif-
ferent kind, effecting its design not by a conditional, but
by an absolute saving act.

And independently of all reasoning, the fact is plain from

CHAP. I.] FOB PREDESTINATION. 7

Scripture that the new dispensation differs substantially
from the old in the nature of the aid which it supplies to man
for attaining salvation. God is not represented in Scripture
as repeating his dispensations, but as altering them according
to the wants of man. The Gospel aid to salvation, then, is,
in accordance with the fundamental difference in man's own
state, fundamentally different from that which man had before
the fall ; and if fundamentally different, different in the way
which has been just mentioned. For whatever peculiari-
ties of the second dispensation may be appealed to, if the
grace of it depends on the human will for its use and im-
provement, it is fundamentally a dispensation of freewill like
the first one.

The Divine act, then, in the salvation of man being, as the
result of the doctrine of original sin, an absolute one, effecting
its purpose with infallible certainty, the rest of the doctrine
of predestination follows upon ordinary Christian grounds.
It is confessed by all that, whatever God does, He determines
or decrees to do from all eternity ; for no one who believes
properly in a God at all, can suppose that He does anything
on a sudden, and which He has not thought of before. There
is, therefore, a Divine decree from all eternity to confer this
certain salvation upon those on whom it is conferred. And,
again, it is universally admitted that only a portion of
mankind are saved. But these two admissions complete the
doctrine of predestination which is, that God has decreed
from all eternity to save by His absolute and sovereign power
a select portion of mankind, leaving the rest in their previous
state of ruin.

The doctrine of predestination being thus reduced, as its
essence or distinctive part, to an absolute saving act on the
part of God of which man is the subject, we have next to
consider the particular nature and character of this act. The
doctrine of predestination, then, while it represents God as
deciding arbitrarily whom He saves, and whom He leaves for
punishment, does not by any means alter the conditions on

B 4

THE AKGUMENT

[CHAP. I.

which these respective ends are awarded. His government
still continues moral — pledged to the reward of virtue and
punishment of vice. It follows that in ordaining those whom
He does ordain to eternal life, God decrees also that they
should possess the qualifications necessary for that state —
those of virtue and piety.1 And if God decrees that
particular persons shall be virtuous and pious men, He ne-
cessarily resolves to bestow some grace upon them which will
control their wills and insure this result. There are two
main kinds of grace laid down in the schemes of divines,
one, assisting grace, which depends on an original act of the
human will for its use and cultivation, and which was therefore
conferred on man at his creation when the power of his will
had not been as yet tried ; the other, effective or irresistible
grace, given when that will has been tried and failed, and
must have its want of internal strength supplied by con-
trol from without. The Divine saving act is the bestowal of
this irresistible grace. The subject of the Divine predesti-
nation is rescued by an act of absolute power from the
dominion of sin, dragged from it, as it were, by force, con-
verted, filled with the love of God and his neighbour, and
qualified infallibly for a state of ultimate reward.

Here, then, it must be observed, is the real essence and
substance of the doctrine of Predestination, Predestinarians
do not differ from their opponents in the idea of eternal
Divine decrees, which, though popularly connected with this
system more than with others, belongs in truth to all theolo-
gical systems alike. For the believer in freewill, who only
admits an assisting grace of God, and not a controlling one,
must still believe that God determined to give that assisting
grace, in whatsoever instances he does give it, from all eternity.
Nor do they differ from their opponents in the ground or

1 They who are predestinated to life
are likewise predestinated to all those
means which are indispensably necessary
in order to their meetness, entrance
upon, and enjoyment of that life, such

as repentance, faith, sanctification, and
perseverance unto the end. — Toplady,
vol. v. p. 251. Jackson mistakes the
preflestinarian position on this head. —
NOTE II.

CHAP. I.]

FOE PREDESTINATION.

9

reason of God's final judgment and dispensing of reward and
punishment l ; for this takes place in both schemes wholly
upon the moral ground of the individual's good or bad cha-
racter. But the difference between the predestinarians and
their opponents is as to that act which is the subject matter of
the Divine decree, and as to the mode in which this differ-
ence of moral character is produced ; that is to say, the two
schools differ as to the nature, quality, and power of Divine
grace under the Gospel; one school maintaining that that
grace is only assisting grace, depending on the human will
for its use and improvement ; the other, that it is irresistible
grace. To the former school belong those who hold one in-
terpretation of the doctrine of baptismal regeneration ; who
maintain the sacrament of baptism to be the medium by which
the power of living a holy life is imparted to the previously
corrupt and impotent soul ; which power, however, may be
used or neglected according to the individual's own choice.

The mode in which the doctrine of predestination is ex-
tracted from the doctrine of original sin, being thus shown,
it may be added that, by thus reducing as we have done the
former doctrine to its pith and substance, we evidently much
widen the Scripture argument for it, extending it at once
from those few and scattered passages where the word itself
occurs, to a whole field of language. The whole Scripture
doctrine of grace is now appealed to as being in substance
the doctrine of predestination, because there, is only the
Divine foreknowledge to be added to it, in order to make it
such. Scripture distinguishes in the most marked way be-
tween two covenants. The first was that under which man-
kind was created, and which ended at the fall. Its language
was — This do, and thou shalt live. It endowed man with
freewill, or the power to obey the Divine law, and in return
claimed the due use of this power from him, the proper exer-

1 Vita scterna . . . gratia nuncu-
patur non ob aliud nisi quod gratis
datur, nee ideo quia non meritis datur

. . . Justitia) quidem stipendium est,
sed tibi gratia est, cui gratia est et ipsa
justitia. — Aug. Ep. 194. n. 19. 21.

10

THE ARGUMENT

[CHAP. I.

tion of that freewill. The burden of obedience, the attain-
ment of salvation, was thrown upon the man himself. And
of this covenant the Mosaic law was a kind of re-enactment ;
not that the law was really a continuation of it, but it was so
by a supposition, or as it may be called an instructive fiction,
maintained for the purpose of exhibiting and proving the
consequences of the fall. Man was addressed under the
Mosaic law, as if he had the full power to love and obey God,
and the issue of the attempt showed his inability ; he was
addressed as if he was strong, and the event proved his
weakness. This was the covenant of works. The covenant
of grace was opposed to it. But how could it be op-
posed to it, if under that covenant the salvation of man
still continued, as before, dependent on his freewill? If
it be said that there was the addition of grace under the
second covenant, given besides and for the support of
freewill, and that this addition makes the distinction between
the two covenants, the reply is obvious, that whatever ad-
dition of grace there may be under the second, no substantial
difference is made out so long as the use of this grace
remains dependent on the will. The burden of obedience is
still thrown on the man himself in the first instance, and his
salvation depends on an original act of choice, as it did under
the first. Moreover, it has been always held that man had
grace in addition to freewill, even under the first covenant.1

1 Bull « On the State of Man before
the Fall," gives this as the doctrine of
all the early Fathers,

Nam et tune (cum natura erat Integra
et sana) esset adjutorium Dei et tan-
quam lumen sanis oculis quo adjuti
videant, se prceberet volentibus. — Aug.
De Natura et Gratia, c. 48.

Quod fuerit conditus in gratia vide-
tur requirere ipsa rectitude primi status
in qua Deus homines fecit — Aquinas
Summ. Theol. Prima Q. 95. Art. 1. See
NOTE III.

Hoc autem (the need of grace),
nedum est verum propter depressionem
liberi arbitrii per peccatum, verum etiam
propter gravedinem liberi arbitrii natu-

ralem'qua ad principaliter diligendum se
alligatur. — Bradwardine, p. 371.

Homini in creatione, sicut de angelis
diximus, datum est per gratiam auxi-
lium .... Non talis natura facta est
ut sine Divino auxilio posset manere si
vellet." — Lombard, L. 2. Dis. 24.

Jackson objects to a supernatural
original righteousness, on the ground
that nature would not be corrupt by
the loss of it. " If the righteousness of
the first man did consist in a grace
supernatural, or in any quality addi-
tional to his constitution, as he was the
work of God, this grace or quality
might have been, or rather was, lost,
without any real wound unto our na-
ture."— Works, vol. ix. p. 6.

CHAP. I.]

FOR PREDESTINATION.

11

Then in what are the two opposed, except in the nature,
quality, and power of that grace which they respectively
confer, that in the one grace was, and in the other is not,
dependent on any original motion of the will for its effect ?
The grace of the gospel isues in being an effective and irre-
sistible grace, converting the will itself, and forming the holy
character in the man by a process of absolute creation ; accord-
ing to such texts as the following ; " We are his workman-
ship, created in Jesus Christ unto good works, which God
hath before ordained that we should walk in them 1 ; " " It is
God that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good
pleasure 2 ; " " According as God hath dealt to every man
the measure of faith 3 ; " " Who maketh thee to differ from
another? and what hast thou which thou hast not received?"4
" No man can come to me, except the Father which hath
sent me, draw him 5 ; " " Who hath saved us, and called us
with an holy calling, not according to our works but accord-
ing to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us
in Jesus Christ before the world began 6; " " By grace, ye are
saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift

of God

7 . »

By the grace of God I am what I am 8 ; " "Of

him are ye in Jesus Christ, who of God is made unto us
wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemp-
tion 9 ; " " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature 10 ; "
"And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new
spirit within you ; and I will take away the stony heart out of
their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh." n The
ground of Scripture for the doctrine of predestination thus
becomes a large and general one, consisting of a certain
pervading language, instead of being confined to a few texts
in which the word itself is mentioned, and which are po-
pularly regarded as its ground ; and the doctrine appears to

1 Eph. ii. 10.

2 Phil. ii. 13.

3 Rom. xii. 3.

4 1 Cor. iv. 7.

5 John vi. 44.

6 2 Tim. i. 9.

7 Eph. ii. 8, 9.

8 1 Cor. xv. 10.

9 1 Cor. i. 30.

10 2 Cor. v. 1 7.
"Ezek. xi. 19-

12 THE ARGUMENT [CHAP. I.

be no more than the gospel doctrine of grace, wth the addi-
tion of the Divine foreknowledge.

From the basis and structure of the doctrine of predesti-
nation, I now come to its defences. An arbitrary decree
ordaining from all eternity, and antecedently to any dif-
ference of desert, some of the human race to eternal life,
and others to eternal punishment, is in direct opposition
to our natural idea of justice, and plainly requires a defence.
And the defence given for it rests on the same article of belief
out of which the structure of the doctrine arose — the article,
viz., of original sin.

It is true, then, predestinarians say, that we do maintain
an arbitrary decree, ordaining, antecedently to any difference
of desert, the eternal salvation of some and punishment of
others of the human race : but remember in what state this
decree finds the human race. It finds the whole of the
human race deserving of eternal punishment. This decree,
then, does indeed confer gratuitous and undeserved happiness
upon one portion of mankind ; and to that nobody will have
any objection; for it would indeed be a rigorous justice
which objected to an excess of Divine love and bounty : but
it does not do that which alone could be made matter of
accusation against it, inflict gratuitous and undeserved misery
upon the other. It simply allows the evil which it already
finds in them to go on and produce its natural fruits. Had
this decree, indeed, to do with mankind simply as mankind,
it could not without injustice devote any portion of them
arbitrarily to eternal punishment : for man has not, as man,
any guilt at all, and some guilt is required to make his
punishment just. But this decree has not to do with
human nature simply, but with human nature under certain
circumstances. Mankind are brought into a particular
position before it deals with them. That position is the
position of guilt in which the doctrine of original sin places
them. Viewed through the medium of that doctrine, the

CHAP. I.]

FOR PREDESTINATION.

13

whole human race lies before us, prior to the action of this
decree upon them, one mass of perdition. This decree only
allows a portion to remain such. Viewed through that me-
dium, all are under one sentence of condemnation : this decree
only executes this sentence upon some. But if it would be
just to punish the whole, it cannot be unjust to punish a
part. If two men owe us debts, we may certainly sue one.
If all antecedently deserve eternal punishment, it cannot be
unjust that some should be antecedently consigned to it.
Or would we fall into the singular contradiction of saying
that a sentence is just, and yet all execution of it whatever
unjust?

The question of justice, then, is already settled, when
man first comes under this decree ; and the question which
is settled by it is not one of justice at all, but one of Divine
arrangement simply. The same human mass which, if
innocent, would have been the subject of God's justice,
becomes, when guilty, the subject of His will solely. His
absolute sovereignty now comes in, and He hath mercy upon
whom He will have mercy, and whom He will he hardeneth.
" Hath not the potter power over the same lump to make
one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour ? " Are we
to complain of God's justice in some cases, because He shows
mercy in others? To do so would be for the creature to
dictate to the Creator. Man, guilty, has lost his rights, and
falls under the jurisdiction of God's absolute and sovereign
will, with which remonstrance is ridiculous.1

1 Hie si dixerimus quanto melius
ambo liberarentur ; nihil nobis conve-
nientius dicetur quam, O homo, tu quis
es qui respondeas Deo ? Novit quippe
ille quid agat, et quantus numerus esse
debeat primitus omnium hominum,
deinde sanctorum, sicut siderum, sicut
angelorura, atque, ut de terrenis lo-
quamur, sicut pecorum, piscium, vola-
tilium, sicut arborum et herbarum,
sicut denique foliorum et capillorum
nostrorum. Nam nos huraana cogita-

tione adhuc possumus dicere, quo-
niam bona sunt cuncta ista quae fecit,
quanto melius ilia duplicasset, et mul-
tiplicasset, ut multo essent plura quam
sunt ; si enim ea non caperet mundus
nunquid uon posset etiam ipsum facere
quantum vellet ampliorem ? Et tamen
quantumcunque faceret vel ilia plura,
vel istum capaciorem et majorem, nihil-
ominus eadem de multiplicandis illis
dici possent, et nullus esset immoderatus
| modus. — Aug. Ep. 186. n. 22.

14 THE ARGUMENT [CHAP. I.

Such is the defence of the doctrine of predestination on
the score of justice. Absolutely, or apart from any previous
supposition, it is admitted to be unjust ; but the defence is
that it must not be considered absolutely, but in its real and
intrinsic relation to another doctrine, which in theological
order precedes it. If you think the doctrine unjust, it is
said, it is only because you do not realise what the doctrine
of original sin is, and what it commits you to. You go on
really, and in your heart thinking the human mass innocent
before actual sin, and therefore you are scandalised at the
antecedent consignment of any part of it to punishment.
But suppose it really guilty, as your creed represents it, and
you will not be scandalized at it. Fix upon your mind the
existence of real ill-desert antecedent to actual sin, and
condemnation will appear just and natural. The first step
mastered, the second has no difficulty in it.

The doctrine of predestination itself, and its defence
on the score of justice, thus rest upon the one doctrine of
original sin. There is another objection, however, made to
it, which is met in another way ; for this doctrine, it is ob-
jected, contradicts our experience and consciousness, de-
scribing us as acting from an irresistible influence, either
for good or evil; whereas we are conscious of will and
choice, and feel that we are not forced to act in one way
or another. But it is replied that this objection proceeds
from a misapprehension as to the nature of this irresist-
ible influence. . The terms irresistible, necessary, and other
like terms, imply, indeed, in their common use an inclina-
tion of the will which is opposed, and express a certain
overwhelming power exerted upon the man, in consequence
of which he is obliged to act against this inclination. But
in the present instance these terms are, in defect of proper
language for the purpose, used incorrectly, and express a
power which inclines the will itself, in the first place,
and does not suppose an inclination already formed which it
contradicts. Between our experience and consciousness,

CHAP. I.] FOR PREDESTINATION. 15

then, and the exertion of such a power as this upon our wills,
there is no opposition. Our consciousness is only concerned
with the inclination of the will itself, beyond which we can-
not by any stretch of thought or internal scrutiny advance,
being obliged to stay at the simple point of our will, pur-
pose, inclinations as existing in us. But the inclination
itself of the will is the same, however it may have been ori-
ginated ; no difference therefore respecting its origin touches
the subject matter of our consciousness. This question affects
the cause, our consciousness is concerned only with the fact ;
these two, therefore, can never come into collision. And
though in popular language such a grace would be spoken of
as obliging a man to act in a particular way, as if it obliged
him so to act whether he willed or not, operating as phy-
sical force does, independent of the will of the agent
altogether ; such a description of it is incorrect, and misses
the fundamental distinction in the case. The agent is not
caused by it to act in spite of his will, but caused to will.

This general description of the structure and defence of
the doctrine of predestination will perhaps be sufficient as
an introduction to the present treatise. Nakedly stated, the
doctrine is simply paradoxical, and those who are acquainted
with no more than the mere statement of it, are apt to feel
surprise and perplexity how it could have been maintained by
the pious and thoughtful minds that have maintained it. But it
must be admitted that its paradoxical character is diminished,
when we come to examine its grounds and construction. It
happens in this case, as it does in many others, that the
surprise which the conclusion produced is lessened by an
acquaintance with the premisses, the steps by which it was
arrived at.

Simplicity of system is a great object with one class of
minds. The attribute of Divine power has also in many
religious minds the position not only of important, but
favourite truth. It is evident how acceptable on both these
grounds must be a system which contrives in harmony with

16 THE ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. [CHAP. I.

the facts of experience and the rule of justice, to secure the
one great idea of the whole spiritual action of the human race
being the pure creation of Almighty will. They are attracted
by a conclusion which gives so signal a rebuke to human
pride, and witness to Divine mercy, and embrace a doctrine
which alone appears fully to set forth that man is nothing
and God all in all.

CHAP. II.] EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENT. 17

CHAP. II.

EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION.

WHEN particular truths of philosophy or religion are used as
grounds to support conclusions which are repugnant to
natural reason, there are two things for us to do. First, we
have to examine if the reasoning upon these truths is correct,
and if they really contain the conclusions which have been
drawn from them ; and, secondly, if this should be the case,
we have to examine the nature of these truths, and the sense
or manner in which we hold them ; for if the truths them-
selves cannot be questioned, and yet the logical conclusions
from them are untenable, there only remains for extricating
ourselves from the difficulty, the consideration that these
truths must have been held in some sense or manner which
was improper ; which impropriety in the manner of holding
them has been the reason why, however certain themselves,
they have led to such untenable results.

Let us take the case of philosophical predestination in the
first place, or of predestination as resting on philosophical
grounds, or what is ordinarily called necessitarianism or
fatalism ; and let us examine the nature of these grounds.
It will be evident to any one at all conversant with philo-
sophy, and who will summon to his mind a few instances of
the different kinds of truths to which it calls our attention,
and which it assumes and uses in its arguments and specula-
tions, that there are two very different kinds of truths upon
which philosophy proceeds — one, of which the conception is
distinct and absolute ; the other, of which the conception is
indistinct, and only incipient or in tendency. Of ordinary
facts, such as meet the senses — of the facts of our internal
consciousness, our own feelings and sensations, bodily and

c

18 EXAMINATION OF THE [CHAP. II.

mental, we have distinct conceptions, so far at least, that
these are complete and absolute truths embraced by our
minds. On the other hand, there are various truths which
we partly conceive and partly fail in conceiving; the con-
ception, when it has begun, does not advance or come to a
natural termination, but remains a certain tendency of
thought only. Such are the ideas of substance, of cause, of
infinity, and others which we cannot grasp or subject to our
minds, and which, when we follow them up, involve us in
the utmost perplexity, and carry us into great apparent con-
tradictions. These, as entertained by our minds, are incipient
truths, not final or absolute ones* In following or trying to
follow them, we feel that we are in a certain right way, that
we are going in a certain true direction of thought ; but we
attain no goal, and arrive at no positive apprehension.

In contemplating material objects, I encounter a number
of impressions, such as hardness, softness, smoothness, rough-
ness, colour, which are only qualities ; but I cannot rest in
them, but push on to some substance to which they belong,
and from which it is absurd to imagine them apart. But I
cannot form the least idea of what substance is. I find
myself only going in the direction of something which I
cannot reach, which mocks all pursuit, and eludes all grasp ;
I have only a sort of idea of a confused something lying
underneath all the sensible qualities of matter — that is to say,
beyond and outside of all my real perceptions. And I am
just as incapable of forming any idea of a spiritual substance
or myself, though I am said to be conscious of it ; for this
plain reason, that it is in its very nature anterior to all my
ideas.

Again, I have the idea of force or power, or, what is the
same thing, of cause. After contemplating any event in
life or nature I find myself going in thought beyond it, to
consider how it came to pass ; and this thought in me,
once set going, tends, by some instinctive law, some con-
stitutional motion inherent in it, in the direction of a cause

CHAP. II.] AllGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. 19

of that event ; something not merely antecedent to it,
but which stands in such a relation to it, as that, in con-
sequence of it, that event or thing exists. The intellect
pushes on to this ultimate resting place, and satisfaction of
its own indigenous want and desire. But while the move-
ment towards a cause, or some kind of idea of one, is part of
our rational nature, I find, on reflection, that I can form no
distinct conception whatever of what a cause is. What is
that of which existence is the necessary fruit and result?
We can form no idea of what goes on previous to, and with
infallible cogency and force for, producing existence. All this
preliminary agency is so entirely hid from us, and our
faculties so completely stop short of it, that it seems almost
like an absurdity to us, that there should be anything of
the kind. The order of nature puts before us an endless
succession of antecedents and consequents, but in no one
instance can we see any necessary connection between the
antecedent and its consequent. The relation between the
so-called cause and effect — the circumstance in a cause
which makes it a cause, is wholly removed from my view.
I see that fire melts metals and hardens clay, but I do not
see why it does either; and prior to experience, I should
have thought it as likely that these effects would have been
reversed. The motion which one ball set in motion
communicates to another, might or might not have taken
place prior to experience. I see nothing in the first motion
to produce the second, and can conceive no motion upon im-
pact with as little contradiction as motion. Again, I look
into myself, and observe my own motions, actions, thoughts.
I find that by a certain exertion of the will, I can move my
limbs, raise ideas, excite or suppress affections and emotions ;
but the nature of that power by which the will does this, is
absolutely hidden from me. When I exert all my force to
lift some weight or remove some barrier, I may seem at first
to myself to have an inward perception of that force, and
the manner in which it operates ; but on examination, I find

c 2

20

EXAMINATION OF THE

[CHAP. II.

that I have only the idea of a motion of the will, and of a
strain of the muscles which succeeds, not of any connection
between the two.1 I have looked around and within me
then, and I do not see a cause anywhere. My reason, as
surely as it leads me up to the truth, that there is a cause of
things, stops at that point, and leaves me in utter perplexity
and amazement as to what a cause is. It is a wonder, a
mystery, an incomprehensible truth. My reason forces me
towards the idea of something, of which I can give no more
account to myself than I can of the most inexplicable article
in a creed. What can be more astonishing than a power by
which anything in nature is. Do all the mysteries of
revelation — do even the wildest dreams of superstition
exceed it ? What is it that prevents my reason from reject-
ing such an idea ? Simply, that my reason gives it me —
gives it me, though in that incipient and incomplete state
from which this perplexity ensues.

Again, the idea of infinity is part of our rational nature.
Particular times, spaces, and numbers, end ; but we cannot
possibly think of time, space, and number in general as
ending. Any particular number is suggestive of further
number. In two or three straight strokes I see a necessary
capacity of multiplication, two, three, or any number of
times ad infinitum. I imagine myself at the top of a high
mountain, with the largest conceivable view all around me.
I might know by geography that there are countries which

1 It may be pretended that the re-
sistance which we meet with in bodies,
obliging us frequently to exert all our
force, and call up all our power, thus
gives us the idea of force and power.
It is this nisus or strong endeavour of
which we are conscious, that is the
original impression from which this
idea is copied. But, tirst, we attribute
power to a vast number of objects,
where we can never suppose this resist-
ance or force to take place ; to the
Supreme Being, who never meets
with any resistance ; to the mind in its

command over ideas and limbs. . . .
Secondly, this sentiment of an endea-
vour to overcome resistance has no
known connection with any event ;
what follows it, we know by experience,
but would not know it a priori. It
must, however, be confessed that the
animal nisus which we experience,
though it can afford no accurate or
precise idea of power, enters very much
into that vulgar inaccurate idea which
is formed of it. — Hume, " Enquiry con-
cerning the Human Understanding,"
sect 7.

CHAP. II.] ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. 21

lie beyond it on all sides, but I do not wait for that
information. There is something in me by which I know
antecedently, that the space is going on all the same as
space, however differently it may be occupied, beyond my
sight as within it. Having raised in my mind the largest
picture of space I can, so that if I try to increase, I
simply repeat it, I have still a sense of limitation. There
is at the furthest line of the horizon an excess which baffles
me, which is not included in the imagined space, or it would
not be an excess, and which yet belongs and is attached to
it and cannot be removed ; an incipient beyond which must
be endless, for the very reason that it begins ; because this
indefinable excess, for the very reason that it exists itself,
must be succeeded by the like. It is the same with
respect to time. Time, space, and number, then, do not
end, but go on at the very last ; that is the very latest per-
ception we have of them, the last intelligence as it were ;
they are ultimately going further. They go onward, not
only to the end (which particular portions of them do),
but at theend—z.e. their utmost defined extent in our ima-
gination; for their very nature is progressive; they are
essentially irrepressible, uncontrollable, ever-growing, without
capacity for standing still and subject to the absolute neces-
sity of being continually greater and greater.

But while we find in our minds the idea of infinity, we
have no idea of what infinity is. I mean that we have no
idea of an actual infinite quantity of anything. We ap-
prehend so much of extent or number as we can measure
or count, and can go on adding ; but wherever we stop, we
are on the margin of an infinite remainder, which is not
apprehended by us. Imagine a large crowd increasing in
all directions without end ; it is obvious that such number is
unintelligible to us ; as much so as any mysterious article in
a creed. Some idea of infinity we have no doubt, otherwise
we should not be able to think or speak of it at all ; and that
seems to be more than a negative idea, as it has been

c 3

22

EXAMINATION OF THE

[CHAP. II.

asserted to be ; for it is the idea of a progress, or going
further, which is not negative, but positive; but it is no
mental image or reflection of actual infinity.1

We find then a certain class of truths in philosophy of
which we have only a half conception ; truths which, as
entertained by us, are only truths in tendency, not absolute,
not complete. We are conscious of the germs of various
ideas which we cannot open out, or realise as whole or con-
sistent ones. We feel ourselves reaching after what we
cannot grasp, and moving onward in thought toward some-
thing we cannot overtake. I move in the direction of a
substance and a cause in nature which I cannot find : my
thought reaches after infinity, but the effort is abortive, and
the idea remains for ever only beginning. I encounter
mysterious truths in philosophy before I come to them in
religion, natural or revealed. My reason itself introduces
me to them. Were I without the faculty of reason, I
should not have these ideas at all, or derive therefore any
perplexity from them. I should want no substance under-
neath my impressions ; I should have no sense of an excess
beyond the range of my eye : but reason creates these
movements in my mind, and so introduces me to indistinct
and mysterious truths within her own sphere.

And this, it may be remarked, is an answer to those who ob-
ject to such truths in religion, and reject or put aside certain doc-
trines on the ground that they relate to subject-matter of which
we can form no conception, and which, therefore, it is argued, we
cannot entertain in our minds at all ; cannot make the subject of
thought, or therefore of belief. It is wrong to say that we are
wholly unable to entertain truths of which we have no distinct

1 It is an oblique proof of the mys-
teriousness of infinite number, that it
can be neither odd nor even. " Nous
connaissons qu'il y a un infini, et ig-
norons sa nature, comme nous savons
•ju'il est faux que les nombres soient
nuis ; done il est vrai qu'il y a un infini
en nombre, mais nous ne savons ce

qu'il est. II est faux qu'il soit pair, il
est faux qu'il soit impair ; car en ajou-
tant 1'unite, il ne change point de
nature : cependant c'est un nombre,
et tout nombre est pair • ou impair ; il
est vrai que celas'entendde tous nombres
nnis. — Pascal (ed. Faugere), vol. ii.
p. 164.

CHAP. II.] ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. 23

idea ; and those who suppose so have an incorrect and defective
notion of the constitution of the human mind. The human
mind is so constituted as to have relations to truth without
the medium of distinct ideas and conceptions. The con-
stitution of our minds makes this mixed state of ignorance
and knowledge possible to us. Were the alternative of pure
ignorance or pure knowledge necessary, it is evident that, as
soon as we turned from sensible objects and mathematics,
we should be in a state of absolute ignorance and unmixed
darkness ; we should not only be ignorant of the nature of
many other truths, but should have no sort of idea what
those truths were of which we were ignorant; we should
be unable to think of or discuss them on that account, or even
to name them. We should be cut off wholly from meta-
physics, and all that higher thought and philosophy which
have occupied the human mind in all ages. But this alter-
native is not necessary. l

With the general admission, then, of this class of truths in
philosophy, we come to the grounds upon which philosophical
predestination or fatalism is raised. We find these to be
mainly two — first, the maxim that every event must have a
cause, and, secondly, the idea of the Divine Power ; the first
being a physical, the second a religious assumption, but both
alike forming premises from which a schenie of absolute ne-
cessity in human actions is logically inferred.

To take first, then, the maxim that every event must
have a cause. This is a maxim undoubtedly that approves
itself to our understanding. If we see a body which has
hitherto been at rest, start out of this state of rest and
begin to move, we naturally and necessarily suppose that
there must be some cause or reason of this new mode of ex-

1 " Nous sommes surun milieu vaste,
toujours incertains, et flottants entre
1'ignorance et la connaissance ; et, si
nous pensons aller plus avant, notre

il se derobe, et fuit d'une fuite eterneUe:
rien ne peut 1'arreter."— Pascal. Locke
and Hume both substantially admit the
class of indistinct ideas. — NOT* IV.

object branle, et eehappe a nos prises ;

c 4

24 EXAMINATION OF THE [CHAP. II.

istence. And this applies to moral events or actions as well
as to events physical. Every action which is performed is
undoubtedly a new event in nature, and as such there must
have been some cause to produce it. Moreover, on the same
principle that the action itself must have a cause, that cause
must have another cause, and so on, till we come to some
cause outside of and beyond the agent himself. The
maxim, then, that there must be a cause of every event once
granted, the conclusion of a necessity in human actions
inevitably follows.

But though the maxim that every event must have a
cause is undoubtedly true, what kind of a truth is it ? Is it a
truth absolute and complete, like a fact of sensation or re-
flection ; or is it a truth indistinct, incipient, and in tendency
only, like one of those ideas which have just been discussed ?
It is a truth of the latter kind, for this simple reason, that
there is a contrary truth to it. When we look into our
minds, and examine the nature and characteristics of action,
we find that we have a certain natural and irresistible im-
pression or sense of our originality as agents. We feel before-
hand that we can do a thing or not as we please, and when
we have taken either course, we feel afterwards that we could
have taken the other, and experience satisfaction or regret,
as may be, on that particular account. That our actions are
original in us, is the ground upon which arise peculiar
pleasures and pains of conscience, which are known and fami-
liar to us. Could we really think that they were not, we should
be without these particular feelings ; we should not have
a certain class of sensations which we know we have. We
have, then, a certain sense or perception of our originality as
agents, that an action is original in us, or has no cause.

This originality in human actions is, for want of better
language, sometimes expressed by what is called the self-
determination of the will ; and from this mode of expressing it
persons have endeavoured to extract a reductio adabsurdum of
the truth itself. For it has been said, "If will determines

CHAP. II.] APwGUMENT FOB PREDESTINATION.

25

will, then choice orders and determines choice, and acts of
choice are subject to the decision and follow the conduct of
other acts of choice ; " in which case every act whatever of
the will must be preceded by a former act, and there must
therefore be an act of the will before the first act of the will.1
But in the first place it is evident this is at the best an
argument drawn from a particular mode of expressing a
truth, and taking advantage of the inherent defects of lan-
guage ; and in the next place that it does not do justice even
to the language ; for however inconceivable self-motion strictly
speaking may be, what we mean and, so far as we can, express
by it, is one indivisible motion, not a relation of one motion
to another, of something moving to something being moved,
as is supposed in this argument, and is necessary to the force
of it. The real question, however, at issue is, in whatever
way we may express it, have we or have we not a certain
sense of originality in our acts; that we are springs of motion
to ourselves ; that however particular motives and impulses
from without may operate on us, there is a certain ulti-
mate .decision, which we can make either way, and which
therefore when made, in one way or the other, is original.
If we have, we have a certain sense or perception of action
as being something uncaused, i.e. having nothing anterior
to it, which necessarily produces it — a sense or perception
which goes counter to the other, which was also admitted to
exist in us, of the necessity of a cause for all events, actions
included. Regarding actions in their general character as
events, we say they must have a cause ; but in their spe-
cial character as actions, we refuse them one : our whole

1 Edwards " On the Freedom of the
Will," part 2. sect. 1. Aquinas in
arguing for the necessity of an external-
source of motion to the will (moveri ab
aliquo exterior! prlncipio) reasons in
the same way. " Manifestum est quod
voluntas incipit velle aliquid cum hoc
prius non vellet. Necesse est ergo
quod ab aliquo moveatur ad volendum.

. . . Et si quidam ipsa moverat se-
ipsam ad volendum oportuisset, quod
mediante consilio hoc ageret ex aliqu&
voluntatepraesupposita. Hoc autem est
procedere in infinitum. Unde necesse
est ponere quod in primum motum
voluntatis voluntas prodeat ex instinctu
alicujus exterioris moventis." — Sum.
Theol. p. 2. q. 9. art 4._

26 EXAMINATION OF THE [CHAP. II.

internal feeling and consciousness being opposed to it.
Here then are two contradictory instincts or perceptions
of our reason, which we must make the best of, and arrive at
what measure of truth a mixed conclusion gives. We cer-
tainly have both these perceptions, and one must not be
made to give way to the other. However reason may
declare for the originality of our acts, it says also that every
event must have a cause ; again, however it may declare for
a cause of every event, it says that our acts are original.

Metaphysicians on both sides appear to have undervalued
the one or the other of these rational instincts or perceptions,
according to their bias ; the advocates of freewill thinking
slightly of the general instinct for a cause, the advocates
of necessity thinking slightly of our perception, as agents, of
originality. The former have simply dwelt on our inward
consciousness of power of choice, dismissing the principle of
causes, as if, however it applied to other events, it did not
apply to actions, being excluded from this ground ipso facto
by this sense of the originality of our actions. But if the
necessity of a cause of events is true at all, it must apply to
actions as well as to other events; and to suppose that it is
ipso facto deprived of this application by this special sense of
originality in the case of actions, is to assume that we cannot
have two contradictory ideas ; which, according to what
I endeavoured to show in this chapter, is a false assump-
tion, and not true of us in the present imperfect state of our
capacities, in which we may have, and have, imperfect op-
posing perceptions ; though it is of course absurd to suppose
that this can be the case except in a very imperfect state of
being, or that there can be absolute and perfect perceptions in
opposition to each other. The latter, on the other hand,
have regarded the principle of causation as the only pre-
miss worth taking into account on this question, and have
dismissed the sense of originality, as if it were a mere con-
fused and blind sentiment, which, when examined, really
spoke to nothing, and was found to issue in a mere cloud, or

CHAP. II.] ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. 27

evaporate altogether. They have voted the one idea to be
solid and philosophical, the other, to be empty and delusive.
But I cannot see how they are justified in thus setting up
one of these ideas to the exclusion of the other. Express
the idea of causation as you will, whether as the perception
of an abstract truth that there must be a cause of all events,
or simply as the observation of the fact, that all events are
connected with certain antecedents as the condition of their
taking place l — what is it, after all, but a truth so far as it
goes, and so far as we perceive or observe it to be such?
The reason desiderates a cause of anything that takes place,
says one philosopher, putting it as the perception of an
abstract truth ; but this necessity is not to be acknowledged
in any more unlimited sense, than that in which it is
perceived. In the case of events in nature, the axiom
reigns supreme, and is not interfered with; but when we
come to moral events or actions, it is there met by an innate
perception — viz. that of originality which is just as rational
as the other. Another philosopher says that we observe
causation as a fact. We do ; but though we observe it in
nature, we do not certainly observe it in will ; and observa-
tion can only speak to those cases to which it extends. The
consideration of ourselves as agents presents another truth
to us — viz. that of originality in our acts; and this instinct
or perception must be taken into account as a philosophical
premiss. How should we have the idea of the will as being
self-moving and self-determining at all in the way in which
we have it, unless there were truth in the idea ? For nature
does not deceive us and tell us falsehoods, however it may
tell us imperfect truths. And though it may be said that
all that we mean by the will's self-determination, is that we
act with will as distinct from compulsion, however that
will may have been caused ; this is not true upon any na-
tural test; for, put this distinction before any plain man,

1 The former is Edwarda's, the latter Mr. Mill's position. NOTE V.

28 EXAMINATION OF THE [CHAP. II.

and he will feel it as an interference in some way with his
natural consciousness, and will reject the idea of an externally-
caused will, as not properly answering to his instinct on this
subject. And if it be argued that we cannot have this sense
of originality or self-determination in the will, because all that
we are actually conscious of is our will itself, the fact that
we decide in one way or another, and not the cause of it,
whether in ourselves or beyond vis ; it is sufficient to say
that this sense or perception of originality is not professed
to be absolute or complete, but that it is still a sense or
perception of a certain kind. There is a plain instinct in us,
a perception of a truth, in this direction ; and that being
the case, to say that it is not apprehension and does not
arrive at a positive conclusion or point, is to say no more
than may be said of many other great ideas of our in-
telligent nature, such as that of substance, cause, infinity.

There being these two counter ideas, then, with respect to
the necessity of a cause ; as on the one hand we demand a cause,
and on the other reject it ; neither of these can be truths
absolute and complete ; and, therefore, neither of them a
basis for an absolute and complete theory or doctrine to be
raised upon it. So far as the maxim that there must be a
cause of every event is true, so far it is a premiss for a
scheme of fatalism. But it is not true absolutely, and thus
no absolute system of this kind can be founded upon it.
Did the fatalist limit himself to a conditional incomplete
conclusion, i. e. — for this would be all that it would come to
in such a case — to a mystery on this subject, no one could
object. But if he raises a definite scheme, his conclusion
exceeds his premiss.

The same may be said of any absolute doctrine of Pre-
destination drawn from the attribute of the Divine Power,
or the idea of God as the cause of all things, There is an
insurmountable contradiction between this idea and that of
freewill in the creature ; for we cannot conceive how that
which is caused can itself be a first cause, or a spring of

CHAP. II.] ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. 29

motion to itself. And therefore the idea of Divine Power
leads to predestination as its result. But what is this truth
of the Divine Power or Omnipotence, as we apprehend it ?
Does it belong to the class of full and distinct, or of incomplete
truths? Certainly to the latter, for there appears at once
a counter truth to it, in the existence of moral evil which
must be referred to some cause other than God, as well as
in that sense of our own originality to which I have just
alluded. The Divine Omnipotence, then, is a truth which
we do not understand — mysterious, imperfect truth; and,
therefore, cannot be used by the predestinarian as the pre-
miss of an absolute doctrine, but only as that of an indefinite
or conditional one.

The two ideas of the Divine Power and freewill are, in
short, two great tendencies of thought inherent in our minds,
which contradict each other, and can never be united or
brought to a common goal ; and which, therefore, inasmuch
as the essential condition of absolute truth is consistency
with other truth, can never, in the present state of our
faculties, become absolute truths, but must remain for ever
contradictory tendencies of thought, going on side by side
till they are lost sight of and disappear in the haze of our
conceptions, like two parallel straight lines which go on to
infinity without meeting. While they are sufficiently clear
then, for purposes of practical religion (for we cannot doubt
that they are truths so far as and in that mode in which we
apprehend them), these are truths upon which we cannot
raise definite and absolute systems. All that we build upon
either of them must partake of the imperfect nature of the
premiss which supports it, and be held under a reserve of
consistency with a counter conclusion from the opposite
truth. And as I may have occasion hereafter to use it, I
may as well say here that this is what I mean by the dis-
tinction between absolute truths, and truths which are
truths and yet not absolute ones — viz., that the one are of
that kind which is distinct and consistent with other truth ;

30

EXAMINATION OF THE

[CHAP. II.

the other of the kind which is indistinct, and especially
such truth as has other truth opposed to it, and which is
therefore obviously but half-truth.

I will add as a natural corollary from this relation of these
two ideas, that that alone is a genuine doctrine of freewill
which maintains such a freewill in man as is inconsistent
with our idea of the Divine Ppwer. There is a kind of
freewill which is consistent with this idea. All men,
whatever be their theory of the motive principle of,
admit the fact of, the human will; that we act willingly
and not like inanimate machines ; nor does the necessitarian
deny that the human will is will, and as far as sensation goes,
free, though he represents it as ultimately moved from
without. Here, then, is a sort of freewill which is consistent
with the idea of the Divine Power. But this, as was above
explained, is not such a freewill as meets the demands
of natural consciousness, which is satisfied with nothing
short of a characteristic of will, which comes into collision
with our idea of the Divine Power — viz. originality.

Again, the objection against the doctrine of freewill,
that it would remove human actions from the Divine
Providence1, and so reduce this whole moral scheme of
things to chance, has an immediate answer in the very
nature of the truth as here described. Undoubtedly there
is a contradiction in supposing that events really contingent
can be foreseen, made the subjects of previous arrangement,
and come into a scheme of Providence ; and though this

1 If the will of man be free with a
liberty ad utrumlibet, and if his actions
be the offspring of his will, such of his
actions which are not yet wrought, must
be both radically and eventually uncer-
tain. It is therefore a chance whether
they are performed or no. ... So that
any assertor of self-determination is in
fact, whether he mean it or no, a wor-
shipper of the heathen lady named
Fortune, and an ideal deposer of Provi-

dence from its throne. — Toplady, vol.
vi. p. 90.

If it be said that volitions are events
that come to pass without any deter-
mining cause, that is most palpably
inconsistent with all use of laws and
precepts; for nothing is more plain
than that laws can be of no use to
direct and regulate perfect accident. —
Edwards "On Freedom of the Will,"
part 3. sect. 4.

CHAP. II.] ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION.

31

is sometimes met by the answer that the Divine foresight
is the sight of the events as such, and not in their causes
only, and that therefore contingent events can be foreseen
by God as being events, which however future to us,
are present to His eternal eye; it must be owned that
such a foresight as this is a contradiction to our reason1,
and that therefore an answer which appeals to it, to solve
the contradiction of freewill to Providence, only gets rid
of one contradiction by another. Allowing, however, the
contradiction between Providence and freewill to remain,
what comes in the way of argument from it ? All imper-
fect truths run into contradictions when they are* pursued.
Thus, a great philosopher has extracted the greatest ab-
surdities out of the idea of material substance ; and the
idea of infinity is met by the objection that all number
must be either odd or even. In the same way freewill,
when pursued, runs into a contradiction to Providence,
but this does not show that it is false, but only that it is
imperfect truth.

The same mode of treatment applies to the great prin-
ciple of religion (substantially the same with that of the
Divine Power) that God is the Author of all good, if used
as a basis of an absolute doctrine of predestination. Un-
doubtedly from this principle the doctrine of irresistible
grace follows; for according to it man derives all his
goodness from a source beyond himself; and with this
doctrine of grace, predestination. But what kind of a truth
is this principle that God is the Author of all good? an
absolute or an imperfect truth ? Plainly the latter. There
is, indeed, a principle of humility in our nature, whether
belonging to us as fallen creatures, or necessary to the

1 That no future event can be certainly
foreknown whose existence is con-
tingent, and without all necessity, may
he proved thus : it is impossible for a
thing to be certainly known to any in-
tellect without evidence . . . But no
understanding, created or uncreated, can

see evidence where there is none . . .
But if there be "a future event whose
existence is contingent without all ne-
cessity, the future existence of the
event Is absolutely without evidence. —
Edwards, " On Freedom of Will," part 2.
sect 12.

32 EXAMINATION OF THE [CHAP. II.

very relation of dependence implied in created being, which
leads us to disown any source of good within ourselves.
The enlightened moral being has an instinctive dread of
appropriating any good that he may see in himself to
himself. This is a great fact in human nature. Our hearts
bear witness to it. We shrink from the claim of originating
good. If the thought rises up in our minds, we put it
down, and are afraid of entertaining it. As soon as we
have done a good action, we put it away from us ; we try
not to think of it. Thus praise is a mixture of pleasure and
pain : the first motion in our minds of pure pleasure is im-
mediately checked by fear : we are afraid of the conscious-
ness of being praised, and wish to cast it out of our minds.
The general manners of society, the disclaiming of merit
which always takes place as a matter of form, the readiness
to give place to others, bear witness to a great principle
of humility in human nature, by which it is ever ejecting
the source of good from itself, and falling back on some
source external and unknown. The act of prayer is a
witness to the same principle ; for we pray to God for moral
and spiritual goodness, for conversion and renewal both
for ourselves and others. Our very moral nature thus
takes us out of ourselves to God, referring us to Him as
the sole and meritorious cause of all moral action ; while
it takes upon itself the responsibility of sin. This consti-
tutional humility, this fixed tendency of our minds to an
external source of good, expressed in the formal language
of theology, becomes the doctrine of irresistible grace, from
which that of predestination immediately follows. But is
there not a counter principle to this co-existing with it in
our nature, a principle of self-appreciation and self-respect,
whereby we are able to contemplate ourselves as original
agents in good actions ?

Let us turn now from philosophical to theological predes-
tination, or to the doctrine of predestination as resting on
scriptural grounds. It must, I think, be admitted, accord-
ing to the argument stated in the last chapter, that the pre-

CHAP. II.] ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. 33

destinarian draws his conclusion naturally from the doctrine
of original sin : while at the same time, * that conclusion
must be allowed to be repugnant to natural reason and justice.
For there is no man of ordinary moral perception, who,
on being told of a certain doctrine which represented God
as ordaining one man to eternal life, and ordaining another to
eternal punishment, before either had done a single act or
was born, would not immediately say that God was repre-
sented as acting unjustly. There remains, however, for ex-
tricating us from this dilemma an examination of the sense
and manner in which the church imposes, and in which we
hold, the doctrine of original sin.

From the doctrine of the fall, then, which represents man
as morally impotent, unable by nature to do any good
thing, a lost and ruined being, the conclusion is undoubtedly
a, legitimate one, that if he is to be restored, he must be
restored by some power quite independent of and external
to him, or by that act of grace which divines call irresistible.
But to what kind of truth does the doctrine of the fall
belong ? It is evident on the mere statement of it, that it ia
not a truth which we hold in the same manner in which we
do the ordinary truths of reason and experience, Because
it is met immediately by a counter truth. Mankind has a
sense of moral power, of being able to do good actions and
avoid wrong ones, which, so far as it goes, contradicts the
doctrine of the fall. For so far as it is true that we can
do what we ought to do, our nature is not fallen ; it is equal
to the task imposed upon it; and it is our own personal
fault, and not our nature's, if it is not done. The conclusion,
then, of the necessity of an irresistible grace to produce a
good life, has in the doctrine of the fall not a complete, but
an imperfect premiss, and must follow the conditions of that
premiss. The doctrine of the fall is held under a reserve
on the side of the contrary truth ; the doctrine of irresisti-
ble grace then, must be held under the same reserve. So
far as man is fallen, he wants this grace ; but so far as he is

D

34 EXAMINATION OF THE [CHAP. II.

not fallen, he does not want it. One inference, then, from one
part of the whole premiss lies under the liability to be con-
tradicted by another from another part ; and the legitimate
issue is no whole or perfect conclusion, but only a con-
ditional and imperfect one.

The predestinarian, however, neglects this distinction, and
upon an imperfect basis raises a definite and complete doc-
trine. Or, which is the same thing, he does not see that
the basis is imperfect. He does not consent to holding the
doctrine of the fall with this reserve, but imagines he has in
this doctrine a complete truth ; and he proceeds to use it as
he would any ordinary premiss of reason or experience, and
founds a perfect argumentative structure upon it.

Thus much for the structure of the doctrine of predesti-
nation, as raised on the basis of original sin. And the same
answer may be made to the defence of the justice of the
doctrine on the same ground ; to the argument that, inas-
much as all mankind deserve eternal punishment antece-
dently to actual sin, it cannot be unjust to consign a portion
of them antecedently to it.

Undoubtedly the doctrine of original sin represents the
whole human race as subject to the extreme severity of
Divine wrath in consequence of the sin of Adam. It has
two ways or forms in which it represents this. The doctrine
is sometimes so expressed as to represent mankind as being
actually parties to the sin committed by Adam, and so con-
demned, on a principle of natural justice, for a sin which is
their own. All men are said to have sinned in Adam, and
Adam, or the old man, is spoken of as the root or principle of
evil in every human being. Sometimes it is so expressed as
to represent mankind as punished, on a principle of vicarious
desert, for the sin of their first parent, regarded as another
person from themselves.1 But whichever of these two modes

1 Quanto magis prohiberi [a bap- I natus nihil peccavit, nisi quod secundum
tismo] non debet [infans] qui recens | Adam carnaliter natus contagium mortis

CHAP. II.] ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. 35

of stating the doctrine of original sin is adopted, it is evident
that in dealing with it, we are dealing with a mystery, not
with an ordinary truth of reason and nature. If we adopt
the former mode, it is contradictory to common reason, ac-
cording to which one man cannot be thus 'the same with
another, and commit a sin before he is born. If we adopt
the latter, it is contradictory to our sense of justice, ac-
cording to which one man ought not to be punished for
another man's sin Under either form, then, we are dealing
with a mystery, and that which is described in this doctrine
as having taken place with respect to mankind, has taken
place mysteriously, not after the manner of common matter
of fact.

And this distinction, it must be observed, is necessary not
only to guard what we build upon the doctrine of original
sin, but for the defence of the doctrine itself. This doctrine
is sometimes called an unjust one, and this charge of
injustice is sometimes met by an attempt to reduce and
qualify the statement itself of the doctrine ; as if it attri-
buted only negative consequences to the sin of Adam — a loss
of perfection, a withdrawal of some supernatural aids. But
such a qualification of the doctrine is contrary to the plain
language of Scripture, as well as that of catholic writers.
The proper defence of the doctrine is not a limitation of its
statements, but a distinction as to the sense in which these
statements are to be held. When this distinction has been
drawn, objectors may exhibit as forcibly and vividly as they
will the paradoxical nature of these statements ; they gain
nothing by doing so. We may be asked how it is possible
that God should be angry with innocent infants, should
condemn persons before they are born to the torments of

antiquse prima nativitate contraxit, qui
ad reraissam peccatorum accipiendam
hoc ipso facilius accedit, quod illi re-
mittuntur -non propria sed aliena pec-
cata (Cyprian, Ep. ad Fidum, 64. ed.

Oxon.) The more common and re-
cognised mode however of expressing the
doctrine is that which represents man-
kind as having sinned in Adam, and
having been parties in the act. — NOTE VI.

D 2

36

EXAMINATION OF THE

[CHAP. II.

hell, and other like questions; but with the aid of this
distinction it is easy to see that such objections suppose an
entirely different mode of holding such statements, from that
which every reasonable believer adopts. We are not to
measure these mysterious consequences of the sin of Adam
by human analogies, as if the act of God in visiting the sin of
Adam upon all mankind, were like the act of a human
monarch who punished a whole family or nation for the
crime of one man. They are of the order of mysterious
truths, and represent modes of Divine dealing which are
beyond the sphere of our reason.1

Upon the premiss, then, contained in the doctrine of original
sin, that all mankind deserve eternal punishment antecedently
to actual sin, it is correctly argued that it cannot be unjust
to consign a portion antecedently to it. But it must be
remembered what kind of a premiss this is. If it is a truth
of revelation that all men deserve eternal punishment in
consequence of the sin of Adam, it is a truth of our moral
nature equally certain, that no man deserves punishment
except for his own personal sin. And the one is declared
in revelation itself as plainly as the other; for it is said,
" The soul that sinneth, it shall die : the son shall not bear
the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the
iniquity of the son ; the righteousness of the righteous shall
be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon
him."2 It is a truth, then, of reason and Scripture alike
that no man is responsible for another's sin: and so far as

1 Le peche" originel est folie devant
les homines ; mais on le donne pour
tel. Vous ne me devez done pas re-
proclier le defaut de raison en cette
doctrine, puisque je le donne pour etre
sans raison. Mais cette folie est plus
sage que toute la sagesse des hommes ;
sapientius est hominibus . Car, sans cela,
que dira-t-on qu'est I'homme ? Tout
son ef-at depend de ce point imper-
ceptible. Et comment s'en fut-il ape^u
par sa raison, puisque c'est une chose
au-dessus de sa raison ; et que sa raison,
bien loin de I'inventer par ses voies, s'en

eloigne quand on le lui presente. — Pas-
cal (ed. Faugeres), v. ii. p. 106.

Nous ne concevons ni 1'etat glorieux
d'Adam, ni la nature de son peche, ni
la transmission qui s'en est faite en
nous. Ce sont choses qui se sont passees
dans 1'etat d'une nature toute differente
de la n6tre, et qui passent notre capa-
cite presente. — p. 369. '

Jeremy Taylor loses sight of this
principle of interpretation in his argu-
ment on Original Sin. — NOTE VII.

2 Ezek. xviii. '20. :

CHAP. II.] ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. 37

this is true at all, it is universally true1, applying as
much to the case of Adam's sin, as to that of any other
man. For though God suspends the operation of general
laws on occasions, such laws are only modes of proceed-
ing in the physical world. Moral truths do not admit of
exceptions. The premiss, then, on which we proceed
in this question is a divided one; and if the predestin-
arian from one part of it concludes the justice of his doc-
trine, his opponent can, from the other, conclude the con-
trary. If the mystery of our responsibility for the sin of
Adam justifies his scheme, the truth of our exclusive respon-
sibility for our own sins condemns it.

Both in structure and defences, then, the doctrine of
predestination rests on an imperfect premiss, and can only
be held as imperfect truth ; for we cannot build more upon
a basis than it can bear, and from what is conditional and
incomplete extract what is absolute and determinate. But
the predestinarian holds the premiss itself as complete and
perfect, overlooking the contrary one to which it is opposed ;
and therefore raises upon it a complete and determinate
doctrine. He does not consider, in the first instance, that
the fall of man is, however clearly revealed to us, but
one side of the whole truth as regards human nature ; that
it is mysterious, as distinguished from intelligible truth.
He should revise the whole sense and manner in which he
holds this doctrine.

1 Jeremy Taylor's argument is sound
so far as he insists that the case of
original sin should not be treated as an
exception to God's ordinary justice.
" When your lordship had said that
* my arguments for the vindication of
God's goodness and justice are sound
and holy,' your hand run over it again,
and added ' as abstracted from the case
of original sin.' But why should this
be abstracted from all the whole eco-
nomy of God, from all His other dis-
pensations ? Is it in all cases of the
world unjust for God to impart our

father's sins to us, unto eternal dam-
nation ; and is it otherwise in this
only ? " — Vol. ix. p. 383.

It is evidently wrong to treat the
case of original sin as an exception, in
one particular instance, to God's ordinary
justice ; for there can be no justifiable
exception to the rule of justice. All
God's acts must be just. It must be
treated as a mystery, something un-
known, and against which, on that
account, we can bring no charge of
injustice. For before we can call an act
unjust, we must know what the act is.

D 3

38 EXAMINATION OF THE [CHAP. II.

To turn from reasoning to Scripture. Predestination
comes before us in Scripture under two aspects, as a truth
or doctrine, and as a feeling, and under both the conclusion
is of that indeterminate character which has been described
here as its proper and legitimate one.

1. The general conclusion of Scripture on this question,
considered as a question of abstract truth, is indeterminate.
There exists undoubtedly in Scripture, as was observed in
the last chapter, a large body of language in which man is
spoken of as a lost and ruined creature, and impotent by
nature for good. And in this state he is pronounced to be
saved by an act of Divine grace alone. And this language,
as has been explained, is substantially the assertion of pre-
destination ; because we have only to add to it the acknow-
ledged truth of God's eternal predetermination of all His
acts, in order to make it such. And in addition to this
general body of language, particular passages (such, especially,
as the eighth and ninth chapters of the Epistle to the Romans)
assert the express doctrine of predestination in such a way
that we cannot escape from their force except by a subtle
and evasive mode of explanation, which would endanger the
meaning of all Scripture. The terms elect and predestinated
in Scripture mean, according to their natural interpretation,
persons who have been chosen by God from all eternity to
be called, justified, or made righteous, and finally glorified.1
But Scripture is two-sided on this great question. If one
set of passages, taken in their natural meaning, conveys the
doctrine of predestination, another conveys the reverse.
The Bible, in speaking of mankind, and addressing them on
their duties and responsibilities, certainly speaks as if all had
the power to do their duty or not, when laid before them ;
nor would any plain man receive any other impression from
this language, than that the moral being had freewill, and
could determine his own acts one way or another. So that,
sometimes speaking one way, and sometimes another, Scrip -

NOTK VIII.

CHAP. II.] ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. 39

ture, as a whole, makes no assertion, or has no determinate
doctrine on this subject.

To some persons, perhaps, such an estimate of the general
issue of Scripture language on this subject, may seem de-
rogatory to Holy Scripture ; because it appears, at first
sight, to be casting blame upon language, to say that it is
self-contradictory ; the form of such an assertion suggesting
that the expression of something definite was aimed at, but
that the language fell short of its aim. But it will not, upon
consideration, be found that any such consequence attaches
to this estimate of Scripture language. For though Scrip-
ture is certainly said not to be consistent, and, therefore, not
to give support to a determinate doctrine of predestination,
it is not said that the expression of any determinate doctrine
was designed. And, therefore, the assertion made is not
that Scripture has fallen phort of an object which it aimed
at ; rather, it is quite consistent with Scripture having most
completely and successfully attained its object.

Were the nature of all truth such as that it could be
expressed — that is, put into statement or proposition, to the
effect that such is or is not the case, explicitness and con-
sistency would be always requisite for language; because
real expression is necessarily explicit and consistent with
itself. All intelligible truths — matters of fact, for example —
are capable of expression ; and therefore, in the case of such
truths, explicit statement is necessary, and contradiction is
ruinous. But it is not the case that all truth can be
expressed. Some truths of revealed religion cannot be
stated without contradiction to other truths, of which reason
or the same revelation informs us, and, therefore, cannot be
stated positively and absolutely without becoming, in the
very act of statement, false.

The truth of absolute predestination cannot be stated
without contradiction to the Divine justice and man's free
agency. It belongs, then, to that class of truths which does
not admit of statement. It is an imperfect truth — that is, a

» 4

40 EXAMINATION OF THE [CHAP. II.

truth imperfectly apprehended by us. There is a tendency,
as has been said, to a truth on this subject, but this tendency
never becomes a conclusion : and an idea which is true, as
far as it does advance, never does advance to any natural limit.
The intellect stops short and rests in suspense, not seeing its
way, and the line of thought, though it may admit of such a
completion as will make it a truth, is not a truth yet, and
cannot be made a proposition.

But with respect to this kind of truth which is only in
tendency, and does not admit of statement, if anything is to
be said at all, such contradictory or double language only can
be employed as Scripture does employ on the subject of
predestination. Consistent language would do more than,
indeed the very reverse of what was wanted, inasmuch as
it would state positively. Inconsistency could certainly
be avoided by saying nothing at all, but that mode of
avoiding inconsistency could not be adopted here, because
there is a defective and incomplete truth to be expressed in
some such way as is practicable. Something, therefore, is to
be said. But to say something, and yet on the whole to
make no positive statement, to express suitably such indeter-
minate truth, what is to be done but first to assert the truth
and then by counter-statement to bring round indefiniteness
again ; thus carrying thought a certain way without bringing
it to any goal, and giving an inclination and a direction to
ideas without fixing them.

2. Predestination comes before us in Scripture as a
feeling or impression upon the mind of the individual.
All conscious power, strength, energy, when combined with
a particular aim, tend to create the sense of a destiny —
an effect with which we are familiar in the case of many
remarkable persons. A man who feels in himself the
presence of great faculties which he applies to the attain-
ment of some great object, not unnaturally interprets the
very greatness of these faculties as a providential call to
such an application of them, and a pledge and earnest of a

CHAP. II.] ARGUMENT FOE PREDESTINATION. 41

successful issue. Thus, in proportion to the very strength and
energy of his own will, he regards himself as but a messenger
from, an instrument of, a Higher Power; he sees in himself
but a derived agency, an impulse from without. It seems
necessary that he should refer those extraordinary forces,
which he feels working within him, to some source beyond
the confines of his own narrow existence, and connect
them with the action of the invisible Supreme Power
in the universe. He is in a sense, in which other persons
are not, a mystery to himself; and to account for so much
power in so small and frail a being, he refers it to the unknown
world in which reside the causes of all the great operations
of nature. This is the way in which he expresses his own
sense and consciousness of remarkable powers; he would
have regarded an ordinary amount of power as his own,
but because he has so much more, he alienates it, and
transfers it to a source beyond himself. Thus heroes and
conquerors in heathen times have sometimes even imagined
themselves to be emanations from the Deity. But a common
result has been the idea of a destiny, which they have had
to fulfil. And this idea of a destiny once embraced, as it is
the natural effect of the sense of power, so in its turn adds
greatly to it. The person as soon as he regards himself as pre-
destined to achieve some great object, acts with so much
greater force and constancy for the attainment of it ; he is
not divided by doubts, or weakened by scruples or fears ; he
believes fully that he shall succeed, and that belief is the
greatest assistance to success. The idea of a destiny in a
considerable degree fulfils itself.

The idea of destiny then, naturally arising out of a sense
of power, it must be observed that this is true of the moral
and spiritual, as well as of the natural man, and applies to
religious aims and purposes, as well as to those connected
with human glory. A strong will in moral things, a
determination to resist the tendencies of corrupt nature, a
sustained aim at the perfect life — this whole disposition of

42 EXAMINATION OF THE [CHAP. II.

mind does, if recognised and contemplated in himself by the
possessor, in proportion to its extent create a sense of a
spiritual destiny ; and the Christian in his own sphere, as the
great man of the world in his, feels himself marked out for a par-
ticular work and the final reward which is to follow it. Accor-
ding to his calculation of his resources is his conviction that he
shall attain his object ; and from the calculation that he will,
the sense that he is destined to, succeed almost immediately
arises. Not that this result need take place in all Christian
minds, for there are differences of natural character as well
as of moral power which would affect it. Some minds are
constitutionally more self-contemplative than others, and have
before them their own condition and prospects, while others
pursue the same actual course with less of reflection upon them-
selves as agents. So far, however, as a man thinks definitely
of himself and of his own spiritual strength, and so far as
the result of the inspection is satisfactory, this will be the
result. He perceives in himself now that which must
ultimately overcome, and looks forward to the issue as to
the working out of a problem, the natural fruit of moral
resources already in his possession. Nor need this result be
confined to remarkable and eminent Christians. Whatever
be the degree and standard of goodness before the mind, so
far as a man definitely recognises in himself the capacity for
attaining it, so far he will have the sense of being marked
out for its attainment.

And it is evident that one whole side of Scripture en-
courages Christians in this idea. In the first place, without
imposing as necessary, Scripture plainly sanctions and en-
courages that character of mind which is self-contemplative,
or involves reflection upon self, our own spiritual state and
capacities. The more childlike temper has doubtless its own
praise ; but the other is also set forth in Scripture as a
temper eminently becoming a Christian. Indeed, placed as
we are here, with an unknown future before us, of good or
evil, and possessed by nature of the strongest self-love and

CHAP. IT.] ARGUMENT FOB PREDESTINATION. 43

desire for our own ultimate good, is it to be said for a
moment, that we" ought not to think of ourselves, our pro-
pects, the object of our existence, and our amount of re-
sources, the degree of our strength and ability to achieve it ?
Certainly, such a consideration is highly befitting our state,
and suitable to a Christian man. And accordingly the New,
as distinguished from the Old Testament, appears specially
to encourage this peculiar tone of mind, and to direct men
more to reflection upon themselves ; it recommends a grave
foresight, a prudential regard to our own ultimate hap-
piness; it promotes a deep moral self-interestedness and
spirit of calculation. The eye of the soul is turned inward
upon itself to think of its own value, and estimate its own
capacities, and prospects. " Which of you intending to build
a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the cost,
whether he have sufficient to finish it ? Or what king going
to war with another king, sitteth not down first and con-
sulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him
that cometh against him, with twenty thousand." 1 But if
a man makes the estimate which is here recommended to
him, and if he conscientiously finds it a favourable one — i. e.
if he feels himself possessed of strong moral purpose and will,
what is to prevent him from thinking that he is destined to
the end, with a view to which the estimate is made ? that he
is marked out by Providence to build this tower and
conquer this foe ? History and experience show, that the
human mind is so constituted as to receive this impression.

Accordingly, Christians are addressed in the New Testa-
ment upon this supposition. It is one of the first lessons
which the Gospel teaches us, that the ends which earthly
greatness proposes to itself, are but shadows of those to which
Christians are called ; that the conquest of sin is the true
glory of man, and the heavenly his true crown. The Chris-
tian, therefore, is addressed as one predestined to eternal

Luke xiv. 28. 31.

44 EXAMINATION OF THE [CHAP. II.

glory. He is encouraged to regard himself as a favourite of
Heaven, singled out from the world, and stamped from the
very commencement of his course with the token of future
triumph. The resolution to obtain the spiritual crown is
supposed to impart to him the same sense of a destiny, that
the consciousness of a commanding mind imparts to the man
of the world ; and the life eternal is represented as an end
assured to the individual before the foundation of the world.
His life in this world is described as a passage, laborious and
painful indeed, but still conducting him by a sure succession
of steps to this end. It obstructs and postpones rather than
involves any real hazard to his spiritual prospects ; the goal
is pledged, and he has only to go forward till he reaches it,
putting aside the hindrances as they arise. Life is to him a
purgatorial rather than a trial-state, purifying him by afflic-
tion, and exercising him by conflicts, through all which, how-
ever, he passes steadily onward with the seal of God upon him,
marking him infallibly from the very beginning as His own.
Nor is this position confined to a few eminent saints, but
supposed to be the position of all Christians, who, whatever
be the differences among themselves, are all saints in com-
parison with the world around them. This is the natural
construction of the language of S. Paul ; and as this idea of
& destiny is the result of, so in its turn it strengthens, the
moral energies of the Christian. The conviction that he is
marked out for a heavenly crown, elevates and inspires him
in the pursuit of it.

This is " the godly consideration of predestination," re-
commended in the seventeenth article of our church. The
sense of predestination which the New Testament en-
courages is connected with strength of moral principle in the
individual ; the Christian being supposed always to be
devoted to his calling, so much so that he is even by antici-
pation addressed as if he were dead to carnal desires, and in
the enjoyment of the new and heavenly life. But no idea
can be more opposed to Scripture, or more unwarrantable,

CHAP. IL ] ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. 45

than any idea of predestination separated from this con-
sciousness, and not arising upon this foundation'; the notion
of the individual that, on the simple condition which he
cannot violate, that of being the particular person which he
is, he is certain of salvation. It is not to the person simply
as such, but to the person as good and holy, that eternal life
is ordained. Does a man do his duty to God and his neigh-
bour ? Is he honest, just, charitable, pure ? If he is, and
if he is conscious of the power to continue so, so far as he
can depend on this consciousness, so far he may reasonably
believe himself to be predestined to future happiness. But
to suppose that a man may think himself predestined, not as
being good, but as being, whether good or bad, himself, is a
delusion of the devil, and the gross fallacy of corrupt sects,
that have lost sight, first of duty; and next of reason, and
have forgotten that the government of the world is moral.
The doctrine of predestination is thus, in effect, a profitable or
a mischievous doctrine, according to the moral condition of
those who receive and use it. It binds and cements some
minds, it relaxes and corrupts others. It gives an energy to
some, a new force of will, bringing out and strengthening high
aims ; it furnishes an excuse to others, already disinclined to
moral efforts, to abandon them, and follow their own worldly
will and pleasure.

The above remarks will supply a ground for judging of the
doctrine of assurance ; assurance being nothing else but the
sense of predestination here spoken of. It is evident, in the
first place, that assurance ought not to be demanded as a state
of mind necessary for a Christian ; for it can only arise legi-
timately upon a knowledge of our own moral resources and
strength ; and there is nothing to compel a Christian to have
this knowledge. He may innocently be without it. He
may do his duty without reflecting upon himself as an agent
at all; and if he does think of himself, he may inno-
cently make an erroneous estimate of his own strength.
It sometimes happens that at the time of trial a man finds
that he has more strength than he counted upon, and is sur~

46 EXAMINATION OP THE [CHAP. II.

prised at his own easy victory. Nor should it be forgotten
that the principle of humility in man is one which tends to
an Tinder-estimate of his own power and resources ; and
though to carry it to this extent is not perfection in respect
of truth and knowledge, yet our moral nature is so fine and
intricate, that it must be owned that, in the case of many
minds, there is a sort of perfection in this very imperfection ;
and one would not wish them to estimate themselves cor-
rectly ; if they did, we should feel the absence of something,
and a certain indefinable grace which attached to them
would be missed. This is one of those results which flow
from the variety which marks the Divine creation and con-
stitution of the world, whether physical or moral. Some
characters are designed to raise our affections on one plan,
others on another ; some are formed to inspire what is com-
monly called love, others respect, principally ; both being only
different forms of the scriptural principle of love. These
are diversities of His instituting who is Himself incompre-
hensible, and who has made man a type in some measure of
Himself; with a moral nature which cannot be reduced to one
criterion of right, but which attains perfection in different
forms, and satisfies our moral sense, under modes which we
cannot analyse, but to which that moral sense responds.
For human goodness is not a simple thing, but a complex ;
nor is it a measurable, but an indefinable thing ; attaining
its perfection often by seeming excesses, incorrectnesses
in the latter, and faults transmuted by the medium of the
general character into virtues. The stronger mind confides
in, the more amiable one, distrusts itself. Both are good
according to their respective standards, and therefore, on a
principle of variety, such difference is desirable. It is
desirable also, on another ground — viz. that different instru-
ments are wanted by Providence to execute its designs in the
world. Large and difficult objects can only be achieved^by
men who have confidence in themselves, and will not allow
obstacles to discourage them ; and a sense of destiny helps
these men. The tie, on the other hand, of mutual confidence,

CHAP. II.] ARGUMENT FOE PREDESTINATION.

47

is aided by self-distrust. Did none confide in themselves,
there would be none to command ; but those who do so, are
at the same time constitutionally slow to obey.

Accordingly the doctrine of assurance does not necessarily
go along with the doctrine of predestination, because it
does not follow that if a particular person is predestined
to eternal life that therefore he should have the inward
sense or feeling that he is. The Divine decree may be
conducting him by sure steps all his life through to final
glory, and he may not be aware of it ; for the only con-
dition necessary to being one of the elect, is goodness ;
and a good man may act without contemplating himself
at all, or, if he does, he may distrust himself. Predestin-
arians accordingly, both Augustine and his school, and
modern ones, have disowned the doctrine of assurance,
so far as it is maintained in it that assurance is necessary for
a Christian.1

Secondly, assurance separated from a good life, and the
consciousness of resolution to persevere in it, is unreasonable

1 As to what follows in your letter,
concerning a person's believing himself
to be in a good state, and its being pro-
perly of the nature of faith ; in this
there seems to be some real difference
between us. But perhaps there would
be none, if distinctness were well ob-
served in the use of words. If by a man's
believing that, he is in a good estate,
be meant no more that his believing
that he does believe in Christ, love God,
&c. ; I think there is nothing of the
nature of faith in it ; because knowing
or believing it depends on our imme-
diate sensation or consciousness, and not
on Divine testimony. True believers
in the hope they entertain of salvation,
make use of the following syllogism,
whosoever believes shall be saved. I be-
lieve, therefore, 8fc. Assenting to the
major proposition is properly of the na-
ture of faith, because the ground of my
assent to that is Divine testimony, but
my assent to the minor proposition, I
humbly conceive, is not of the nature
of faith, because that is not grounded on

Divine testimony, but on my own con-
sciousness. The testimony that is the
proper ground of faith is in the word
of God, Rom. x. 17., "Faith cometh of
hearing, and hearing of the word of God."
There is such a testimony given in the
word of God, as that " he that believeth
shall be saved." But there is no such
testimony in the word of God, as that
such an individual person, in such a
town in Scotland or in New England,
believes. There is such a proposition
in Scripture, as that Christ loves those
that love Him, and therefore this
every one is bound to believe or affirm.
Believing thus on Divine testimony is
properly of the nature of faith, and for
any one to doubt of it, is properly of
the heinous sin of unbelief. But there
is no such proposition in the Scripture,
nor is it any part of the gospel of Christ,
that such an individual person in
Northampton loves Christ. — Edwards,
" On the Religious Affections," Letter 2.
to Mr. Gillespie.

48 EXAMINATION OF THE [CHAP. II.

and wicked.. Thirdly, assurance united with both of these
and arising upon this foundation, is legitimate.

The sense or feeling, then, of predestination is, as has been
shown, both sanctioned and encouraged in the New Testa-
ment. But while this is plain, it is also obvious that
this is only one side of the language of the New Testament.
There is another according to which all Christians, what-
ever be their holiness, are represented and addressed as
uncertain, and feeling themselves uncertain, of final salva-
tion. They are exhorted to " work out their own salvation
with fear and trembling l " ; to " give diligence to make
their calling and election sure 2 " : and S. Paul himself
the great preacher of predestination, who, if any, had the
right to feel himself ordained to eternal life, and who said
that there " was laid up for him a crown of righteousness 3,"
also tells us of his careful self-discipline, "lest that by
any means when he had preached to others, he himself
should be a cast-a-way." 4 Indeed to any one who will
fairly examine the nature of this feeling of destiny which
we have been considering, and how far and in what mode
it is entertained, when it is entertained rationally, it will
be evident that it is not by any means an absolute or
literal certainty of mind. It is not like the perception of
an intellectual truth. It is only a strong impression, which
however genuine or rational, and, as we may say, authorized,
issues, when we try to follow it, in obscurity, and vanishes
in the haze which bounds our mental view, before the
reason can overtake it. Were any of those remarkable
men who have had it, asked about this feeling of theirs,
they would confess it was in them no absolute perception
but an impression which was consistent with a counter
feeling of doubt, and was accompanied by this latent and
suppressed opposite in their case.

Whether regarded, then, as a doctrine, or a feeling,

Phil. ii. 12. 2 2 Peter, i, 10. j 8 2 Tim. iv. 8. « 1 Cor. ix. 27.

CHAP. It.] ARGUMENT FOR PREDESTINATION. 49

predestination is not in Scripture an absolute, but an
indefinite truth. Scripture has as a whole no consistent
scheme, and makes no positive assertion; it only declares,
and bids its readers acknowledge, a mystery on this
subject. It sets forth alike the Divine Power, and man's
freewill, and teaches in that way in which alone it can
be taught, the whole, and not a part alone of truth.

50

CHAP. III.

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

FROM a general introductory statement and examination of
the argument of predestination, I turn now to the history
and formation of this doctrine as exhibited in S. Augustine's
writings. And as the Augustinian scheme of predestination
rests upon the basis of original sin, the inquiry will suitably
commence with an account of the latter doctrine. I shall
therefore devote the present chapter to a general sketch of
the Pelagian controversy : — First, the mode in which it
arose ; secondly, the main arguments involved in it ; and,
thirdly, its .bearing upon the leading doctrines of Christianity.
Antagonist systems moreover throw light upon each other,
and an inquiry into the doctrines of S. Augustine will be
aided by a previous account of the system of Pelagianism*

I. It may seem at first sight unnecessary to inquire into
the mode in which the Pelagian controversy arose, because
it appears enough to say that one side maintained, and an-
other denied, the fall of man. But the doctrine of the fall
though substantially, did not expressly or by name, form
the original subject of dispute, but was led up to by a pre-
vious question.

It has been disputed whether the Augustinian system
was a reaction from the Pelagian, or the Pelagian from
the Augustinian. Historical evidence favours the latter
assertion.1 But the dispute, whichever way decided, is not
an important one. The controversy between these two was

NOTE IX.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 51

contained in an elementary statement of Christian doctrine,
which, as soon as it came to be examined intellectually,
was certain to disclose it. The language by which the
Christian church has always expressed the truths of man's free-
will and Divine grace has been, that the one could do no good
thing without the aid of the other, nihil bonum sine gratia.
This formula satisfied the simplicity of the primitive church
as it has satisfied the uncontroversial faith of all ages ; and no
desire was felt for further expression and a more exact
truth. But it is evident that this state of theology on this
subject could not last longer than the reign of a simpler
faith. When minds began to reason upon this formula and
analyse it logically, it lost its finality, and the combination of
grace and freewill divided into two great doctrines of an ab-
solute power of freewill and an absolute power of grace.

For was the grace here asserted to be necessary for doing
any good thing, a grace which assisted only the human will
or one which controlled it ? If it was the former, it de-
pended on some action of the human will for being accepted
and used, which action therefore could not be said
without contradiction to be dependent upon it. Assisting
grace, then, must be used by an unassisted will, and there
must be some motion of the human will for good to which
Divine grace did not contribute, but which was original and
independent in the person who accepted and availed himself of
that grace. Take two men who have both equal grace
given to them, but of whom one avails himself of this grace,
while the other does not. The difference between these
two is not by the very supposition, a difference of grace ; it
is therefore a difference of original will only ; and in one
there has been a self-sprung, independent act for good, which
there has not been in the other. But how great, how
eventful a function thus attached to the unassisted human
will ? It decided the life and conduct of the man, and con-
sequently his ultimate lot, for happiness or misery. That
difference between one man and another in consequence of

E 2

52

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

which one becomes a child of Grod and daily grows in virtue
and holiness, and the other becomes a servant of sin, is no
difference into which grace even enters, but one of natural
will only. Indeed, was not the unassisted human will,
according to this doctrine, more than a real agent, the chief
agent in the work of virtue and piety ? For the general
sense of mankind has, in the case of any joint agency,
assigned the part of chief agent to the one that uses and
turns to account the action of the other. If one man
furnishes another with the means and resources for any
undertaking, and the other applies them to it, both indeed
contribute action ; but the latter is the chief contributor, and
would, in ordinary language, be called the doer of the work.
Thus to the act of learning a teacher and a learner both con-
tribute, the one by giving information, the other by appre-
hending it ; but the act of learning is the learner's rather
than the teacher's act. Apply this distinction to the case
of the human will using the assistance of Divine grace for
the work of a holy life. While the giver and the user of
that assistance are both agents in that work, the user is the
principal one.1 In cases where the use of means, if supplied,
takes place easily and as a matter of course, the result may
be properly referred to the supplier rather than the user of
them. But the act of the will in using grace is no easy
or matter-of-course one, but involves much effort and self-
denial.

The combination of grace with freewill thus issued in the
assertion of an independent freewill on the one hand, while
this logical result was avoided on the other, only by a
recourse to the opposite extreme. It was seen that an
assisting grace could only be protected by making it sorne-

1 «' Nam quando ad eundem actum
liberum concurrunt plura sine quibus
libertas agendi in actum suum exire-
non potest, non illi causae tribui debet
exercitiumactusautvoluntatis, sine qua

non potest fieri, sed illi quae nutu suo
totam machinam ad motum impellit,
aut otiosam esse sinit." — Jansen, De
Grat. Christi, p. 935.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 53

thing more than assisting, and that the will must have the
credit of the unassisted acceptance and use of it, unless it were
controlled by it. The original formula, therefore, issued on
this side in the doctrine of a controlling and irresistible
grace ; and upon these two interpretations of the primitive
doctrine rose, with their respective accompaniments and con-
sequences, the Pelagian and Augustinian systems.

Pelagianism then started with the position, that, however
necessary Divine assistance might be for a good work as a
whole, there was at the bottom a good act or movement,
which the human will was able to and must perform without
Divine assistance. And this position supplies the clue to the
solution of the Pelagian's apparently contradictory language
about grace. The Pelagian asserts the ability of nature at
one time; he asserts the necessity of grace at another.1 Now
his opponent explained this apparent inconsistency, by saying
that by grace he meant nature ; that he used the word dis-
honestly in a sense of his own, and only included in it the
natural will and endowments of man, which, as being Divine
gifts, he chose to call grace.2 And, in the same way,, he was
charged with meaning by grace only the outward means of
instruction and edification, which God had given to man in
the Bible and elsewhere, as distinct from any inward Divine
influence. This is the explanation of the Pelagian grace, as
Lex et Natura, which we meet so often in S. Augustine.
But with all deference to so great a name, I cannot think
that this adverse explanation is altogether justified by the
language of the Pelagians themselves. A verbal confusion
of nature with grace is undoubtedly to be found there ; nor
is such a confusion in itself unpardonable. In one sense

1 Anathemo qui vel sentit vel dicit
gratiam Dei non solum per singulas
boras, aut per singula momenta, sed
etiam per singulos actus nostros non
esse necessarian!. — Pelagiusap. Aug. De
Grat. Christi, n. 2. He repeats the

n. 5.29. 33.; Contra Duas. Ep.l. 4.n.l3.
On the other hand he says, Posse in
natura, velle in arbitrio, esse in effectu
locamus.— De Grat. Christi, n. 5.

2 De Natura et Gratia, n. 12. 59.;
De Grat. Christi, n. 3.

same statement often. — De Grat. Christi,

E 3

54

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

[CnAr. III.

nature is grace ; freewill itself, and all the faculties and affec-
tions of our nature being the gifts of God; while, on the
other hand, grace may not erroneously be called nature, in-
asmuch as when received, it becomes a power which we have,
and which belongs to us ; especially acting, as it does, too,
through the medium of our natural faculties, our conscience,
and good affections. And in this sense of nature, the
Pelagians asserted that nature was able to fulfil the law —
Posse in naturd1 — a statement, which so understood, is no
more than a truism ; nature comprehending, in this sense of
the word, all the moral power, from whatever quarter, of
which a man is possessed, grace included. Again, the
Pelagian, in his explanations of grace and its operations,
certainly dwells most commonly on the outward helps
which revelation and Providence afford to man in the path of
obedience. But while he is so far open to the charge of his
opponent, it does not appear that he limits the idea of grace,
either to nature in the sense of the powers with which man
was originally endowed at his creation, or to the outward
helps of the Divine law. On the contrary, he includes in
it those internal Divine impulses and spiritual assistances
commonly denoted by the word.2 This is the natural inter-
pretation of his language; nor is there anything in his
argument, as a controversialist, to require the exclusion of
such grace. The Pelagian maintained the power of the
human will * but if he admitted the need of the Divine assist-
ance at all to it, as he did in the shape of the created affec-
tions, and general endowments of our nature, there was no
reason why he should limit such assistance to that creative

1 To the objection of the Catholic,
" Potest quidem esse, sed per gratiam
Dei," Pelagius replies, "Ego ne ab-
nuo qui rem confitendo, confitear ne-
cesse est et per quod res effici potest ;
an tu qui rem negando, et quicquid illud
est, per quod res efficitur procul dubio
negas . . . Sive per gratiam, sive per
adjutorium, sive per misericordiam, et

quicquid illud est per quod esse homo
sine peccato potest, confitetur, quisquis
rem ipsam confitetur." — De Natura et
Gratia, n. 11.

8 " Sanctificando, coercendo, provo-
cando, illuminando. " — Op. Imp. 1. 3.
c. 106. "Dum nos multiformi et
ineffabili dono gratia; ccelestis illu-
minat." — De Grat. Christi, c. 7.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY?. 55

one. The distinction of prior and posterior, grace creative
and grace assisting the creature already made, was of no im-
portance in this respect. There was no difference, again, in
principle between inward and outward grace ; and any one
who acknowledged Divine assistance, by means of instruc-
tion, warning, and exhortation addressed to us from without,
would have no difficulty in acknowledging it in the shape
of spiritual incitement and illumination carried on within.
The clue, then, to the solution of the Pelagian's apparently
contradictory language respecting grace, is rather to be
found in the logical necessity there was for an unassisted act
of the human will, in accepting and using Divine assistance.
Admitting Divine grace to be wanted, but regarding the use
of it as independent of grace, claiming some real power for
unassisted nature, though not all, he was led into a double and
inconsistent language, which sometimes asserted the necessity
of grace, and sometimes the ability of nature alone.

Indeed, it is clear from the argument of the book De
Gratia Christi, that, whatever objection Augustine may
raise to the pelagian doctrine of grace, on the ground that
grace in it only means Lex et Natura, his main objection to
that doctrine is, not that it maintains an external grace as
distinguished from an internal, or a grace creative as dis-
tinguished from additional to created nature, but that it
maintains a grace which depends entirely on an independent
act of the will for its acceptance and use, as distinguished
from a grace which supplies that act and secures its own use.
Pelagius defines what the function of grace in his idea is,
and he confines it to that of assisting the power of the
natural will — possibilitatem adjuvat1 ; the phrase supposes

1 " Nos sic tria ista distinguimus, et
certum velut in ordinem digesta parti-
raur. Primo loco posse statuimus, secun-
do velle, tertio esse. Posse in natura,
velle in arbitrio, esse in effectu locamus.
Primum illud, id est, posse, ad Deum
proprie pertmet, qui illud creaturae sute

contulit: duo vero reliqua, hoc est,
velle et esse ad hominem referenda sunt,
quia de arbitrii fonte descendunt. Ergo
in voluntate et in opere bono laus ho-
minis est ; imo et hominis et Dei, qui
ipsius voluntatis et operis possibilitatem
dedit, quique ipsam possibilitatem gra-

E 4

56

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

a foundation of independent power in the will, to which
grace is an addition. Augustine, on the other hand, says it
is more than this, and condemns this definition as insufficient
and insulting to the Divine Power. This is the question,
then, to which the whole argument is substantially reduced,
and on which the whole book hinges; and it is one con-
cerned, not with the circumstances, so to speak, of grace, as
the other distinctions were, but with its substantial nature,
its relation to the human will ; whether that relation is one
of dependence upon the will for its use, or not.1 This is the
ultimate difference between the two ; and it must be seen,
that it does make all the difference in the nature and quality
of Divine grace.

The charge against the Pelagian that he held human
merit always to precede grace, appears to be alike without
satisfactory foundation. He disowned the position himself2,
nor was it necessary for his argument. Grace is, indeed,
sometimes taken in a final sense, for the designed effect of
assisting grace; and stands for an ultimate spiritual habit,
as when we speak of the graces of the Christian character,
the grace of charity, and the like ; and in that sense, if the

tiae suse adjuvat semper auxilio." — Pe-
lagius de Lib. Arb. apud Aug. de
Grat. Christi, n. 5.

Thus Julian : " Adsunt tamen ad-
jutoria gratis Dei quae in parte virtutis
nunquam destituunt voluntatera : cu-
jus licet innumerae species, tali tamen
semper moderatione adhibentur, ut
nunquam liberum arbitrium locopellant,
sed prjEbeant adminicula, quamdiu eis
voluerit inniti ; cum tamen non oppri-
mant reluctantem animum." — Op. Imp.
1. iii. c. 114.

1 Bradwardine and Jansen thus under-
stand the Pelagian doctrine of grace:
" Non enim existimandum est solam
legem atque doctrinam esse possibili-
tis adjutorium. . . . Pelagiani motus
indeliberatos bonos sub gratia complexi
sunt : Nam sive motus illos a Deo con-
ditos inseri, sive mente per istam gra-
am pulsata, ulterius naturaliter a corde

proficisci decernerent, eorum causam
Deum adjuvantem esse sentiebant."
Jansen, De Grat. Christi. p. 127. NOTE
X.

2 " Ostendit quomodo resistere debea-
mus Diabolo,siutiquesubditisimus Deo,
ejusque faciendo voluntatem divinam
mereamur gratiam." — Pelagiusap. Aug.
De Gratia Christi, c. 22. Augustine
argues incorrectly from this passage that
Pelagius holds that merit must precede
grace ; whereas he only says it may, —
that, grace may be obtained by merit, or
good works. On the other hand Pela-
gius at the Synod of Diospolis " dam-
navit eos qui decent gratiam Dei
secundum merita noslra dari." — De
Grat. Christi, c. 3., and Ben. Ed. pre-
face, c. 10. — Nor is there anything in
the Pelagian statements to show that
assisting grace was considered to wait
till human merit earned it.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

57

human will is to have any share in the matter, grace must
be the consequence in part of human merit. As the crown
of human efforts, it supposes such efforts having been made.
But it would be absurd to maintain that grace, in the sense
of assisting grace, requires a previous effort of the human
will for obtaining it, and that the individual must show
goodness before he receives the Divine assistance to be good.
All Christians allow that such grace is given to sinners in
the very depth of their sin, and in order to draw them away
from it : nor does the admission at all affect the Pelagian
position of the independent power of the will ; for this would
be exerted in the acceptance and use of such grace. I will
add that this distinction between the grace which crowns
and that which stimulates the efforts of the will explains the
apparently contradictory language used by divines to explain
the combination of freewill with grace ; sometimes the com-
mencement of the spiritual life being attributed to the human
will and its completion to grace, and sometimes its completion
being attributed to the human will and its commencement to
grace. Under both modes of speaking, the power of the
human will is secured : but under the one the will uses an
assisting, under the other it earns a crowning grace.1

Thus apparently sound and forced upon reason by the
necessity of the case, this position of an ultimate unassisted
strength in the natural will, was, nevertheless, the root of
all the errors, the extravagances, and the impieties of Pela-
gianism. It was a position logically true, indeed, and such

1 The general language of the Pelagians
allows an initiative grace (provocans,
excitans), and maintains a crowning
will:| "Quod possumus bonum facere
ill i us est qui hoc posse donavit; quod
vero bene agimus nostrum est." — De
Grat. Christi, c. 4. The Semipelagians
speak of an initiative will and a crowning
grace : " Priorem volunt obedientiam
esse quam gratiam, ut initium salutis
ex eo qui salvatur, non ex eo credendutn
sit stare qui salvat, et voluntas hominis

divinae gratiae sibi pariat opem." — Ep.
Prosperi. inter Aug. Ep. 225. " Quod
enim dicitur. Crede et salvus eris ;
unum horum exigi asserunt, aliud
offerri ; ut propter id quod exigitur si
redditum fuerit, id quod offertur
deinceps tribuatur." — Ep. Hilarii. apud
Aug. Ep. 226. Julian the Pelagian,
speaks of a certain state of perfection as
a crowning grace : " ut hoc ipsum non
peccare premium censeamus." — Op.
Imp. Contra Jul. 1. 2. c. 166.

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

as could not be denied without admitting the alternative of
irresistible grace or necessitarianism. Nor had it been
maintained with due modesty and reserve., as being one side
of the whole mysterious truth relating to human action,
would it have been otherwise than orthodox. But to main-
tain absolutely and definitely an ultimate power in the
human will to move aright independently of God, was a
position untrue, and shocking to natural piety ; a separation
of the creature from the Creator, which was opposed to the
very foundation of religion. And to proceed to argue upon
such a truth, and develop it, as if it were a complete and
ascertained premiss, upon which a system could be erected,
was to mistake its nature, and to run at once into obliquity
and error. But this was what the Pelagians did.1 For from
this position the conclusion was immediately drawn that
every man had the power of fulfilling the whole law. The
will was able to make use of grace ; but every man, as the
Divine justice required, had sufficient grace given him.
For confining sometimes, as a matter of language, the term
grace to such higher grace, or grace par-excellence) as was
given under the gospel, — such grace as facilitated goodness
rather than was necessary for it 2 ; the Pelagians held really
that every one had in the sense of natural or other endow-
ments, providential aids, spiritual impulses, sufficient Divine
assistance or grace to enable him to do his duty. Every
man, therefore, having sufficient grace, and the absolute
power to use it, had the power to fulfil the whole law.

1 " Quodpossumus omnebonumfacere,
dicere, cogitare, illius est qui hoc posse
donavit : quod vero bene vel agimus, vel
loquimur, vel cogitamus nostrum est, quia
haec omnia vertere in malum possumus."
— Pelagius, ap. Aug. De Gratia Christi,
n. 5.

2 " In omnibus est liberum arbitrium,
aequaliter per naturam, sed in solis
Christianis juvatur a gratia." — Letter
of Pelagius to Innocent, ap. Aug.
de Gratia Christi, n. 33.

"Ideo Dei gratiam hominibus dari

utquod facere per liberum jubentur arbi-
trium facilius possint implere per gra-
tiam."— Pelagius de Lib. Arb. ap. Aug.
Epist 186. n. 35.

" Sed formidantes multitudinem
Christianam, Pelagianum verbum sup-
ponitis, et quaerentibus a nobis, quare
mortuus sit Christus, si natura vel
lex efficit justos ; respondetis ut hoc
ipsum facilius fleret, quasi posset, quam-
vis difficilius fieri tamen, sive per
naturam sive per legem." — Op. Imp.
Contra Jul. 1. 2. c. 198.

CHAP. III.]

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

59

The doctrine of the perfectibility of man in this life was
held, indeed, by the opponents of Pelagius, as well as by
himself, but upon a totally different ground from that on
which he based it. Augustine maintained that no limits
were to be put to the power of Divine grace ; but that it
might please God in a particular instance so to control
and direct all the motions of a human will, that the person
might even in this life become perfect.1 The admission,
however, is made with much hesitation ; he confesses such
a case would be a miracle, as being contrary to all the
established laws of the operation of grace ; and, what is
most important, he rests the possibility of it solely upon the
ground of grace, or the Divine power. Pelagius, on the
other hand, naturalised this perfectibility, making it part of
the constitution of man, and drawing it from the essential
power of the human will.2 However rare, therefore, its
attainment might be, perfection, upon his system, was attain-
able by every one : indeed some he asserted had actually
attained it ; an assertion from which S. Augustine shrank.
The possibility admitted in theory, his practical belief with-
drew the admission, and bound man, as long as he remains
in this mortal state to sin, obliged to cry with the Apostle
"who shall deliver me from this death," and by the simple
profession of " having no sin" infallibly convicted of falsehood
and pride.

1 NOTE XI.

2 " Ante omnia interrogandus est
qui negat hominem sine peccato esse
posse, quid sit quodcunque peccatum,
quod vitari potest, an quod vitari non
potest. Si quod vitari non potest, pec-
catum non est; si quod vitari potest,
potest homo sine peccato esse quod
vitari potest. . . . Iterum quaerendum
est peccatum voluntatis an necessitatis
est. Si necessitatis est, peccatum non
est ; si voluntatis est, vitari potest. . . .
Iterum quaerendum est, utruinne debeat
homo sine peccato esse. Procul dubio
debet. Si debct, potest; si non potest,

ergo nee debet ; et si nee debet homo
esse sine peccato, debet ergo cum pec-
cato esse; et jam peccatum non erit, si
illud debere constiterit. Aut si hoc
etiam dici absurdum est, confiteri
necesse est debere hominem sine peccato
esse, et constat eum non aliud debere
quam potest. . . . Iterum quaerendum
est quomodo non potest homo sine
peccato esse, voluntate an natura. Si
natura, peccatum non est ; si voluntate,
perfacile potest voluntas voluntate mu-
tari." — Pelagius ap. Aug.De Perfectione
Justitia, c. 2, 3. 6.

40 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

The original position respecting the will thus led im-
mediately to the other great question : and we find our-
selves thrown at once on the great subject of the Pelagian
controversy. Such a doctrine of the power of the human
will was evidently opposed to the doctrine of the fall :
for such a will was evidently not a corrupt, but a sound
will, inasmuch as it could perform its proper function.
It may be doubtful, therefore, whether Pelagius in the
first instance meant to attack the catholic doctrine of the
fall ; he certainly showed reluctance to come into express
collision with it, and resisted the logical strain upon him :
his attitude was at the first a defensive ratherthan ag-
gressive one, as if, provided the church would let him
hold what he considered to be the plain facts of human
nature, he did not wish to interfere with any received
doctrine : and his answers at the Synod of Diospolis l
are perhaps too summarily attributed to duplicity rather
than a real indisposition to advance beyond his original
statements, though his disciple Celestius had been bolder.
But the assertion of such a freewill as Pelagius asserted
was in itself a denial of the fall, and therefore necessarily
carried him, whatever his direct intention at first was,
to the express denial of that doctrine. And thus the
question assumed that shape in which it has come down
to us in the Pelagian controversy.

II. With this introduction, then, I come to my second
head, and shall endeavour to state in succession, and with
such explanation as may be necessary, the main posi-
tions and arguments involved in that controversy ; and
which may be conveniently placed under three general
heads — the power of the will, the nature of virtue and
vice, and the Divine justice.

1. The first and most obvious argument against the

1 Benedictine Editor's preface to Augustine's Antipelagian Treatises, c. x.

CHAP. IIT.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

61

doctrine of the corruption of human nature, was contained
in that power of the will which has been just now described.
Here nature seemed to bear testimony to its own com-
petency, and the doctrine of its corruption to be contra-
dicted by a plain fact ; for we are conscious of freewill,
power of choice., and self-determination. The Pelagians
appealed to these instinctive convictions, and pointed out
their contrariety to the doctrine of a captive and corrupted
nature. Nor was their argument unsound had they been
content to direct it against an absolute doctrine of human
corruption and captivity. But they pressed it too far and lay
more weight upon it than it could bear. They fancied them-
selves in possession of the whole ground because they had this
sense of freedom on their side. But S. Augustine could ap-
peal, on the other side, to a representation of human nature,
which carried with it its own evidence, and met a response in
the human heart — "To will is present with me, but how
to perform that which is good I find not. For the good
that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not
that I do. ... I see a law in my members, warring against
the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the
law of sin." l The sense of freedom is a true part of human

1 "In medium procedit homo ille qui
clamat, ' Non quod volo facio bonum,
sed quod nolo* malum hoc ago.' " —
Op. Imp. 1. 6. c! 18. "Qui per legem
quam vidit in membris suis repug-
nantem legi mentis suae et captivantem
se sub lege peccati, clamat, ' Non quod
volo,' &c. Si habet liberum arbitrium,
quare non facit bonum quod vult ? " —
L. 3. c. 1 1 2. Augustine, assuming this
captivity as an evident fact, proves ori-
ginal sin from it : " Nam si peccatum
non pertransisset, non omnis homo cum
lege peccati quse in membris est nas-
ceretur." — L. 2. c. 63. " Homo qui non
cogitas ubi sis, et in diebus malis tan-
quam in bonis coecus extolleris ; quando
erat liberum arbitrium, nondum homo
vanitati similis factus erat." — L. 3. c.
110. " Qui dicit, ' Quod nolo malum,
hoc ago,' responde utrum necessitatem

non habeat." — L. 5. c. 50. "Non ei
possibilitatis inanitas, sed necessitatis
inerat plenitudo." — L. 5. c. 59.

The Pelagians interpreted this
text as referring to the force of custom,
" Ille enim in membris legem consue-
tudinem malam vocabat, quae ab eruditis
etiam seculi dici solet secunda natura."
— Op. Imp.l. 1. c.69. An interpretation
which Augustine turned against them,
as committing them to the admission
that sin might be necessary, and yet
real sin, and so to the principle of ori-
ginal sin. " Nam et ille qui dicit, « Non
quod volo, ago,' certe secundum vos
necessitate consuetudinis premitur :
hanc autem necessitatem, ne liberum
auferatis arbitrium, eum sibi voluntate
fecisse contenditis, et tale aliquid in
natura humana factum esse non cre-
ditis."— L. 4.c. 103.; alsol. I.e. 105.; 1.

62

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

nature ; but there is also, on the other side, a sense of cap-
tivity: and as Pelagius appealed to one side of our conscious-
ness, Augustine appealed to the other.

The conscience of every enlightened man, as all confess,
bears witness to the presence of sin. But — more than this
— the enlightened conscience bears witness to a certain
impossibility of avoiding sin altogether. It is true we
are conscious of freewill, and feel we have the power of
doing right and abstaining from wrong on each occasion.
Nay, the very sense of sin depends upon this sense of
the power to avoid it ; for we do not feel responsible
for what we cannot help. But with this sense of freedom
there is also a certain sense of necessity — a perception
that sin is not wholly avoidable in this present state of
our nature. We cannot imagine an enlightened conscience
in which there would not be this inward sense : no good man
could ever possibly think that he could be without serious sin
in this world. This sense of a law working for evil in our na-
ture is a consequence and a part of goodness ; and conscience
witnesses to opposite perceptions which it cannot harmonise.
Experience, indeed, shows the great improbability of perfec-
tion in this life, but the enlightened conscience speaks to its
impossibility, because it sees a law of our present nature
to which it is opposed. Experience shows that men never
have been perfect, but not that they could not be : but the
enlightened conscience would, upon the mere hearing of some
or other human being who was perfect, justify the setting
down the assertion as in itself absurd and incredible ; con-
taining, according to the scriptural criterion, its own re-
futation, se If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us." But what is this but a sense
of necessity on the side of evil ; for if it is simply absurd

4. c. 91. " The body of this death was
interpreted of the guilt of past sin."
" Quis me liberavit a reatu peccatorum

meorum quse commisi, cum vitari
potuissent." — Op. Imp, 1. 1. c. 67.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 63

that the state of man in this life should not be sinful,
it must be necessary that it should be.

From this sense of freedom on the one side, and of captivity
on the other, proceeds that mixture and opposition in our
nature, that whole ambiguous state of mind of which man is
so deeply conscious in moral action ; that subtle discord in the
will ; that union of strength and weakness. Take the case of
any action above the standard of ordinary practice that a
man may propose to himself to do ; with what a mixture of
feelings does he approach it ? He feels, on the one hand,
that he is certainly able to do it, and can exert a force over
himself sufficient for the purpose; and he prepares for the
turning point of a resolve under this impression. On the
other hand, the level of ordinary practice pulls him down,
and the weight of habit rests upon him. Nature falls back,
the will is unnerved, and invincible repugnance and disin-
clination contradict his natural sensations of moral power.
He doubts the sincerity of these sensations, as if, however
innate, they were specious and deceptive. Can he, then,
really do the good act ? Has he freewill or not ? He alter-
nates between both impressions, unable to deny his freedom,
yet apparently unable to use it, feeling no constraint, yet
inferring from the difficulties of the case some unfelt one,
existing too deep in nature for actual apprehension, and only
showing itself in its effects. Such is the inward struggle of
the imperfect moral agent described by St. Paul.

Take, again, the known power of custom over the will. A
man under the most inveterate bad habit, has on every suc-
cessive occasion the feeling of a power to do the action op-
posed to it. However long and uniformly he may have acted
on the side of his habit, the very next time he has to act he
appears to himself to be able — though it be no more than
naked, bare, ability — still able, I say, to do what he has
never yet done. But it Ts evident that such an idea of
power is not to be taken as a certain exponent of the fact.
There is an idea of power, indeed, which represents faithfully

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

the reality, a conscious strength of purpose, which is ge-
nerally the result of moral preparation. But this is alto-
gether a distinct sort of conviction from that mere sense of
bare ability to do a thing which is now referred to.

The sense of freedom then in our nature, with whatever
force and vividness it may appeal to us, is not to be relied
upon absolutely, as if it represented our whole state. A
larger insight into ourselves, a general survey of facts, mo-
difies the result of the impression, and does not sanction the
profession of absolute power. But the Pelagian relied upon
this sense of bare ability, as if it were an infallible footing
for the most complete conclusion, and betrayed that want of
due and circumspect distrust which never forsakes the true
philosophical mind, that knows how nature abounds in pit-
falls to catch the unwary; and, however considerate of, is
ever jealous of, appearances. He trusted with blind con-
fidence a single impression and instinct, so blindly indeed,
as to put aside the plainest facts, when they interfered
with it.

For nothing can show more strongly the reckless and
hasty faith, which the Pelagians reposed in this one impres-
sion, than that they supported it against the most palpable
facts connected with nature and habit ; arguing, that sin not
being a substance, but only an act which took place and
was then over, could not by any amount of repetition affect
this power and impair freewill l ; but that a man after any
amount and duration of sin, had as much freewill as ever.

1 "Liberum arbitrium et post pec-
cata" tarn plenum est quam fuit ante
peccata." — Julian ap. Op. Imp. 1. I.e.
91. " Nos dicimus peccato hominis non
naturae statum mutari sed merit! qua-
litatem, id est et in peccato bane esse
liberi arbitrii naturam, per quam potest
a peccato desinere, quae fuit in eo ut
posset a justitia deviare." — c. 96.
" Primo de eo disputandum est quod
per peccatum debilitata dicitur et im-
mutata natura. Unde ante omnia quae-

rendum puto quid sit peccatum, sub-
stantia aliqua, an omnino substantia
carens nomen, quo non res, non exis-
tentia, non corpus aliquid, sed perperam
facti actus exprimitur. Credo ita est.
Et si ita est quomodo potuit humanam
debilitare vel mutare naturam quod
substantia caret." — Pelagius ap. Aug.
De Nat. et Grat. n. 21. " Materiam
peccati esse vindictam, si ad hoc pec-
cator infirmatus est ut plura peccaret."
— n. 24.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 65

The reason was that, as I have just stated, the sense of bare
ability continues in spite of any length of habit ; on which
sense the Pelagian absolutely relied. But this was not a
reasonable, but a fanatical 1 doctrine of freewill ; a gross
delusion, belonging to that class and rank of absurd ideas
upon which corrupt and fantastic sects arise ; forsaking the
broad, inclusive ground of truth for some narrow conceit,
some one notion to which everything gives way, and which,
losing by such exclusiveness all its original share of truth,
becomes a shadow and a lie. This was a departure from the
first principles of morals, as attaching no consequences
within the soul itself to moral evil, which is thus repre-
sented as passing off, and leaving no trace behind. The
moral being incurred, indeed, the external consequence of
liability to punishment, but was not in himself impaired by
sin; remaining the same as before. But it is the internal
consequences of sin, which fasten the idea of sin, as being
such, upon us, and make us regard it as the real evil it is.
Take away these consequences, and sin is little more than a
shadow which just rests a moment on the soul, and is then
gone. It ceases to be a serious thing, it ceases to be sin ;
its very substance is that part of it which survives the
act, and its continuance is its existence. The Pelagian,
then, secures his unqualified freewill at the cost of the very
rudiments of morals ; his theory would injure the moral tone
of any mind that received it, and its natural effect, if it
spread, would be a relaxation of the religious standard, and a
lowering of the sense of sin in the world ; showing how im-
possible it is to carry one truth to an excess without impair-

1 It was perhaps an ironical charge
against the Pelagians that they held
" etiam parvulos propria per liberum

arbitrium habere peccata Ecce

inquiunt, Esau et Jacob intra viscera
materna luctantur, et, dum nascun-
tur, alter supplantatur ab altero, atque
in pede praecedentis manu consequents

et tenentis inventa, perseverans quo-
dammodo lucta convincitur. Quomodo
ergo in infantibus haec agentibus, nul-
lum est vel ad bonum vel ad malum
propriae voluntatis arbitrium, unde
proemia sive supplicia meritis praeceden-
tibus subsequantur."— Ep. 186. n. 13.

66

THE PELAGIAN CONTBOVERSY. [CHAP. III.

ing another. Those who will not allow the will to be the less
free for any amount of sin must accept the alternative, that
sin has very little effect,' — with its natural corollary, that that
which has so slight an effect cannot be a very serious matter
itself. And thus an unlimited freewill can only be main-
tained by abandoning the sanctity of moral principle.

2. The argument respecting .the will was succeeded, in
the Pelagian controversy, by the argument respecting the
nature of virtue and vice. How could there be such a
thing as hereditary sin ? sin transmitted from father to
son, and succeeded to by birth ? How were moral disposi-
tions involved in the operations of nature ? l This appeal to
reason was properly answered by an appeal to mystery —
an answer, however, which was needlessly perplexed by too
minute attempts to define the mode of the transmission of
sin ? 2 The explanation of a mystery cannot really advance
beyond the statement of it, but the too subtle explainer
forgets his own original admission and the inherent limits
of his task, and imagines himself solving what is inex-
plicable.

But the question of transmitted or hereditary sin gave
place to the larger question of necessary sin. Sin was re-
presented, in the doctrine of the fall, as attaching to human
nature, i.e. as necessary. But was not this opposed to the
self-evident truth, that sin must be voluntary ? 3 To deserve

1 " Amentissimum est arbitrii nego-
tium seminibus immixtum putare," —
Julian, Op. Imp. 1. 6. c. 9. " Injustum
est ut reatus per semina traderetur." —
L. 3. c. 11. " Habuerunt ergo parvuli
voluntatem non sol urn antequam nas-
cerentur, verum etiam antequam proavi
eorum generarentur ; et usi sunt elec-
tionis arbitrio, priusquam substantise
eorum semina conderentur. Curitaque
metuis dicere, in eis tempore concep-
tuum eorum esse liberam voluntatem,
qua peccatum non trahant naturaliter
sed sponte committant ; si credis eos
hodie conceptos ante tot secula habuisse

sensum, judicium, efficientiam volun-
tatis."— L. 4. 104.

2 Op. Imp. 1. 6. c. 22. ; 1. 2. c. 123. ;
1. 4. c. 90—104., 1. 6. ; c. 9—23. An
elaborate attempt at an explanation of
this difficulty, by the analogy of bodies,
quae afficiendo transeunt, non emigrando
(1. 5. Contra Jul. Pel. n. 51.), concludes
thus ; " Sic et vitia cum sint in sub-
jecto ex parentibus tamen in fllios, non
quasi transmigratione de suo subjecto in
subjectum alterum, sed affectione et
contagione pertranseunt."

3 " Naturale nullum esse peccatum
potest." — « Si est naturale peccatum non

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

67

properly praise or blame, must not a man be a free agent?
and was he a free agent if he could not act otherwise
than as he did? The Pelagian thus adopted, as a plain
raaxim of reason, and a fundamental truth of morals, the
position that virtue and vice derived their essential charac-
teristics from the power of the individual beforehand to
choose the one or the other ; possibilitas utriusque partis ;
that an act of the will, to be good or bad, must be a
decision out of a neutral or undecided state.1 The Pelagian
controversy thus took up the question of the conditions of
virtue and vice; whether virtue or vice were consistent
with necessity or repugnant to it, whether they involved
in their own nature the trial of the will or not.

The Pelagian, then, as the above statement shows, expressed
himself unguardedly on this question, and exposed himself
immediately to the irresistible answer of S. Augustine, that,
on the ground he adopted, he must be prepared to deny all
goodness to the angels in heaven, to the saints in glory2,
and even to God Himself. The impossibility of sinning
belonged to the Divine Being as His nature, and to the
saints and angels as a privilege and reward; and there-
fore were contingency, or the absence of necessity, essential
to goodness, neither God, nor the angels, nor the saints
would be good.

Thus easily and summarily refuted, however, his argu-
ment involved a mixture of truth and error. So much must
be conceded to the Pelagian, that the trial of the will is the
necessary condition of the highest kind of virtue that comes

est voluntarium." — " Voluntas neces-
sitati non potest admoveri." — " Non
potest velle antequam potuerit et nolle."
— " Suum non est si necessarium est."
1 Julian : " Inculco liberum arbitrium
nee ob aliud datum esse, nee intelligi in
alio posse, quam ut nee ad justitiam, nee
ad iniquitatem, captiva aliquis volun-
tate rapiatur." Augustine : " Libra tua
quam conaris ex utraque parte per
a-'qualia momenta suspendere, ut volun-

tas quantum sit ad malum, tantum
etiam sit ad bonum libera." — Op. Imp.
1. 3. c. 112. 117. " Sic deflnis liberam
voluntatem, ut nisi utrumque, id est,
et bene et male agere po^sit, libera esse
non possit." — L. 3. c. 120.

2 " Accedere nobis debet virtus major
in proemio, ut malam voluntatem sic
non haberemus, ut nee habere possemus.
O desideranda necessitas ! " — Op. Imp.
1. 5. c. 61.

F 2

68 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

within our cognisance and experience. Of the Divine Nature,
as being beyond our comprehension, we cannot speak, though
we know that it must be infinitely good, while it must also
be without trial. But the assertion is true of the moral creature
in this present state. For whatever may be the sweetness of
the good affections, — even though we could imagine them
from the first in full possession of the mind, and so powerfully
moving it, that it felt no inclination to act otherwise than as
they dictated ; even though we could imagine such an unin-
terrupted flow of virtue from a source of feeling, — such a
result could not bear a comparison with the victory of the
will. The good affections are aids and supports to goodness;
aids and supports indeed not casual or adventitious, but
permanent, and belonging to our nature ; yet having the
effect of saving pain and effort. But in trial we have
to act without this aid. For though even the will itself
cannot be said to act without affection, inasmuch as some
love of what is good appears to enter as an ingredient into
any decision in favour of it, we are properly said to act
from the will as distinct from the affections, in the case of
trial ; such trial being in truth caused by the balance
of the affections being on the side of evil. Trial, there-
fore, throws the man upon himself in a deep and peculiar
sense. He is reduced to the narrowest condition, and
with all the excesses of a bountifully constituted nature cut
off, sustains from ultimate conscience and the bare substance
of the soul, the fight with evil. But such a combat tests and
elicits an inner strength which no dominion of the good
affections, however continuous, could do. The greater the
desertion of the moral being, and his deprivation of aids, the
deeper appears his fidelity ; the triumph is greater in pro-
portion to the scantiness of the means with which it is gained ;
and in this adoption of, this cleaving to, barren good, is a
depth of affection, a root of love, contrasted with which, all
the richness of the untried affections is a poor and feeble
offering to God.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 69

But though trial is the necessary condition of the highest
kind of goodness in this life, it is not the necessary condition
of all goodness. It is evident that we recognise and feel
toward, as goodness, certain moral states and dispositions
which have not been the result of tiial, but are altogether
natural. We may see this in a very low degree even in the
case of animals of the gentler, more generous, and confiding
character who engage our affections in consequence, and
towards whom we instinctively feel as possessing a kind of
goodness. But the good natural dispositions of moral beings
deserve a serious consideration.1 For though it may be
doubted whether these dispositions are ever sustained en-
tirely without trial of the will, and though we may not be
able to tell in a particular case, whether what appears to be
the man's natural disposition has not been formed in part
by early trial and past moral acts, still the general sense of
mankind acknowledges what are called good natural dispo-
sitions ; that some persons have by nature a good bias in one
or other direction, are amiable, courageous, truthful, humble
naturally, or have a certain general happy conformation;
that they have, that is, by nature, not only the power to act
in a certain way, but the disposition so to act already formed
within them ; a habit implanted, or, as the schoolmen say,
infused, in distinction to being acquired by acts. But it
would be absurd to say that such dispositions as these were
not virtues, and that such natural goodness was not real
goodness. We feel towards persons who possess such
dispositions as persons of a particular character, which
character is good ; nor do we do this on even the imaginary
supposition that they have acquired it for themselves, the
existing moral state being the thing we attend to independent
of any source from which it may have sprung. The system

1 " Cur non annuimus esse quosdam
natura misericordes, si natura quosdam
non negamus excordes? Sunt cnim

nonnulla congenita, quse in atate qua
usus incipit esse rationis, sicut ipsa ratio,
incipiunt apparere." — Op.Imp. 1.4. c. 1 29.

F 3

70 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

of trial and probation under which we are placed is thus to
some extent a modified one ; not throwing us wholly upon
ourselves, to work our way up to the virtuous character by
the power of the mere will, but more or less, and in portions,
endowing us with it, and producing in us to begin with the
ultimate forms of moral being.

And it is proper, as a further answer to the Pelagian
confined idea of virtue to add, that no exact limit is, to the
eye of reason apparent, to the operation of such a power of
infusing virtue into the human soul. It would undoubtedly
be something like a contradiction to suppose that the dis-
tinctive effect of trial could be obtained without trial as the
cause, and it must be granted that there must be some
ultimate difference in favour of that virtue which is, over
that which is not, the effect of trial. But there is no other
apparent goal to an untried virtue. We know that a certain
excitement of the feelings produces a pleasure in virtue, and
that particular circumstances, junctures, appeals from without,
act with an exciting power upon the feelings, kindling zeal,
enthusiasm, and love. But this being the case, it is im-
possible to say to what extent this system of impulse and
excitement existing in our constitution might be carried ;
what duration these conditions of mind are in themselves
capable of, and whether they might not be made, by Divine
power applying a fit machinery and succession of exciting
causes, permanent. We only know that such a system
would not serve that particular end for which the present
system of trial is designed.

But the Pelagian was further wrong. As trial is not the
necessary condition of all goodness, so it is not the necessary
condition of the highest kind of goodness always. The system
of probation points according to the reason of the case, to
its own termination. It is designed for an end ; but the end,
when attained, implies the cessation of the means. There is
a plain incongruity in the perfected being remaining still de-
pendent on a contingent will, and exposed to moral risk; i. e.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 71

being for ever on his trial. A time must come, then, when
this will cease, when there will be no more deciding between
good and evil, when that power of choice which makes our
virtue here will be over, and the goodness of the moral
creature will be necessary goodness, from which he will not
be able to depart for evermore.

And this consideration is much confirmed by another.
The trial of the will is undoubtedly the condition here of
the highest kind of virtue ; but it must be admitted at the
same time that it produces this virtue in an incipient and
elementary stage. A distinction must be made between
trial itself and its effects. The undergoing of trial is the
intensest moral act we know of; but when we leave the
primary stage of resistance made, strength manifested,
and difficulty overcome, and look for the results, we are
disappointed. Virtue, which is the result of this process,
and arises wholly from effort or self-discipline, is deficient
in its crowning characteristic — its grace, or what moralists
call its beauty. It betrays effort, conscious aim and
design ; is practised with too much apparent system and
method ; it wants ease and naturalness ; and is more or
less hard, formal, and artificial, and to a spectator unat-
tractive, which it is not its proper nature to be. Thus,
take a person of an ambitious and assuming habit of mind
originally, who has come to the resolution to cultivate
humility ; how little progress does he appear to make in the
task compared with the sincerity of his intentions. Whatever
acts he may do in conformity with his design, and however
he may succeed in imposing on himself a certain general line
of behaviour, something is wanting to animate it ; the vital
spirit keeps aloof, and some envious influence from original
temper still works below to mar the growth of discipline.
Compare this acquired virtue with the natural virtue of
humility as seen in any one of a gentle and humble dis-
position by nature, how imperfect, how abortive, does
the result of human effort appear by the side of the Divine

F 4

72 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

gift? Were present effects alone to be considered, it were
better to be simply shone upon by the creative grace of
God, and without labour of our own to receive straight
from His hands an unearned virtue. And this poverty in
acquired virtues arises from the very fact that they are
acquired, from the very manner of their growth and forma-
tion. It is essential to perfect virtue that it should be
truly natural and part of ourselves ; and self-discipline,
care, and Culture, much as they can do, cannot make a nature.
For though custom is called a second nature to express
its great power, it only in truth renders natural or easy to
us the original act which it adopts. And therefore if this
act is one of self-control, or resistance to evil, it only
renders resistance to evil easy, not goodness itself natural.
Custom, in short, improves a character upon its old basis,
but does not give a new one, or make a man what Scripture
calls a new creature. Nor, in fact, do we see it perform
even this inferior function perfectly. For it must be asked,
with all the correcting force of custom, where do we see
in the world what may, in a thorough sense, be called
renovation of character ? Nor do I mean an eradication
wholly of wrong tendencies, but even a complete and suc-
cessful suppression of them existing. A serious fault ori-
ginally attaching to a character assumes in some persons
subtler forms and a more discreet and politic bearing, and
is finely trained and educated rather than really resisted.
In others it meets a resistance ; but where is it suppressed,
so that, after a life of self -improvement, we do not see it ?
The possibility of true moral renovation is a truth of
faith rather than of experience.

But such being the defects inherent in the system of
trial, if virtue is ever to be perfect and what it ought to
be, it must be removed from this basis altogether. It must
in a future state become in a way indigenous in us. It
must become a nature, an inspiration, a gift ; be cut away
completely from the ground of effort ; and be like what

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 73

we call natural goodness here, though with this important
difference, that it will have been produced by trial. That
is, to become what it ought to be, it must become necessary.

The highest and the perfect state of the will, then, is a
state of necessity ; and the power of choice, so far from being
essential to a true and genuine will, is its weakness and defect.
"What can be a greater sign of an imperfect and immature
state of the will than that, with good and evil before it, it
should be in suspense which to do ? That it should take the
worse alternative is its prostration ; but that it should be even
undetermined is weakness. Even with the good action done,
does not a great sense of imperfection attend the thought
that it was but an instant ago uncertain whether it would
be done or not ? And, as we dwell in recollection on the
state of our will previous to its decision, in that interval of
suspense in which we might have acted in one way or
another, does not so unsteady and indeterminate a source of
action interfere even with the comfort of certainty which is
derived from the action as being done ? Is not the circum-
stance that it was but just now uncertain whether it would
be done or not a surviving reflection upon the agent ? Was
it a sort of luck that he did it ? And would he do it again if
tried again ?

We have indeed at first an idea that the power of choice is
that which ennobles and dignifies the will, and that the will
would be an imperfect one without it : but this arises from a
misconception. The power of choosing good or evil is indeed
that which ennobles the will of man as compared with the
lower wills of the brute creation ; but it is not therefore the
perfection of man's will. If we imagine it to be so, we
appear to attach this value to it, for this reason, viz., because
a power in the will of determining itself either way is power,
and we suppose power to be an advantage. But power is not
itself an advantage. In our ordinary mode of speaking,
indeed, we regard it as such ; because we ordinarily associate
power with an advantageous subject-matter, or think of it as

74 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

the power to do things which are advantageous to ourselves.
But power in itself is neither an advantage nor the contrary,
but depends entirely on its object, or that which it has the
power to do, for being the one or the other. The power to
do that which is injurious to oneself is a disadvantage, inas-
much as it involves the chance of injury ; and the power to
do evil is the power to injure oneself. Such power has no
more an advantage as power than it has as liability. It is
true that, when the subject-matter of power is good, then the
power to accomplish it has an excellence as power ; that is to
say, it is an additional advantage that the good which happens
to us is from ourselves, and not from an external source.
And on this ground the attribute of power as belonging to
the Supreme Being is an excellent attribute : it being an
excellence that the good which He enjoys comes from Himself,
and not from any other source.

The actions, again, which the good will perform in a future
state of necessity will not be the less good on that account,
and because they do not proceed from a power of choice. It
is true that in one sense a good act which proceeds from the
exercise of a power of choice is more meritorious than one
which proceeds from a will acting necessarily right. If we
measure the merit of an action by the degree in which it
is in advance of the general condition of the agent, then un-
doubtedly an action which proceeds from a will determined
necessarily to good has no merit, because it is simply on a
level with, and not at all in advance of such a will. On the
other hand, an action which proceeds from a will which has
to exert a power of choice in order to compass it, has merit,
because it is in advance of such a will ; inasmuch as the
certainty of an action done is an advance upon the mere
power of doing it. But it is evident that that which is here
spoken of is not the positive merit of an action, but only a
relative one ; its merit as compared with the condition and
ability of the agent. A will which acts of necessity for
good is the very strongest will on the side of good ; and

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

75

therefore, compared with the ability of this agent, a good act
is a little result. A will which has to exert a power of choice,
and use struggle and effort, is a weaker will ; and therefore
a good action, as compared with the ability of this agent, is a
greater result. The superior merit, then, of a good act, in this
case, is arrived at by comparing it with the weakness of the
agent ; in the same way that the merit of a work of art is
sometimes arrived at by comparing it with the inferiority of
the instrument by which it was executed. It is a merit,
therefore, which tells against the perfection of the will, and
not in its favour. The act, as such, if we can separate the
act from the will, is more meritorious ; but that very superior
merit of the act is gained at the. cost of the will, from which
it proceeds. The act is better because the agent is worse.

What has been said of natural or necessary goodness may
be said of natural or necessary evil. Amid the obscurity
which attaches to this class of questions, something to which
mankind had borne large testimony would be relinquished
in denying the existence of bad natural dispositions. And
the system of trial points as much to a necessary evil state
as it does to a necessary good one as its termination. It
must be added, that the law of custom unhappily produces
much nearer approaches in this life to a necessary state in evil
than it does to the same in good ; furnishing a proof of the
compatibleness of a necessary with a culpable or sinful state,
to which Augustine often appeals in defending the doctrine
of original sin against the Pelagian objection on that head.1

1 " Consuetude fructus est voluntatis,
quoniam ex voluntate gignitur, quae
tamen id quod agit, negat se agere
voluntate." — Op. Imp. 1. 4. c. 103.
The admission of Julian, " Evenire
hominibus affectionalem qualitatem,
atque ita inhaerescere, u't aut magnis
molitionibus, aut nullis separetur om-
nino," and the Pelagian interpreta-
tion of the text Quod nolo malum hoc
ago, on the ground of custom, were
thus turned to the account of original
*in. " Ac per hoc etiam secundum vos
peccandi necessitas unde abstinere li-
berum non est, illius peccati pcena fuit,

a quo abstinere liberum fuit." — L. 1. c.
105. " 'Dicis quod contrarium sit neces-
sitas et voluntas, ita ut se mutua impug-
natione consumant ; ' inde nos arguens
quod « alterum alterius subdamus effec-
tui, dicentes necessitatem de fructibus
voluntatis exortam,' cum videas neces-
sitatem consuetudinis fructum esse ma-
nifestissimum voluntatis. Nonne quod
tibi impossibile visum est, ' sua se
voluntas multiplication delevit, et sta-
tum proprium operata mutavit,' quse
multiplicata necessitatem ronsuctudinis
fecit." — Op. Imp. 1. 4. c. 103.

76 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

The rational doctrine, then, of voluntariness, i.e. how far
the trial of the will is involved in the nature of virtue and
vice is a modified one. Freewill and necessity have both
their place in it, nor does it oppose the necessary to the
voluntary. But the Pelagian adopted an extreme and un-
qualified doctrine on this head; throwing everything upon
the direct choice or exertion of the will, and separating
absolutely the necessary from the voluntary. Virtue, in the
heavenly state, then, could be no virtue in his eyes, be-
cause it had ceased to require effort and choice. He allowed,
so far as his language went, no room for an ultimate and
perfect state, and established an eternal restless contingency
in the moral world. Not, however, to fasten this extreme
meaning upon his language, which was perhaps hardly
intended, inasmuch as the Pelagian nowhere denies the
received doctrine of a future state ; and understanding him
only to mean that a man could not be good or bad in this
life except by his own individual choice, his position is still
a narrow and one-sided one. The general sense of mankind
is certainly on the side of there being good and bad natural
dispositions, and we attach the idea of goodness to generous*
excitements and emotions, which do not arise from any effort
of the will but spontaneously. The Christian doctrine of
grace which makes goodness a divine gift or inspiration
is thus fully in accordance with the instincts of our nature,
while the Pelagian doctrine, which reduces all virtue to
effort and discipline, is felt as a confinement and an artificial
limit in morals.

There are, however, two distinct questions properly in-
volved in this subject; one, whether the trial of the will
is, as opposed to implanted dispositions, essential to the
nature of virtue or vice ; the other relating to the determi-
nation of the will on its trial, — whether its self-determination
is necessary to the nature of virtue and vice as distinct to
its determination from without. The Pelagian thought it
essential that, for this purpose, the will should determine

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

77

itself, that virtue and vice, in order to be such, must be
of our own originating. S. Augustine maintained a goodness
and a sinfulness to which the will was determined from
without. Both these positions are true, if held together, and
both false if held apart.

3. To the questions of the power of the will, and the
nature of virtue and vice, succeeded the question of the
Divine justice.

The doctrine of original sin described all mankind as
punished for the sin of Adam, deriving a positive sinful-
ness, and even a necessity to sin, a slavery, and a captivity
from it. But how was it consistent with justice that one man
should be punished for the sin of another ; that mankind
should be created guilty, and derive from one particular act
committed before they were born a positive necessity to sin ? l
The objection of the Pelagian was met in two ways; first, by
an appeal to mystery ; and, secondly, by an appeal to facts.

1. The objection that it was contrary to the Divine justice
to punish one man for the sin of another was met by an
appeal to mystery, and the answer that the Divine justice
was incomprehensible. And this was a sound and proper
answer, but the form in which it was put was not wholly
faultless.

For it is one thing to say that the Divine justice is incom-
prehensible, and another thing to say that the Divine justice
is different from human justice ; or that we are to have a
different idea altogether of justice as a human and as a
Divine characteristic. In saying that the Divine justice is
incomprehensible we make no assertion about it at all, and
therefore do not establish any contradiction between it and
our natural ideas of justice. Having conceived of it, so far

1 " Ais credere te quidem conditorem
Deura, sed malorum hominum ....
et Dei sanctitati informationem sceleris
appulisti. Great igitur malum Deus et
puniuntur innocentes propter quod fecit
Deus; et imputat hominibus crimen

manuum suarum Deus; et quod per-
suasit diabolus tenuiter, solerter et per
severanter fingit et protegit et format
Deus. Et fructum ab homine bonitatis
reposcit, cui malum ingenuit Deus." —
Julian, ap. Op. Imp. 1. 3. c. 1 24. et seq.

78

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

[CHAP. III.

as we conceived of it at all, as the ordinary natural quality
so called, we only cease at a certain point to form any con-
ception about it. But to say that the Divine justice is
different from human is to confuse our moral notions alto-
gether. Pressed by the Pelagian with the strong testimo-
nies in Scripture to the rule of natural justice, that no man
should be punished except for .his own sins, S. Augus-
tine properly appealed to another set of texts which repre-
sented God as visiting the sins of the fathers upon the
children1, and showed that Scripture asserted an incom-
prehensible as well as a natural justice. But he further
proceeded to explain away these assertions of the rule of na-
tural justice itself, as intended to apply to human, not to the
Divine conduct. The rule laid down in Deuteronomy, that
the " fathers shall not be put to death for the children,
neither the children for the fathers, but every man for his
own sin 2," was interpreted as applying to human judges only,
not to God, who was altogether free from such an obligation.3
And the natural rejoinder of the Pelagian, that God was
not less just than He wanted man to be, was overruled by
the argument, that God did many things which it would be
wrong for man to do.4 But such an argument was fallacious.
The Being who gave life has a right to take it away,

1 Op. Imp. 1. 3. c. 30.

2 Deut. xxiv. 16.

3 Augustine : " Aliter mandavit ho-
mini, aliter judicavit ipse." — Op. Imp.
1. 3. c. 33. Julian : " Si qua? sunt justa
a nobis fieri velit, et ipse faciat quod
injustum est : justiores nos, quam ipse
est, cupit videri ; imo non justiores,
sed nos aequos, et se iniquum." — Julian,
ap. Op. Imp. 1. 3. c. 24.

4 " Hoc quidem pracceptum dedit ho-
minibus judicantibus, ne pater pro filio,
vel fill us pro patre more ret ur. Caete-
rum judicia sua Deus non alligavit hac
lege." — Op. Imp. 1. 3. c.12. " Non est
leg is sua? praevaricator Deus quando aliud
facit Deus ut Deus, aliud imperat homini
ut homini ?" — c. 23. " Facit enim Deus

aliquando contra quse facienda mandavit.
Nee opus est ut multa commcmorem.
Mandavit homini Scriptura die-ens ' non
telaudet os tuum ' (Prov. xxvii. 2.), nee
tamen dicendus est arrogans aut super-
bus, cum se innumerabiliter laudare non
desinit." — c. 22. "Hoc judicium Deus
hominum voluit esse non suum, qui
dixit, Reddam peccata patrum in filios.
(Deut. v. 9.) Quod etiam per homi-
nem fecit, quando per Jesum Nave non
solum Achan, sed etiam filios ejus occi-
dit ; vel per eundem, filios Canaanorum
etiam parvulos damnavit." — c. 30,
" Quis enim homo Justus si nit perpe-
trari scelus quod habet in potestate non
sinere ? Et tamen sinit haec Deus."
— c. 24.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

79

and the supremely good Being has a right to praise Him-
self; but the difference in the rightfulness of such acts in
the case of God and man is not any difference of the
moral law by which God and the creature act, but a dif-
ference in their respective positions, which justifies these
acts in God, and not in the creature. Indeed, the chapter
in Ezekiel applies the rule of natural justice directly to
the Divine conduct, and represents God as asserting of
Himself, that He punishes no man except for his own sins,
and so gives no ground whatever for such a distinction.
But this declaration was not allowed its obvious interpreta-
tion, as stating a universal law of the Divine dealings,
but only a special prophetical one, as alluding to the Divine
mercy under the Gospel dispensation and the covenant of
grace1, under which the effect of original sin, the punishment
of mankind for the sin of their first parent, was removed.

But the punishment which all mankind suffered for the
sin of Adam was punishment of a peculiar kind ; because it
was not only pain but sin, and not only sin but captivity
to sin and inability to do any good thing. This worst and
strongest penalty, then, attaching to the sin of Adam, was de-
fended by an appeal to a remarkable law of God's judicial
administration, discernible in his natural providence, and
specially attested by Scripture ; the rule, viz. of punishing
sin by further sin, peccatum pcena peccati, — a rule which,
in the present instance, only received a mysterious applica-
tion, as being extended to the case of a mysterious and incom-
prehensible sin.

S. Augustine argued, then, that original sin was real sin in

1 " Haec per Ezechielem prophetam
promissio est novi Testamenti, quam
non intelligis, ubi Deus regenerates a
generatis si jam in majoribus aetatibus
sunt, secundum propria facta discernit. "
— Op. Imp. 1. 3. c. 38. " ' Si dicetur am-
plius parabola ' : . . . non arguit quia
diccbcttur, sed permittit ubi non dicatur

. . . . ' Non dicetur in Israel ' recte
diceres, si veros Israelitas regeneratos
videres in quibus hoc non dicetur." —
c. 39. 41. Jeremiah xxxi. 21 — 32. is
adduced to confirm this interpretation.
" In diebus Hits non dicent ultra. Patres
comederunt," &c. — c. 84. See Contra,
Jul. Pel. 1. 6. n. 82.

80

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

the being in whom it resided ; and being such, was justly
punishable by the abandonment of the person guilty of it, to
sin ; that the natural man, therefore, could not plead his want
of moral power as any excuse for his sins, any more than a
man in common life, who had contracted a bad habit, could
plead the dominion of that habit as such an excuse. That
bad habit might be so strong that he could not help com-
mitting the sins to which it inclined him; but he was responsible
for those sins, in that he was responsible for their cause. In
like manner, man was responsible for the sins which in the
state of original sin he could not avoid, in that he was
responsible for original sin itself.1

Two difficulties, however, presented themselves to the
application of such a law to the case of original sin. In
the first place, though it is true that all sin, so far as it
is indulged, predisposes the mind to further sin, or creates
a sinful habit, this effect is in proportion to the amount
of such indulgence; and it is only extreme indulgence
that produces an uncontrollable habit, or a loss of freewill :
whereas the sin of our first parents, to which this extreme
effect was attached, was but a single sin, and not appar-
ently a heinous one. But the sin of our first parents, it
was replied, was neither a single nor a light one. The
outward act was but the consummation of a course of inward
sin, self-pleasing, pride, and departure from God. And, even
were its subject-matter light, the sin itself was disobedience ;
the more wanton, that there was no strength of passion as
yet in man's nature to excuse it. Who would measure the

1 " Sed vos isla peccata ex illis venire
peccatis quae nulla necessitate commissa
sunt, in illo saltern conceditis, qui dicit,
* Quod nolo malum hoc a</o.' Qui enim,
ut istara patiatur necessitatem, non
nisi peccandi consuetudine premitur,
procul dubio priusquam peccaret, non-
dum necessitate consuetudinis pre-
mebatur. Ac per hoc, etiam secundum
vos, peccandi necessitas unde abstinere

liberum non est, illius peccati poena fuit
a quo abstinere liberum fuit, quando
nullum pondus necessitatis urge bat.
Cur ergo non creditis tantum saltern
valuisse illud primi hominis ineffa-
biliter grande peccatum, ut eo vitia-
retur humana natura universa, quan-
tum valet nunc in homine uno secunda
natura?" — Op. Imp. 1. i. c. 105.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

81

greatness of a first sin as being the first, a departure
from created rectitude, the primary act of the will for evil,
to which no previous evil predisposed ? But the subject-
matter was only externally light, not really, being not a mere
fruit of a tree, but good out of their existing state of
union with God, which was grasped at; showing a greediness
for which God did not suffice ; and that alien good being,
moreover, the presumptuous position of being gods them-
selves — a pride which was the very counterpart of our Lord's
humility, who emptied Himself of a Divinity which was
His right, while they grasped at a divinity to which they
had none.1

But, however serious the sin of our first parents might
be, a much greater difficulty presented itself in the question
how individuals could be responsible for a sin to which
they were not themselves personally parties. But this
difficulty was overruled by an appeal to the doctrine of
original sin itself, which rested upon Scripture, and the
very foundation of which was, that all men had in some
sense .sinned in Adam. This was, indeed a mystery, and
beyond our comprehension, but faith accepted it as true ;
and if true, the basis which this argument required was sup-
plied to it. Such an explanation was only the application
to a mysterious subject-matter of a law, which we recognise
as just in that sphere of providence which comes under
our knowledge. We see the justice of the law that sin

1 " In occulto autcm mail esse
coeperunt, ut in apertam inobedientiam
laberentur." — De Civit. Dei, 1. xiv. c.
13. et seq. " Quantum malum sola
inobedientia." — De Gen. ad literara,
1. 8. c. 13. " Noluit homo inter de-
licias paradisi servare justitiam." — De
Pecc. Merit, et Remiss. 1. 2. n. 55.
«' Quid avarius illo cui Deus sufficere
non potuit." — In Ep. Joannis ad Ear-
thos, Tr. 8. n. 6. " Rapere voluerunt
divinitatem, perdiderunt felicitatem." —
In Tr. 68. n. 9. " Tanto gravius pec-

cavit quanto ibi major non peccandi
facilitas erat, ubi vitiata natura non-
dum erat." — Op. Imp. 1. 2. c. 189.
" Tanta impietate peccavit quantam
nos metiri atque aestimare non pos-
sumus." — Ibid. 1. 3. c 65. "Illius
natura quanto magis sublimiter stabat,
tanto magis graviter occidit. . . . Pec-
catum quanto incredibilius, tanto dam-
nabilius." — Ibid. 1. 6. c. 22. See Bull
on the State of Man before the Fall,
vol. ii. (Oxford ed.) p. 64.

82

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

hardens the heart, as applied to the case of actual sin,
because we know the sin ; we see a justice in such sin,
long indulged, leading to actual slavery and loss of freewill :
but the justice of this law as applied to the case of original
sin was a mysterious and incomprehensible justice, that
which is its subject-matter being a mysterious and incom-
prehensible sin.

When S. Augustine, however, left the ground of mystery
for that of reasoning, he adopted doubtful positions. The
appeal to the Divine foreknowledge of man's evil lives,
in spite of which He creates them, as a defence of a crea-
tion under a necessity to evil, was plausible l ; but there is
plainly a difference between exposing men to the risk, and
subjecting them to the certainty of moral evil, and that
evil in some cases eternal. The issue being alike foreseen
in both cases ; in the one the sinner has had the opportunity
of a better issue given him, and has therefore only himself
to blame for the worse one; in the other he has had no
such opportunity. The appeal to God's natural providence
and his support and nourishment of evil men in the world

1 " Ut quid creat quos impios futures
et damnandos esse prsescivit." — Op.
Imp. 1. 1. c. 48., vid. 119. 121.; 1. 5.
c. 13.

The argument, however, with a
modification, may claim the more re-
cent authority of Archbp. Whately,
who says : " We should be very
cautious how we employ such weapons
as may recoil upon ourselves . . . Why
the Almighty does not cause to die in
the cradle every infant whose future
wickedness and misery, if suffered to
grow up, He foresees, is what no system
of religion, natural or revealed, will
enable us satisfactorily to account for."
— Essays on S. Paul, p. 88. But is
there not some confusion of thought
in this argument? As stated by S.
Augustine, it is in form absurd. For
the difficulty in the constitution of
things which he sets against that of
reprobation, or creating a being to be

eternally miserable, is this, that God
foresees men's evil lives and their judi-
cial result, and yet creates them. But
if God foresees men's evil lives, He by
the hypothesis creates them, and it
would be a contradiction that He should
not. Facts cannot first be foreseen,
and then because they are foreseen be
prevented. Archbp. Whately, however,
relieves the argument from this ab-
surdity, by making foresight to be the
foresight " of men's future wickedness
and misery if suffered to grow up. " But
what can be meant by the foresight of
events which, by the very supposition,
may not take place ? This alleged
difficulty, then, in the constitution of
things, cannot be stated without a great
absurdity and contradiction; whereas
the difficulty of God creating a being
to be eternally miserable is as plain
and simple a one as can be conceived.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 83

as an analogous case to the creation of men as evil, was still
more incorrect.1

2. The objection to the punishment of mankind for the
sin of Adam, on the score of the Divine justice, was an-
swered by an appeal to facts ; an appeal which divided into
two great heads — the fact of sin, and the fact of pain.

First, how were we to account for the fact of sin, as
it met us in the world — the universal depravation and cor-
ruption of mankind ? could we account for this by chance,
or the contingent action of each man's freewill ? Or did it
not at once point to some law in our nature, on the same
principle on which, in the physical world and common life,
whenever we see a uniform set of phenomena, we refer them
to some law ?

The argument, however, for original sin derived from
the prevalence of actual sin in the world, though un-
doubtedly sound and unanswerable, requires some caution
and discrimination in the use of it. And in the first place
it must be observed that, when we examine this argument,
we find, that upon a nearer view it divides into two distinct
arguments, depending upon two different kinds of reasoning.
One is the argument simply of cause and effect. On the
principle that every event must have a cause, actual sin
must have a cause anterior to itself, from which it proceeds :
and for the same reason that this cause is wanted itself,
another cause is wanted for it, and so another and another
in succession, till we arrive at some origin or first cause
of sin. But this origin of sin cannot be in the Divine
will, it must therefore be in the human ; which ultimate and*
original evil in the will is what is signified by original sin.

This argument, then, for original sin, does not at all

1 " Sic creat malos quomodo pascit et
nutrit malos." — De Nupt. et Cone. 1. 2.
n. 32, 33. Julian : " Quod pascit Deus
etiam peccatores, benignusque est super
ingratos et malos pietatis est ejus tes-

O 2

timonium non malignitatis. . . . Vide
ergo quam nescias quid loqueris, qui de
exemplo misericordise voluisti crudeli-
tatem probare," — Op. Imp. 1. 5. c. 64.

84

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVEKSY. [CHAP. Til.

depend on the amount of actual sin in the world, but would
be just as valid on the supposition of one sin, as on that of
universal ; original sin itself following from the simple fact
of actual, though its universality depends on the universality
of actual. And the validity of this argument depends on
the validity of the general argument of cause and effect, or
upon the truth of the axiom, that every event must have
a cause, — an axiom which I discussed in the last chapter,
when I defined the degree and measure of truth which
belonged to it. It will be enough to say here of this rationale
of original sin, that it is a wholly philosophical, as dis-
tinguished from a scriptural one; because, in representing
original sin as anterior to all actual sin, it represents it as
anterior to the sin of Adam, and as much the condition of
man at his first creation as it ever was afterwards.1

The other and the more common argument, is the argu-
ment of probability, — that it is contrary to the doctrine of
chances, that every one of those innumerable millions that
have lived in the world should have been a sinner, if such
sin had depended on the mere contingency of every individual's
freewill ; such a universal fact evidently proving the exist-
ence of some law of sin in our nature. But the correctness
of this argument for original sin depends on the sense in
which we understand sin in the preliminary statement, that
every one of the human race has been, and is, a sinner.

If by sin is meant here the absence of perfection only —
that every man that has ever lived has done something
wrong in the course of his life, there appears to be nothing,
even in a universal faultiness of the human race, in such a
sense, more than may be accounted for on the principle of
each man's contingent will, or that requires the operation
of a law. For, considering the length of human life, the

1 Mr. Coleridge, in his "Aids to
Reflection," adopts this rationale of
original sin, and discusses it with

his usual mixture of obscurity and
power. See NOTE XII.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 85

constant succession of temptations in it, and their variety,
the multiplicity of relations in which a man stands to others,
all of which have to be fulfilled in order to constitute him
faultless, is there anything very remarkable in the coin-
cidence that every man should, on some occasion or other in
his life, have diverged from the strict duty ? If, on the one
hand, it may be said, that out of so great a number of
individuals as there have been in the world some few
perfect men might have been calculated upon ; on the other
hand, it may be said that, with so vast a number of trials, we
could not calculate any one's universal success under them.
The chances in favour of cases of perfection which the
number of individuals in the world presents, are met by the
chances against it, contained in the number of trials in the
life of each individual.

But if by sin we understand not only a loss of perfection,
but positive depravity, certainly the general fact of sin in
this sense cannot be accounted for on the mere principle of
contingency. Supposing ourselves calculating beforehand
the result of the action of freewill in the human race, we
should have no more right to calculate on general depravity
and wickedness as the result, than on general piety and
virtue. Undoubtedly there is this important distinction
between vice and virtue, that vice is pleasant, and virtue
painful at the time ; and it may be thought perhaps that, in
making any calculations beforehand as to the conduct of
mankind, we should be justified in expecting that the
generality would do what was easiest at the time. But if
any one will examine the real ground on which he forms this
expectation, he will find that he forms it upon the experience
of the result, and not upon any ground of antecedent cal-
culation. He sees that this is the general way in which
mankind act, and, therefore, he imagines himself expecting
it beforehand. But it is evident that, in calculating the
conduct of mankind beforehand, we should have no more
right to calculate on a general preference of present to future

G 3

86 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

interests, than on a general contrary preference. The choice
that freewill would make in the matter would be as probable
one way as another.

Understanding sin, then, in the sense of depravity and
wickedness, the general fact of human sinfulness in this
sense certainly requires some law of sin in our nature as its
explanation ; such a law as is asserted in the doctrine of
original sin. But while such a fact must be allowed as a
proof of the doctrine of original sin, it must at the same
time be remembered, that the assertion of general depravity
and wickedness is a very grave assertion to make respecting
the human race. It is an assertion, however, which rests on
a ground of actual observation and experience, confirmed by
the authority of Scripture, and is true in two different ways.

First, every man is depraved in the sense of having vile,
selfish, and proud desires, which have a certain power over
him, and occupy and fill his mind with sufficient strength
and frequency to constitute a depraved condition of mind.
A certain tendency to evil is indeed no more than what is
necessary to constitute a state of trial, and does not show
depravity or corruption in the moral being. But it is
evident that evil desire, in the degree in which it exists in
human nature, is more than such a tendency as this, and is
in itself a disease; inasmuch as men feel it as something
sinful in itself, independent of its gratification. Test even
the best of men, with this strength of evil desire residing in
him, by a perfect standard, and it must be seen that he is a
corrupt being, whom we can only think of at all as good by
a kind of anticipation, regarding this as a transient condition
of mind, of which he is one day to be relieved. In the sense,
then, of having concupiscence, which hath of itself the nature
of sin, all mankind are depraved.

Secondly, the generality of mankind are depraved in the
sense of actual bad life and conduct ; as the former was a fact
of inward experience, this latter being a fact of observation.
The wickedness of the generality of mankind was acknow-

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTKOVERSY.

87

ledged even by the heathen, and has been generally admitted.
It is proved, therefore, in the only way in which a general
fact admits of being proved, viz. by large general and con-
sentient observation; observation, moreover, which, when once
made, keeps its ground, and meets with comparatively little
contradiction. It is, moreover, strongly asserted in Scripture,
which refers to it, however, as a known and ascertained fact,
rather than professes to reveal it in the first instance. Such
being the case, it is evident, even supposing particular
persons should say that their own observation had been other-
wise, that their individual testimony is no counterbalance to
the general observation of mankind. And though the reluc-
tance of all persons to form judgments upon their relations,
friends, and acquaintances may be appealed to, as counter-
evidence on this subject, it should be remembered that a
judgment of charity does not supersede that of observation.

Secondly, the defence of the doctrine of original sin, on
the ground of fact, from the objection urged on the score of
the Divine justice, appealed straight to the great fact of pain
and misery in the world. How was this to be accounted for?
It could not be accounted for on the ground of men's actual
sins, because it was evidently a part of the present con-
stitution of nature, and in the case of infants preceded
actual sin. Anyhow, then, we were in a difficulty with
respect to the Divine justice ; for if we gave up the doctrine
of original sin, there was nothing to account for this fact,
and the charge of injustice could be brought against God
for an undeserved infliction of pain. 1

1 S. Augustine, in Op. Imp. 1. 1.
c. 92., 1. 2. c. 89. 104. 116. 124. 139.
144., 1. 3. c. 7. 48. 89. 95. 154. 198.,
1. 5. c. 1., 1. 6. c. 7. 9., and passim,
refers to the general fact of human
misery as a proof of original sin:
" Teste ipsa generis humani miseria
peccatum originale monstratur." — L. 3.
c. 89. " Constat mala hujus vitse, qui-
bus plenus est mundus Manichaeos cum
Catholicis confiteri : sed unde sint hsec

non utrosque idem dicere : quod ea
Manichaei tribuunt alienae naturae
malse, Catholici vero et bonae et nostrae ;
sed peccato vitiatae, meritoque punitae."
— L. 6. c. 14. " Si parvuli sine ullius
peccati merito premuntur gravi jugo,
iniquus est Deus." — L. 2. c. 124. " Si
ergo nullum esset in parvulis ex origine
meritum malum, quicquid mali pati-
untur esset injustum." — L. 3. c. 204.

G 4

83

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

The argument, however, which infers sin from pain,
should be used with caution ; we do not know enough of the
whole scheme of things to decide whether, distinct from
judicial grounds, pain may not be necessary simply as a pre-
paration and training for a higher state of existence. That
kind of pain which is involved in effort and the overcoming of
difficulty we do not naturally regard as at all of necessity ju-
dicial ; and S. Augustine exceeds the limits of a common sense
judgment, when he appeals to the slow and gradual growth
of the understanding in man, the imbecility of infancy, and
the difficulties which accompany the progress of education, as
evidences of the Divine wrath.1 But pain of the positive
and acute kind certainly suggests a judicial source; nor can
we reflect on the dreadful forms of misery and the diseases,
bodily and mental, which attach to human nature, without
being led instinctively to the idea of some moral evil residing
in that nature. It admits perhaps of a doubt, whether the
overwhelming nature of present pain, whether as a sight or
feeling, does not disorder us as judges on such a question ;
nor can we say for certain that, supposing ourselves to be
looking back from the immense distance of a happy eternity
upon the pains of this mortal life, the greatest amount of these
might not appear so small in comparison with the happiness
which had succeeded them2, that they might be regarded,
then, as a simple preparation for and introduction to futurity,
and accounted for on that ground, superseding the judicial

1 " Sedilli parvuli nee flerent in para-
diso, nee muti essent, nee aliquando
uti ratione non possent, nee morbis
affligerentur, nee a bestiis Isederentur
.... nee surgentes in pueritiam
domarentur verberibus, aut erudirentur
laboribus."—Op. Imp. 1. 3. c. 198.
" Omnibus cogenita est quaedam tarditas
mentis, qua et hi qui appellantur
ingeniosi, non sine aliqua laboris
serumna, vel quascunque artes, vel eas
etiam quas liberates nuncupant diseunt
.... Si in paradise aliquid dis-

ceretur, quod illi vitae esset utile seire,
sine ullo labore aut. dolore id asse-
queretur beata natura, vel Deo docente
vet seipsa. Unde quis non intelligat
in hac vita etiam tormenta discentium
ad miserias hujus saeculi, quod ex uno
in condemnationem propagatum est,
pertinere." — L. 6. c. 9.

2 " 'Eo-Acoi/ yap virb xa-pparcw

Ilfjjua dvdffKet iraXiyKOTov 8a/j.a(rdtv
po'ipa ire/jurr)

PINDAR. Olymp. 2.

CHAP. III.] THE PEL AG IAIN CONTROVERSY. 89

one. The common spectacle of human misery, however, has,
in fact, impressed the religious portion of the world in all
ages, Christian or pagan, in the latter way ; and the genera*
feeling of mankind has connected it with some deep though
undefined root of sin in the human race.

Thus maintained and defended on the several grounds of
the power of the will, the nature of virtue and vice, and the
Divine justice, the Catholic doctrine of original sin adopted,
as an account of the existence of evil, a middle ground
between two extreme theories on either side, which pre-
vailed in the world. According to the Manichean theory,
evil was an original substance in nature, coeval with the
Divine. It was therefore an ineradicable, unconquerable
thing ; for though some triumph over the Gentes tenebrarum
was talked of, a part of the Divine nature was irrevocably
polluted in the contest. The practical meaning of this theory
was, that the world was a mixture; that good and evil had gone
on together in it from all eternity, and would to all eternity
continue to do so ; that things were what they were, and that
there was no altering them ; — much the view taken by practical
worldly men, who cannot persuade themselves to believe that
there is such a thing as pure good, the whole of experience going
so much against it, and therefore virtually disbelieve in Him
who is absolute goodness. The other extreme theory was
the Pelagian, which accounted for the universal corruption
of the world simply upon the ground of each individual's
will ; and the practical tendency of the Pelagian, as of
the Manichean theory, was to carelessness and indifference ;
attributing too slight a power to sin over the liberty of the
will, and so lowering our idea of the nature of sin; as the
other gave it too much, and so abandoned us to it. Between
these two theories the Church has taken the middle line,
denying evil to be original in the universe, but asserting it
to be original in our present nature ; giving it a voluntary
beginning but a necessary continuance, and a descent, when
once begun, by a natural law. This mixture and balance

90

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

of voluntariness and necessity makes up the doctrine of
original sin ; and the practical impression it leaves, is that
of the deep and awful nature, but not the dominance of sin.
And thus S. Augustine was enabled, in answer to the
Pelagian charge of Manicheanism, to appeal to his doctrine
as a safeguard against that system. The facts of the world
drove the Manichean into blasphemy and a denial of the
Divine omnipotence ; but the doctrine of original sin ac-
counted for these facts in a way which saved at once the
Divine justice and the Divine power. It attributed evil,
moral and physical, to the wilful act of man ; thus separating
it from the essence of his nature, and dislodging it as a
substance in the universe, while it accounted judicially for
the pains of this present life.1

III. The main arguments of Pelagianism being stated2, it
remains to notice the bearing of this system upon the Ca-
tholic doctrines of the Original State of man, the Incarnation,
and the Atonement.

1. Scripture represents the original state of man as one of
innocence and goodness, and as blessed with a corresponding
happiness. He conies from the hands of his Maker an up-
right being, and he is placed in the garden of Eden, where
he is surrounded with all that can please the senses and
satisfy the mind of a creature thus constituted. And reve-
lation is here confirmed by general tradition. The legend of
the golden age goes back to a primitive state of our nature,
in which it was both good and happy.

Such an original moral disposition of man again involves
a certain measure of stability and strength in the formation
of it ; such a character implies a certain degree of depth, with
which it is stamped upon human nature. It may be said

1 Op. Imp. 1. 3. c. 170—177. 186.;
1. 4. c. 2. ; 1. 5. c. 30. 56. ; 1. 6. c. 7. 9.

* For the mode in which the Pelagian

interpreted the texts of Scripture
bearing on the doctrine of original
sin, see NOTE XIII.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

91

that a being is good till he has sinned ; and that, consequently,
if he is endowed simply with freewill at his creation, he is
created a good being. But it may be doubted whether free-
will of itself, and prior to its determination to good, caa be
called goodness l : at any rate, the possession of it alone affords
no reason for a state of goodness lasting beyond the first mo-
ment of creation ; and therefore we are evidently intended to
regard man's original state of uprightness as something more
than the mere state of freewill. Man's uprightness, however,
being this farther state, whatever we may call it ; the support
and continuance of this state depended upon freewill in a
being not yet perfected but on his trial. It thus became an
object of attention in Catholic theology to define, under this
balance of considerations, with as much accuracy as the
subject admitted of, what was the condition of Adam before
the fall, in respect of goodness on the one side, and liability
to sin on the other.

On the one hand, then, it was determined that Adam could
not have concupiscence or lust, i. e. the direct inclination to
evil ; that positive appetite and craving for corrupt pleasure
which is now the incentive to sin in our nature; for this
would be to make no difference between man unfallen and
fallen. There was no positive contrariety as yet between the
flesh and the spirit ; and the inward struggle, which is now the
normal condition of man, was alien to a nature made harmo-
nious and at peace with itself.2 On the other hand, Adam
must have had a tendency of some kind toward evil, in order
to be in a state of trial at all.3 There remained, then, the
conclusion, of an indirect or distant tendency to evil in
Adam. A regular and formed virtuous habit of mind, or,

1 An rectus erat non habens volun-
tatem bonam sed ejus possibilitatem ?
—Op. Imp. 5. 57. See NOTE XIV.

2 "Hsec discordia carnis et spiritus
in paradiso, si nemo peccasset, absit ut
csse potuerit."— Op. Imp. 1. 4. c. 37.

8 " Quasi non potuerit Deus hominem

facere voluntatis bonae, in qua cum
tamen permanere non cogeret sed in ejus
esset arbitrio sive in ea semper esse
vellet, sive non semper, sed ex ilia se
in malam nullo cogente mutaret, sicut
et factum est." — Op. Imp. 1. 5. c.61.

92

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

[CHAP. III.

as S. Augus ine calls it, a good will, implanted in him to
begin with by God, intervened between him and sin, and
stood as a barrier against any strong and disturbing force
of temptation. Suppose a tendency to evil in man, with
simply freewill to resist it, and that tendency is at once a
strong power and force in his nature ; but suppose, together
with that tendency to evil, and coeyal with it, a formed and
set habit and disposition of the whole soul to good — suppose,
in short (allowing for necessary distinctions), a character
equal to a virtuous character which it has taken time and
effort to acquire, existing in man as the gift of God, at the
moment of his creation1, and it is at once evident that the
evil tendency in his nature is at a very great disadvantage ;
because it starts with a loss of position, and opposes an ante-
dated strength, a created precedence, and an implanted growth
of goodness. Evil thus begins its course under a righteous
oppression, which confines its movements and keeps it at a
distance from the centre of human life and feeling ; its in-
vitations are faintly heard from the extremities of nature, a
solid intervening formation of good intercepting them before
they arrive at a forcible and exciting stage ; and sin, yet un-
known to conscience, accompanies human nature, like a dream,
with languid and remote temptations, while good occupies the
active and waking man. Such a state may be partially under-
stood from the ordinary case of any one who has acquired vir-
tuous habits of any kind. These habits do not exclude a man
from trial, for, however firmly rooted, they have still to
be sustained by the effort of the will. Still, in the case of
confirmed virtuous habits, this effort is an easy and uncon-
scious one, not anxious or laborious ; the person, though not
out of the reach of evil, is separated at a considerable in-
terval from it, and, under the safeguard of his habit, a serene
precaution has to defend him from distant danger, rather than

1 «' Ilia itaque perfectio naturae quam
non dabant anni sed sola manus Dei,
non potuit nisi habere voluntatem

aliquam, eamque non raalam." — Op.
Imp. 1. 5. c. 61.

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

93

positive fear from a near and immediate one. In the same
way, only more perfectly than in any case of habit of which
we have experience, the first man was protected from sin
by an implanted holy disposition of mind, and habitual in-
clination to good imparted to him at his creation. His trial
lay in having to sustain a divinely bestowed defence against
sin, rather than engage in direct conflict with it; and a
tranquil precaution, not inconsistent with the happiness
of paradise, against a remote issue on the side of evil, had
it been adequately maintained, would have effectually pre-
served him.1 He had by his created disposition a pleasure
in goodness; and that pleasure naturally preserved him in
obedience without the need of express effort. But though
thus held to obedience by the persuasive tie of an ade-
quate pleasure and delight, man was not without an inde-
finite principle of desire in his nature, which tended to pass
beyond the bounds of present happiness in quest of more,
Thus, in common life, persons happy after a human measure
in their present situation and resources, still carry about
with them a general sense of a capacity for greater happiness,
which is without much difficulty kept under and controlled,
by the mind simply sustaining a proper estimate of the
resources in its possession and applying a just attention to
the enjoyment of. them; but which may be allowed to
expand unduly, till it impels the man to a trial of new and
dangerous sources of pleasure. Happy within the limits of
obedience, Adam was still not out of the reach of a remote
class of invitations to advance beyond the precincts of a
sacred sufficiency and make trial of the unknown. But the
happiness with which God had connected his duty could
have easily, with the aid of an unpainful caution of his own,
mastered the temptation.2 Thus, in some calm interval,

1 " Pcenae illius devitandae quae fuerat
secuturapeccatum,tranquillaeratcautio,
non turbulenta formido." — Op. Imp. 1.
6.c. 14.

2 " Boiife igitur voluntatis factus est

homo, paratus ad obediendum Deo, et
prseceptum obedienter accipicns, quod
sine ulla quamdiu vellet difficultate
servaret."— Op. Imp. 1. 5. c. 61.

94 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

produced by sight or sound, or by some cheering or tran-
quillising news, or arising in the mind he knows not how,
a man enjoys, amid the business, anxiety, and turmoil of
the world, a brief repose and happiness within ; which does
not, however, while it removes to the distant horizon for
the time the evils and the pains of life, altogether put
them out of sight. Behind him are. the sorrows and misfor-
tunes of the past, before him those of the future. He is not
unconscious of either ; but they yield to the reign of the pre-
sent hour, which disables and unsubstantiates, though it does
not suppress them. The fulness of present peace occupies
the mind, excluding the power of realising anything which
is not in harmony with it; and evil is only seen as a distant
shadow, hovering on the outside of things, a feeble and inert
phantom belonging to another world than our own, which
cannot come near enough to hurt, or penetrate within the
sphere of solid things. So, from some inland scene is heard
the distant roar of the sea, or from some quiet country spot
the noise of the neighbouring city; the sounds are heard,
but they affect the mind altogether differently than if they
were near. They do not overwhelm or distract, but rather
mingle with the serenity of the scene before us.

This implanted rectitude or good habit it was which made
the first sin of man so heinous, and caused that distinction
between it and all the other sins which have been com-
mitted in the world. For the first sin was the only sin which
was committed against and in spite of a settled bias of nature
toward good ; all the sins which have been committed since
have been committed in accordance with a natural bias
toward evil. There was therefore a perversity in the first
sin altogether peculiar to it, and such as made it a sin sui
generis. S. Augustine is accordingly exact in distinguishing
the motive to the first sin as being a depraved will as
contrasted with concupiscence or lust ; by a depraved will
meaning a perverse opposition to the good will established
in the first man, a voluntary abandonment of the high ground

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

95

on which he stood by nature, a violation of his own created
inclination to good.1 A kind of horror attaches to the falls
of saints, when those who have maintained a high and con-
sistent course of holiness commit some deep sin. Such sins
are like unaccountable convulsions in nature, and our moral
instincts immediately draw a distinction between them and
common sins. The peculiarity, however, of the sin of Adam,
exceeded that of any sin of fallen man, in that it was the
sin of man unfallen.

It may be added, that such an inspired good habit or
disposition of man as first created is part of the tradition of
the golden age. A certain disposition is described in that
legend as being that of the whole human race at the com-
mencement of its existence — an original moral formation,
like the creation of the race itself, — and it is described
as continuing some time; — a disposition involving general
goodness and uprightness, love, gentleness, serenity, content.
So suitable has it seemed even to the unenlightened human
mind that the morning of a world of moral beings should arise
in light, and purity, — that the creation fresh from the Divine
hands should shine with the reflexion of the Divine goodness,
and bear the stamp of a proximity to God, — that the will of
man as first created should not be neutral or indeterminate,
but disposed to good. Nor have the definitions of Catholic
theology, however elaborate and subtle in form, diverged in
substance from the ground of general tradition and natural
ideas.

Scripture and common tradition thus assert a paradisal life
as the original state of man. But the Pelagian, in denying
the fall, rejected Paradise ; as he would not admit original sin,
he could fall back on no antecedent state of innocence. He

1 "Prsecessit mala voluntas, et se-
cuta est mala concupiscentia ....
Voluntas cupiditatem, non cupiditas
voluntatem duxit." — Op. Imp. 1. 1. c.
71. "Voluntatem ejus prius fuisse

vitiatam venenosa persuasione serpentis,
ut oriretur cupiditas quae sequeretur
potius voluntatem quam resisteret
voluntati."— Ibid. 1. 6. c. 14.

96

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

[CHAP. III.

robbed human nature of the glory, the freshness, and the
beauty of its first creation, reduced the primitive to the
level of all that succeeded it, and fixed the present facts of
the world as the standard of our nature. He made this ex-
isting state of sin and pain coeval with the commencement
of things ; and S. Augustine taunted his opponents with the
(c Pelagian Paradise." l Human nature in the midst of trials
looks back with consolation to the paradisal state as a
sign that pain is the accident and happiness the law of
our being ; and were the rest of the Old Testament silent,
a future state was still preached to the Jew in the first
chapter of Genesis ; but the Pelagian cut off both the retro-
spect and the pledge. The paradisal age was to him nothing
more than the first age of the world, when science, art,
and the refinements of life had not yet arisen, and man was
simpler than he was afterwards, only because he was more
rude. He took the same view of it that a human philo-
sopher would take who pictures to himself the primitive
state of man simply as a state anterior to civilisation2, and
contrasts it with the law, system, and social growth of a more
advanced age.

And, together with the paradisal life in general, the
created goodness of the first man fell to the ground. The
idea of created virtue jarred with the Pelagian theory of
freewill, according to which virtue was no virtue at all,
unless a man acquired it for himself. An original gift
of righteousness was thus dismissed as a contradiction, and
Adam at his creation was considered to be in the same

1 " Naturam humanam a Deo bono
conditam bonatn magno inobedientiae
peccato fuisse vitiatam, Catholica fides
dicit, Sed vos qui hoc negatis, quaeso,
paulisper Pavadisum cogitate. Placetne
vobis ut ponamus . . . innumerabiles
morbos, orbitates, luctus, etc. Certe si
tails paradisus pingeretur nullus diceret
esse paradisum, nee si supra legisset hoc
nomen conscriptum : nee diceret errasse
pictorem, sed plane agnosceret irriso-

rem. Veruntamen eorura qui nos no-
verunt, nemo miraretur, si adderetur
nomen vestrum ad titulum, et scribere-
tur Paradisus Pelagianorum." — Op.
Imp. 1. 3. c. 1 54. Fide 1. 3. c. 95. 147. ;
1. 6. c. 25. 27, 28.

2 " Homines fuisse primitus nudos,
quia ad solertise humanse operam ut se
tegerent pertinebat, quae nondum in illis
fuit."— Contra. Jul. Pel.l. 4. n. 81.

CHAP. III.]

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

97

condition as every other man that has been born, and to
have had the same struggle of the flesh and spirit.1

2. The Pelagian doctrine had an important bearing on
the doctrine of the Incarnation, in regard to the manner in
which our Lord was, according" to that economy, subject to
temptation and trial, and exposed to the approaches of sin.
Scripture says that our Lord was in all points tempted like as
we are. But the Church has not considered it consistent with
piety to interpret this text to mean that our Lord had the
same direct propension to sin that we have, or that which is
called by divines concupiscence.2 Such direct appetite for
what is sinful is the characteristic of our fallen and corrupt
nature ; and our Lord did not assume a corrupt, but a
sound humanity. Indeed, concupiscence, even prior to and
independent of its gratification, has of itself the nature of
sin 3 ; and, therefore, could not belong to a perfect Being.
Our Lord had all the passions and affections that legiti-
mately belong to man ; which passions and affections,
tending as they do in their own nature to become inordi-
nate, constituted of themselves a state of trial; but the
Church has regarded our Lord's trial in the flesh as consisting
in preserving ordinate affections from becoming inordinate,
rather than in restraining desire proximate to sin from
gratification. So mysterious a subject precludes all ex-
actness of definition ; yet the Church expressed a substantial

1 "Quod miserrimum bellum introdu-
cere conaris in illius beatissimae pacis et
libertatis locum." — Op. Imp. 1. 5. c. 8.
" Nos autem dicimus tarn beatum fuisse
ilium hominem ante peccatum, tamque
liberae voluntatis, ut Dei praeceptum
magnis viribus mentis observans, resis-
tentem sibi carnem nullo certamine pa-
teretur, nee aliquid omnino ex aliqua
cupiditate sentiret, quod nollet."— L. 6.
c. 14. " Addo ad bonitatem conditionis
Ada; quod in eo caro ad versus spiritum
nonconcupiscebatante peccatum: tu au-
tem quitalem dicis carnis concupiscen-
tiam qualis nunc est, in paradise futuram

esse, si nemo peccasset, talemque in
illo fuisse et priusquam peccaret ; addis
ejus condition! et istam miseriam per
carnis spiritusque discordiam." — C.
16.

2 " Christus ergo nulla illicita con-
cupivit, quia discordiam carnis etspiritus,
quse in hominis naturam ex prsevarica-
tione primi hominis vertit, prorsus ille
non habuit, qui de Spiritu et Virgine
non per concupiscentiam carnis est
natus." — Op. Imp. 1. 4. c. 57.

3 Malum esse quamvis mente non
consentiente, vel carne tamen talia con-
cupiscere. — Op. Imp. 1. 5. c. 59.

98

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

truth of morals, as well as one of faith and piety, when she
guarded the person of our Lord from the too near approaches
of sin. Desire discloses, on a nearer examination, different
moral complexions, ar.d at a certain stage is seen to be no
longer a neutral thing. Our Lord, therefore, had not the
whole of desire assigned to Him, but only that earlier stage
of it which is consistent with a sound nature ; and, together
with a true trial, a true sinlessness was provided for.

But S. Augustine had to contest this whole question with
the Pelagian in the instance of our Lord, as he had con-
tested it before in the instance of Adam. The Pelagian
who attached concupiscence to man in Paradise, saw no
reason against attaching it to the humanity assumed by
our Lord. Intent on effort exclusively as the test of good-
ness, he argued that it was this very strength of desire
which constituted the force of trial ; and that, therefore, the
great merit of our Lord's obedience was destroyed by sup-
posing Him to have been without it.1 Moreover, He was
our Model, as having been subjected to the same trials; but
if His desires were weaker than ours, His temptation had
been less, and the force of His example was less with it.2
But, it was replied, that a state of mind which kept off the
approach of sin was a higher one than that which resisted
it near; that the merit of our Lord's obedience was the
perfect one of a triumphantly sustained distance from evil 3 ;

1 Julian : « Non qui virtute judicii
delicta vitasset ; sed qui felicitate rarnis
a nostris sensibus sequestratae, cupi-
ditatem vitiorum sen tire nequivisset."
Augustine objects to this mode of stating
the Catholic position. " Sensisset enim
si habuisset ; non enim sensus ei defuit
quo earn sentiret, sed voluntas adfuit
qua non haberet." — Op. Imp. 1. 4. c.
48. And he observes that if, according
to Julian's argument, the merit of virtue
lay in conquest, it would follow that
where the virtue was greatest, the pas-
sions must be strongest ; which would
lead to a blasphemous conclusion in the

case of our Lord. " Ecce quod Christo
conaris importare insane. . . Tan to
quippe in eo continentia spiritus major
est, quanto majorem carnis concupis-
centiam coerceret." — C. 52.

2 " Nunquam commemorationem fe-
cisset exempli : quern enim hominibus
ostenderet imitandum, si ilium externa?
carnis natura discrevisset. . . Quanto
ei rectius diceret aegritudo peccantium
et securitas coactorum ; « cum valemus
omnes recta consilia preebemus aegrotis ;
tu si sic esses, aliter longe longeque
sentires.'" — Op. Imp. 1. 4. c. 86, 87.

8 " Dicimus eum perfectione carnis,

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

99

and that the force of example did not depend on the identity
of trial, but on the goodness of the example itself, as was
evident from the injunction in Scripture to imitate God.1
It must, indeed, be remarked, on this reply, that Scripture
rests the force of our Lord's example expressly on the ground
that His trial was like our own. The Pelagian, therefore,
was right in insisting on this similarity. But he proceeded
to argue from it upon the principles of ordinary logic, and
his conclusion degraded our Lord's humanity, and endan-
gered that balance of truths on which the doctrine of the
Incarnation rested. The doctrine of our Lord's Divinity
modifies the truths connected with His humanity in this way,
that He who was both God and man cannot be thought of
even as man exactly the same as if He were not God. And
the truth of our Lord's trial and temptation, among others,
is in this sense a modified one. To carry out, therefore, the
conception of a human trial to the full in the instance of
our Lord, without respect to other truth, was to trench on
his Divinity. To the idea of trial, and of example on the
ground of trial, pursued exclusively, the next idea is that of
peccability, and the next that of simple manhood. It was
consistent with such tendencies in Pelagianism that our
Lord did not stand forth as the one sole example of perfect

et non per carnis concupiscentiam pro-
creata carne, cupiditatem non habuisse
vitiorum. . . Illius virtus%aec erat earn
non habere ; nostra virtus est ei non
consentire." — Op. Imp. 1.4. c. 48. " Sic
ijritur Christus abstinuit a peccato, ut
abstineret etiam ab omni cupiditate pec-
cati : non ut ei existent! resisteret, sed ut
ilia mmquam prorsus existeret." — C. 58.

1 " Ncque negare debemus ejus excel-
k'ntiam, neque propter hanc excellentiam
nos excusare, ut non eum pro modo
nostrostudeamusimitari." — Op. Imp. 1.
4. c. 89.

"Quid enim, homo multum loquens
et parum sapiens, si dicerent homines
Christo, Quare nobis jubetur ut imite-
mur te ? Nunquid nos de Spiritu Sancto

et Virgine Maria nati sumus ? Postremo
nun quid tanta nobis esse virtus potest
quanta tibi est, qui ita homo es, ut etiam
Deus sis ? Ideone non debuit sic nasci
ut hominibus eum nolentibus imitari talis
excusatio daretur ? Sicut nobis ipse
Patrem proposuit imitandum, qui certe

homo fuit Nee dicunt ei, Tu

propterea hoc potes quia Deus es. . . .
Non itaque ideo debuit natus de Spiritu
Sancto et Virgine Maria habere concu-
piscentiam, qua cuperet mala, etsi ei
resistendo non faceret, ne dicerent ei
homines, Habetoprius cupiditates malas,
et eas vince, si potes, ut te imitari nos-
tras vincendo possimus." — Op. Imp. 1.
4. c. 87.

100 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

obedience in that system ; but only one, though the principal
one, of a succession of perfect men that had appeared in the
world — extending from Abel and Enoch to Simeon and
Joseph, the husband of Mary.1 An extreme idea of freewill
and human perfectibility was in truth inconsistent with a
sound doctrine of the Incarnation, not admitting of such a
singularity in our Lord's life and -character as that doctrine
involved.

The Pelagian, indeed, in retaliation for the charge of
degrading our Lord's humanity, charged his opponents with
unsubstantiating it, and threw back upon them the name
of Apollinarists, as, with a difference of temptation, not as-
signing to our Lord the same humanity which other men
have, and so denying His true assumption of our nature.
But it was replied that our Lord took on Him the nature,
but not the sin of man. He even charged his opponents
with Manicheanism, as denying that Christ had assumed our
flesh; but the same answer was made, that the flesh was
assumed, but not the corruption. He discovered, again, in
the Catholic representation of our Lord's trial in the flesh, a
combination of both heresies modified — a semi-Apollinarism
in a soul imperfectly connected with the flesh, a semi-Mani-
cheanism in a flesh imperfectly connected with the soul
of our Lord. But it was replied, as before, that the soul of
Christ had perfect connection with the flesh, but not with its
corruption.2

1 De Natura et Gratia, n. 42.
"Incarnatio Christ! justitiae fuit forma

lion prima sed maxima, quia et ante-
quam Verbum caro fieret, et in Prophetis
et in multis aliis sanctis fulsere virtu-
tes." — Op. Imp. 1. 2. c. 188.

2 Julian : " Hie igitur ut adsit toto
anhno lector admoneo : videbit enim
Apollinaristarum haeresim, sed earn
Manicbaei per te adjectione reparari.
Apollinaris primo talem incarnationem,
Christi induxisse fertur,ut diceret solum
corpus dehumana substantia assumptum
videri, pro anima vero ipsam fuisse
deitatem. Quod posteaquam crepit

tarn rationis quam evangelii attestatione
convelli . , excogitavit aliud unde ejus
haere.sis, quee perdurat hactenus, nasce-
retur ; et dixit animam quidem huma-
nam in Christo fuisse sed sensus in eo
corporis non fuisse, atque impassibilem
eum pronuntiavit universis extitisse
peccatis." — Op. Imp. 1. 4. c. 47.

" Certe hanc vim in disputando
Apostolus non haberet si secundum
Manichaeos et eorum discipulos Traduci-
anos, carnem Christi a naturae nostrae
communione distingueret." — Op. Imp.
1. 6. c. 33.

Augustine, in reply, distinguishes

CHAP. HI.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 101

3. Pelagianism was fundamentally opposed to the doctrine
of the atonement ; for no atonement was wanted if there had
been no fall. And this was the chief obstacle between the
Pelagian and a sound doctrine of the Incarnation. The
design of the Incarnation was to remedy the effects of the
fall; apart from which object, it could only be held as an
isolated fact, and, without place or significancy, had no root
in the system.

The Pelagian, however, in superseding the atonement
fundamentally, retained some scattered fragments of the
doctrine. The relation of Christ, as Redeemer, to the whole
race of man, was abandoned in that doctrine of freewill
which represented all men as able to fulfil, and some as
having fulfilled, the whole law, without any other aids than
such as were attached to the system of nature. This position
was a contradiction to a universal atonement. But though
the Pelagians did not regard the assisting grace, which
that event procured, as necessary for everybody, or the par-
doning grace as wanted by all, they attached an advantage
and benefit to the one, and maintained a general need
of the other. The grace of which Christ was the source
rendered the fulfilment of the law, though possible without
it, easier, and was a valuable, though not a necessary assist-
ance ; while the great mass of mankind stood in need of the
atonement for the pardon of actual, though not of original
sin. But the force of the Christian atonement lies in its
interest to mankind as one corporate whole, and that interest
being one of absolute need. To deny the universal necessity
of the atonement, therefore, was to give up the doctrine.
As advantageous to any, essential to some, the grace of

between the Apollinarist statement,
Christum non habuisse corporis sensus,
and his own, that those senses non con-
tra Spiritum concupisse (1. 4. c. 47.); and
as against the Manicheans, he says,
"Manicheei non sunt, qui camera Christ!
a naturae nostrae communione distingu-

unt, sed qui nullam carnem Christum
habuisse contendunt. . . . Dimitteillos
. . . quia nobiscum carnem Christi etsi
dissimiliter confiteris. Nee nos enim
earn a naturae atque substantiae carnis
nostrae, sed a vitii communione distin-
guimus."— Op. Imp. 1. 6. c. 33.

H 3

102 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

Christ was a Pelagian fiction, accommodated to a theory
opposed to it, and maintained as a feeble show of orthodoxy.
The separation of renovating from pardoning grace, again,
was a blow at the integrity of Gospel grace. Pardoning
grace was necessary for any one who had sinned, because
the sin was a past fact which could not be undone ; but the
renovating or assisting grace of Christ was not necessary,
however advantageous to him, because the future sin could
be avoided by nature alone. These two graces go together
in the Divine scheme, and belong to the same act of the
Divine mercy.

Out of one extreme statement at the commencement,
Pelagianism thus expanded into a large body of thought, in-
complete indeed, but having one general stamp, and develop-
ing more and more, as it came out, the original difference
from Catholic truth ; passing from the human will to higher
mysteries, and upon the basis of exalted nature threatening
the truth of the Incarnation.

The philosophical fault of Pelagianism was, that it went
upon ideas without considering facts,-r- in the case both of
freewill and the Divine justice. The abstract idea of free-
will is that of a power to do anything that it is physically
possible for us to do. As man had freewill, then, the Pelagian
argued that he had this power ; and that any man, therefore,
could fulfil the whole law and be perfect. But what we
have to consider in this question, is not what is the abstract
idea of freewill, but what is the freewill which we really and
actually have. This actual freewill, we find, is not a simple
but a complex thing ; exhibiting oppositions and incon-
sistencies ; appearing on the one side to be a power of doing
anything to which there is no physical hindrance, on the
other side to be a restricted faculty. It is that will which
S. Paul describes, when, appealing to the facts of human
nature (the account of which, as referred to the sin of Adam,
is a matter of faith, but which are themselves matters of
'experience), he describes a state of divided consciousness, and

CHAP. III.] THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 103

a sense of power and weakness. But the Pelagian did not
possess himself properly of the facts of human nature, and,
committing the same fault in morals that the mediaeval
philosophers did in science, he argued upon an abstract idea,
instead of examining what the faculty, as we experience it,
really is; and an absolute freewill, which was a simple
conception of the mind, displaced the incomprehensible
actual will, the enigma of human nature, the mystery of fact.

The Pelagian's argument respecting the Divine justice
proceeded in the same way upon an idea without considering
facts. It was founded indeed upon the true natural idea of jus-
tice in our minds ; and so far no fault is to be found with it.
Nor was this a mere abstract idea. But he did not take into
consideration with it the facts of the existing constitution
of things. We find a severe law of suffering in operation
in this world previous to the existence of the individual ;
which law, therefore, can hardly be said to be, in a compre-
hensible sense, a just one. Our moral nature, then, and the
existing constitution of things, being at variance on the ques-
tion of the Divine justice, we arrive at the conclusion that the
Divine justice is incomprehensible. But the Pelagian attended
simply to the idea of justice in his own mind, and ignored
the facts on the other side. The doctrine of original sin,
then, which is in truth nothing but an account, though a
revealed one, of these facts, was not wanted by him. He
did not attend to the difficulty, and therefore wanted no
solution. This doctrine was therefore, in his eyes, a mere
gratuitous theory, which needlessly and wantonly contradicted
the truth of the Divine justice.

But the primary fault of Pelagianism was the sin against
piety contained in its fundamental assertion, as explained at
the commencement of this chapter, of an ultimate movement
of the natural will to good, unassisted by God. However
logical a result of the admission of the freedom of the will,
the absolute assertion of this position was false, because its
premiss was an imperfect one ; and it was contrary to piety,

H 4

104 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

the religious mind feeling an insurmountable check and
prohibition against calling any good movement purely its
own, and appropriating it to the exclusion of God. But
the Pelagian ventured on this act of appropriation.

Raised upon a basis thus philosophically and religiously
at fault, Pelagianism was first an artificial system, and next
of a low moral tendency.

It wanted reality, and was artificial in assigning to man
•what was opposed to his consciousness and to what he
felt to be the truth about himself. The absolute power
of man to act without sin and be morally perfect was
evidently a fiction, based on an abstract idea and not on
the experienced faculty of freewill. And when he fol-
lowed with a list of men who had actually been perfect
moral beings, Abel, Enoch, Melchisedek, and others, he
simply trifled ; and showed how fantastic, absurd, and un-
substantial his position was. Human nature is too seriously
alive to the law of sin under which it at present acts,
not to feel the mockery of such assertions.

The system, again, had a low moral tendency. First,
it dulled the sense of sin. Prior to and independent of
action there exists a state of desire which the refined con-
science mourns over ; but which is part of the existing nature
as distinguished from being the choice of the man. Hence
the true sense in which the saints have ever grieved, not
only over their acts, but over their nature: for, however
incomprehensible, they have felt something to be sinful
within them which was yet coeval with them. But the
Pelagian, not admitting any sin but that of direct choice,
would not see in concupiscence anything but a legitimate
desire, which might be abused, but was in itself innocent.
In disallowing the mystery of evil he thus impaired his
perception of it; he only saw nature in that to which
the acute conscience attached sin l ; and gave himself credit

1 " Naturalem esse omnium sensuum I cemus . . . Concupiscentia cum intra
voluptatem, testimonio universitatis do- | limitem concessorum tenetur affectio na-

CHAP. III.]

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY.

105

for a sound and practical standard of morals, as opposed to
a morbid and too sensitive one. The doctrine of per-
fectibility encouraged the same tendency in the system,
demanding a lower moral standard for its verification.

And the same narrowness of moral basis which dulled
the sense of sin, depressed the standard of virtue. The
Pelagian denied virtue as an inspiration and gift of God,
confining his idea of it entirely to human effort and direct
choice. But the former conception of the source of virtue
was necessary to a high standard of virtue itself. If we are
to rely on what general feeling and practical experience say
on this subject, virtue needs for its own support the reli-
gious rationale, i. e. the idea of itself as something imparted.
There must be that image and representation of it in men's
minds which presents it less as a human work than as an
impulse from above, possessing itself of the man he knows
not how; a holy passion, and a spark kindled from the
heavenly fire. It is this conception of it as an inspiration that
has excited the sacred ambition of the human mind, which
longs for union with God, or a participation of the Divine
life, and sees in this inspiration this union. Virtue has thus
risen from a social and civil to a sublime and intrinsic
standard, and presented itself as that which raised man above
the world, and not simply moulded and trained him for it.
This conception has accordingly approved itself to the great
poets of the world, who have in their ideal of man greatly

turalis et innocuus est." — Op. Imp. 1.
1. c. 71.

The particular difficulty attaching to
concupiscence as sin, and yet unavoidable,
Julian exposes with logical acuteness,
which does not, however, still answer the
real argument upon which this sort of
sin rests, which is that of inward
feeling and conscience. " Quod vero
posuisti, legem quidem peccati esse in
membris nostris, sed tune habere pecca-
tum quando consentimus ; tune vero
solum proelium suscitare quando non

consentimus, et indicere miseriam pace
turbata; quis non prudens pugnare
perspiciat ? Nam si lex peccati, id est,
peccatum, et necessitas peccati membris
est inserta naturaliter, quid prodest non
ei praebere consensum, cum propter hoc
ipsum quod est, necesse sit subire suppli-
cium ? Aut si est lex quidem peccati,
sed quando ei non consentio non pecco,
inestimabilis potentia voluntatis huma-
nae, quae (si dici permittat absurditas)
cogit ipsum non peccare peccatum."
— Op. Imp. 1. 1. c. 71.

106 THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. [CHAP. III.

leaned to the inspired kind of virtue. So congenial to the
better instincts even of the unenlightened human mind is the
Christian doctrine of grace, while, disconnected with this
ennobling conception, morality has sunk down to a political
and secular level. Nor is there any justice surer than that
by which the self-sufficient will is punished by the exposure
of its own feebleness, and rejected grace avenged in a barren
and impoverished form of virtue. Those schools that have
seen in the doctrine of grace only an unsound enthusiasm,
and have aimed at fortifying the ground of morals by re-
leasing it from this connection, have not improved their
moral standard, but greatly lowered and relaxed it. With
a dulled sense of sin, a depressed standard of virtue, Pe-
lagianism thus tended to the moral tone of Socinianism,
and the religion which denies the Incarnation. The as-
ceticism of its first promulgators and disciples could not
neutralise the tendencies of a system opposed to mystery
and to grace, and therefore hostile at once to the doctrinal
and the moral standard of Christianity.

The triumphant overthrow of such a school was the service
which S. Augustine performed to the Church, and for which,
under God, we still owe him gratitude. With all the excess
to which he pushed the truth which he defended, he de-
fended a vital truth, without which Christianity must have
sunk to an inferior religion, against a strong and formidable
attack. He sustained that idea of virtue as an inspiration
to which the lofty thought of even heathen times ever clung,
which the Gospel formally expressed in the doctrine of
grace, and which is necessary to uphold the attributes of God
and the moral standard of man.

107

CHAP. IV.

DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF ORIGINAL SIN.

THE doctrine of the fall of man has been always held as a
fundamental doctrine in the Church ; and all Catholic writers
have witnessed to the truth, that the first man came from
the hands of God an upright creature, that he fell from
that uprightness by voluntary transgression, and that he
involved in his fall the whole of his posterity. But the
different ways in which this doctrine has been held involve
a discussion of some length and difficulty, to which I shall
devote this chapter.

The language in which the primitive Church expresses this
doctrine distinctly asserts two things. The early fathers, in
the first place, clearly held, that the sin of Adam did not
stop with itself ; they speak of the race and not of the indi-
vidual only, with reference to it ; and the universal terms of
" man," " mankind," " the soul," leave no doubt as to their
belief that human nature was in some way or other affected
by that sin.1 Secondly, when we examine what this uni-
versal consequence was, we find that it is called apostacy,
captivity, corruption and death.2 These are metaphorical

1 Justin Martyr : Tb y4vos ruv
avQpanrcw 6 airb TOV 'ASct/i inrb QO.VO.TOV

r\avi]v Triv TOV o<pios
— Dial cum Try ph. c. 88.

Irenseus : Ilominem (the race) absor-
ber! magno ceto. — Adv. Hoer.3. 22.

Tatian : Trrepoxris yap rrjs tyv^s rb
irvtvfj.0. T~b rcAetoj/, (Jirep awopptyaffa, 5ta
TTjV a/JLapTiav C'TTTTJ Sxnrep vtovabs, KOI
Xa/xaiTrcT^s tyevero. — Ad. Graec. c. 20.

Athanasius : 'H tyvxh aitoaraoa rijs
irpbs TO /coAa Qwpias. — Contra Gentes,4.

Basil : 'EKOKudi) r) ^vxh itapaTpaireiaa
TOV Kara <pv<nv. — Horn. Deus non Auc-
tor Mali. s. 6.

Of the same generic sort are the ex-
pressions, 7) irpdanr) yevecris (Justin. Apol.
1. 61.), TJ TraAoto yweffis (Tatian, contra
Grac. c. 11.).

* Dominabatur nobis apostasia. — Ire-
nacus, Adv. Hcer. 5, 1.

Quos in eadem captivitate (Adam)
generavit. — 3. 34.

Per priorem generationem mortem
hsereditavimus. — 5. 1.

Vitium originis. Naturae corruptio. —
Tertullian, DeAnima, c. 41.

Nativitatis sordes — Origen, Horn. 14.
in. Luc.

108 DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

expressions, indeed, and convey no precise and accurate mean-
ing, but they plainly signify something more than a privation
of higher good, and something more than a mere tendency to
positive evil. This tendency existed before the fall, and no
mere increase of it could have brought it up to the natural
meaning of these terms ; which must therefore be taken to
signify positive moral evil, and to indicate, as the doctrine of
the early fathers, the positive sinfulness of the whole human
race in consequence of the sin of Adam, that is to say, the
doctrine of original sin.

But as Scripture reveals this consequence of the sin of
Adam, so natural reason certifies, on the other hand, that
nobody can sin but by his own personal act, and that one
man's guilt cannot be transferred to another. This truth
of natural reason mingled intimately in the statements of
the early fathers with the truth of revelation ; so intimately
indeed, that often no definite meaning can be extracted from
them. Two opposite truths are expressed together, and side
by side.1 The consequence is, that persons accustomed to
the later theological statements of this doctrine have been
often dissatisfied, when they have gone to examine the earlier
one, and have set down the writers as not full believers in
it. But the truth is, such mixed and double statements
more faithfully express the truth than single-sided ones
drawn out in either direction would, because they express
the whole truth, and not a part of it. What appears to be
ambiguity is comprehensiveness, and is a merit and perfec-
tion, and not a defect. Nor, on the same grounds on which
the early fathers are charged with a disbelief in this doctrine,
could Scripture itself be acquitted.

But it was not in accordance with the nature of the
human mind to allow these great truths respecting the moral
condition of man to go on thus mixed and united. Theo-
logy began soon to draw out each separately ; and this

1 NOTE XV.

CHAP. IV.] OP ORIGINAL SIN. 109

mixture parted into two great doctrinal views or schemes, of
which the earlier took the side of the natural truth, the
later of the revealed. The earlier fathers, without nega-
tiving their witness to the true doctrine of original sin as ex-
pressed in Scripture, and handed down in the Church, wrote
as theologians with a strong bias in favour of the natural
truth ; and gave it, in their scheme of philosophy and doc-
trine, a disproportionate expansion. Instead of leaving the
truth of revelation in its original mystery and contradiction
to human reason, as individual thinkers they modified and
limited it, so as to be consistent with reason ; while a later
school went to the other extreme, and developed the revealed
truth at the expense of the natural.

But an account of the doctrine of the fall will require as
an introduction some account of the state from which this
was a fall, i.e. of man's original righteousness.

The original righteousness of man, then, is universally
described in ancient writers as partly natural, partly super-
natural. It was natural in this respect, that it proceeded from
the exercise of a natural freewill and power of choice. It
was supernatural in this respect, that certain supernatural
gifts, in addition to freewill, were required for it. These
gifts could not produce righteousness unless his natural will
first consented to use them; nor could his will, however
sound, without the inspiring assistance of these gifts; and
grace was necessary for the righteousness of man upright as
well as of man fallen.

Such a doctrine, however, requires some explanation with
respect to two points. First, how could it be maintained
with a consistent meaning that supernatural assistance was
necessary towards fulfilling the Divine precepts, if man had
naturally freewill? For we mean by freewill, it may be
said, the power, supposing the opportunity, of doing or ab-
staining from any actions whatever; and therefore, whatever
impulse and facility might be given to right action by

110 DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

supernatural assistance, the power to act would not depend
upon it. But to this objection it may be replied that,
however we may define freewill in words as such a power,
we do not mean that it is such a power abstracted from
all stimulus or motive supplied to our nature from other
quarters. Thus, in the sphere of common life, a man with
freewill has the power to do his duty to his parents, rela-
tions, and friends; but he has not this power independently
of certain affections implanted in his nature over and above
his will. Such questions as these cannot be treated satis-
factorily, on account of the great defects and obscurity both
in our conceptions of our own nature and the language in
which we express them. But, upon the most correct idea we
can form of what the will is, and what the affections are, it
would seem that neither of them could, without the other,
enable us to fulfil our duties in common life. The benevolent
affections incline us indeed to benevolent acts ; but, unless
supported by the will, they yield to selfish considerations,
and produce no fruits. The will, in like manner, does not
enable us to perform laborious services in our neighbour's
behalf without the stimulus of the affections. Nor, did
it even enable us to perform the external acts, could it
therefore enable us to perform our whole duty; such duty
involving something of love and affection in the very perfor-
mance of it.

There is, then, something defective in the will as a source
of action ; and this defect existed in the will of the first man,
however sound and perfect that will might be ; because it
is a defect inherent in the will itself, and not attaching to
it as a weak and corrupted will only. As, therefore, for
fulfilling the relations of common life we require the help of
certain natural gifts, such as the natural affections plainly are,
being received from God at our creation; in the same way
the first man, to enable him to perform the spiritual relations
assigned to him, required the aid of certain gifts supernatural,
or such gifts as come under the head of grace.

CHAP. IV.] OF ORIGINAL SIN. Ill

But, in the second place, granting that these gifts were ne-
cessary for the first man, it may still be asked, why call them
supernatural? They were not supernatural as being Divine
gifts ; for in that case our natural affections would be super-
natural gifts. Nor were they supernatural as being additions
to his created state; though, had they been, they would not
have been supernatural, because they were thus additional.
Is not this, then, it may be asked, an arbitrary distinction?
How can the nature of a man be defined but as that assem-
blage of faculties and affections, higher or lower, with which
God endows him ? and how can we therefore, out of this whole
assemblage, single out some as natural, others as super-
natural ?

In answer to this objection, it may be enough to say, that
when the fathers speak of these gifts as supernatural, they
do not seem to mean that they were above human nature
itself, that nature being whatever it might please God by
His various, gifts to make it, but above human nature as
adapted to that order of things in which it is at present
placed ---this visible order of things or the world. A world
is below or on a level with any set of affections, according as
it manifests or does not manifest the final objects of them.
The world in which we are manifests or presents to our sight
the final object of the social affections, viz. man ; this world,
therefore, is not below, but on a level with the social affec-
tions. But the final object of the spiritual affections is not
man but God ; and this world, though it proves to the un-
derstanding the existence of, does not manifest or present to
our sight, God. This world is, therefore, below the spiritual
affections; i. e. the spiritual affections are above this world.
The heavenly world cannot be carried on without these ;
for in heaven is what divines call the Visio Dei, the sight of
God ; and therefore the supreme visible Inhabitant of that
world, and omnipresent as He is supreme, would want atten-
tion and regard without them. But, though absolutely need-
ing the social affections for its maintenance, this world can be

112

DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

carried on and its affairs conducted without the aid of the
spiritual ; which, as being more than necessary for its main-
tenance, are therefore above it; that is to say, are above
nature, or supernatural.1

Such being the composition of man's original righteousness,
the earlier fathers held that the fall deprived him of these
supernatural gifts, but left him a fundamentally sound nature,
while Augustine maintained, together with the loss of these
supernatural gifts, an entire corruption of his nature as the
consequence of the fall.

To account for the rise of a particular school of thought is
a superfluous task, when all that we are concerned with is
the school itself; and a task often more perplexing than
useful. Some reasons, however, are perhaps discernible in the
circumstances of the early Church for the supremacy of a
milder interpretation of the doctrine of original sin. The
writers of that age were, in the first place, more imbued with
gentile thought than those of a later era ; and the Church, on
its first entrance into the world, was both more dependent
on and less suspicious of the world's philosophers. It was
more dependent on them, because it was as yet without an
established literature of its own ; it was less suspicious of
them, because it did not stand in so strong an antagonistic
relation to the world without, as it subsequently did when
that world had been longer tried, and had shown — that por-
tion of it which remained without — greater obstinacy in
rejecting the Gospel. Earlier Christianity regarded the
gentile world more as a field of promise ; and saw in it the

1 Man may be considered in a double
order or relation. 1. In relation to the
natural, animal, or earthly life. And
so he is a perfect man that hath only a
reasonable soul and a body adapted
thereunto ; for the powers and faculties
of these are sufficient to the exercise of
the functions and operations belonging
to such a life. But, 2. Man may be
considered in order to a supernatural
end, and as designed to a spiritual and

celestial life ; and of this life the Spirit
of God is the principle ; for man's
natural powers and faculties, even as
they were before the fall, entire, were
not sufficient of themselves to reach
such a supernatural end, but needed the
power of the Divine Spirit to strengthen,
elevate, and raise them thereunto. —
Bull, " On the State of Man before the
Fall," vol. ii. p. 87.

CHAP. IV.] OF ORIGINAL SIN. 113

future harvest rather than the present foe. Nor is it to be
forgotten, that the principal writers of that age themselves,
Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and others, came
from the ranks of gentile philosophy, and retained in their
conversion the intellectual tastes of their former life. The
early Church thus adopted a friendly tone toward gentile
philosophy, and acknowledged sympathies with it. But such
sympathies could not but raise the estimate of the natural
state of man ; for they were themselves a tribute of respect to
the fruits of human thought and feeling in that state.

Another reason for the milder interpretation of original sin
in the early Church was the great prominence then given to
the doctrine of the Logos, i. e. to the contemplation of our
Lord as the wisdom or reason of the Father, and as such the
source of wisdom and enlightenment to the human mind ; —
the aspect in which He is set forth in the opening of St.
John's gospel. The early fathers, partly from a peculiar sym-
pathy with it as philosophers, — partly from an acquaintance
with the Platonic doctrine of a Logos, which bore some re-
semblance to and appeared to be a heathen anticipation of
the true one, — and partly to fortify a controversial position
against the Gnostics, whose boast of a peculiar inward illumi-
nation imparted by their philosophy was thus met on its own
ground, gave a conspicuous place to this character of our
Lord. The result was, without any intention on their part,
some loss of pre-eminence to our Lord's office of Victim and
Expiator. The doctrine of the Logos divided a theological
attention, which was afterward given more wholly to the
doctrine of the atonement. And this position of the atone-
ment would naturally affect the position of the doctrine of ori-
ginal sin.

But, whatever were the reasons, an earlier school repre-
sented man's nature as continuing fundamentally sound after
the fall, and laid down, as the consequence of that event, a
state of defect and loss of perfection as distinguished from
a state of positive corruption. Man was deprived of impulses

114

DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

which elevated his moral nature ; but still that moral nature
remained entire and able to produce fruits pleasing in their
measure to God. And though it was admitted that all
mankind were, as a matter of fact, positive sinners, such
positive sin was not regarded as the necessary consequence of
original, but referred to the freewill of each individual, who
could have avoided it, had he chosen 1 ; all that original sin
had entailed as of necessity and beyond the power of man to
avoid, being a state of defect.2

Such an estimate of the effects of the fall, as it was partly
produced by, in its turn produced, a more favourable view
of the moral condition of that large proportion of mankind
which had been in no way relieved from them, — the heathen
world. It may be considered doubtful to what precise
extent S. Clement of Alexandria, the earlier schools' great
exponent on this question, represents the sentiments of the
actual early Church at large upon it. He acknowledges in
his writings the existence, and answers the objections, of a
part of the Church that did not agree with him.3 But it is
difficult to judge of the size or importance of this part ; and
a great writer is in later ages legitimately supposed, in the
absence of express evidence to the contrary, and if tradition
has attached authority to his name, to represent the mind of
his age.

av&aiperov TTJS ai/0pa>7rti/r?s
avT££ovcri6v — rb avdaiperov
a8ov\(ioToi> Trpbs e/cA<>7V jSt'ou — ctfpfffis
jueTa/3oA.7/s atria — irpoaipeffis €\€vQepa
— rb €<£>' fiiMV — afy' eavrov €\6/j.evos
T& ayaQov — avroKpar-fis. These ex-
pressions occurring in the early fathers
(Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of
Alexandria, Athenagoras, Tatian, Cyril)
are applied to man fallen as well as un-
fallen. "All the Greek fathers," says
Hagenbach, "-maintain the avrej-oixnov of
the human soul." The early westerns are
no less explicit : Homo vero rationabiHs
et secundum hoc similis Deo, liber in
arbitrio factus et suse potestatis, ipse sibi
causa' est, ut aliquando quidem frumen-
tum, aliquando autem palea fiat. — Ire-
na?us, 1. 4. c. 9. Id quod erat semper

liberum in homine et sua* potestatis — C.
29. I give below Tertullian's elaborate
statement of man's freewill. No dis-
tinction, as regards the will, appears to
have been made between man fallen
and unfallen, but man as such is spoken
of as having it.

2 Bull, " On the State of Man before
the Fall," describes the loss of the
supernatural gifts as the consequence
which the early fathers annexed to
the fall.

3 Ot iroAAot 8e, KaOaTTfp ot TrcuSes
ra /ji.opfj.o\vKia ovrcas SeSfatrt TTJZ/ 'E\\r)-
K^V QiXoffofyiav, (pogoj'/wej'Oi JUT? aTraydyr)
avrovs. — Potter's ed. v. ii. p. 780.
Nal <pa<r\v yeypdtydai, Trdvres ol irpb rrjs
•jrapovcias TOV Kvpiov, K\fTrrai flat Kal
\9j(rraf. — Vol. i. p 366.

CHAP. IV.]

OF ORIGINAL SIN.

115

Clement of Alexandria, then, on this subject, takes what
may be called the natural view of the facts which meet his
eye. He acknowledges the noble affections, the moral
virtues, even the religious acts, of the heathen as real and
genuine, only as not reaching so high a standard as those of
the Christian. The authority of Scripture is claimed, and
the Apostle is cited as saying that " the uncircumcision kept
the righteousness of the law." l There was a first purifi-
cation of the soul, which resulted in abstaining from evil ;
a second, which advanced to positive goodness.2 Attention
is drawn to the moral lessons of heathen poets, to the labours
of lawgivers3, to the ascetic fruits of the Buddhist and
Brahman religions 4, to the worship which Athens ignorantly
paid to the true God.

But the philosophy of the heathen, as the highest effort of
their moral as well as intellectual faculties, their discipline
of life and school of perfection as well as guide to truth,
was the great fact which influenced Clement on this ques-
tion, and which elicited his greatest admissions, both as to
the reality and the source of heathen goodness. Heathen
philosophy, then, was, in his view, a reaching forward to
Divine truth and a reflection of it. It only taught indeed,
comprehensible and not mysterious truth ; but the one pre-
pared the way for the other. Heathen philosophy was the
forerunner of the Gospel 5, and, as being so excellent a thing,

1 Strom. 1. 1. c. 19.

2 Strom. 1. 6. c. 7.

9 Strom. 1. 1. c. 14, 15.

4 'IvSuv re oi rv^vofrocpiffral, &\\oi re
<f>i\oa6(f>oi j8ap)3apoi. AITTOJ/ Se rovroav
rb yevos, ol /j.ev 'Sap/j.dvou avriav, ol 8e
BpaX^dvai Ka\ovfj.evor Kal ru>v 2ap/xa-
vSav ol *A\\6§iot Trpo<ra.yopev6/Ji.ei>oi, oftre
irfafis oiKovmv, otire trreyas K~ypv(Tiv,
8eV8pa>i> 5s

aKpofipva (Tirovvrai, Kal vftwp
irivovffiv, oo •ydjuov, ou iraiooiroiav Iffaat
&<riTep ol vvv 'EyKparr)ral Ka\ou^evoi.
'Eurl 8t rwv 'lySajj/ of rots E6vrra TTCI-
81'

ffe/j.v6rr)Tos els ®ebv reti/^'fiKcun. — Strom.
1. 1. c. 15.

5 'Opeyerai rrjs &€tas eTnffT'hfj.ris> ov8e-
Trca 8e ruyxdvet. — Strom. 1. 6. c. 7.
The true Gnostic or Christian alone
attained this knowledge : 'O yvwariKos
8e eK€?i/os, rb. SoKovvra ctKaT(£Ar)7rra elvai
rois &\\ois, atirbs Ka.ra\a/j.Sdi>ei' TTUT-
T€i;cros ort ovSev aKard\r)irTOV r§ vlai
rov deov. — L. 6. c. 8. But the heathen
philosophy supplied the elements of the
Divine : Atb Kal ffroixe^rar-fi rls e<rnv
T) p.epiK^ of'TTj (pt\o(To<p'ia TTJJ re\fias
ovrus *irurr-fifj.r)S tireKeiva K6ap.ov irtpl
rA vo-rjTCi, HO.} fri rovrcavra irvevuariKw-

I 2

116

DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

it could have no other source than a Divine one. Philo-
sophy was the great gift of God to the gentile world ; and
the less perfect law and the more perfect law came both
from the same Fountain Head.1 And though some called its
truths stolen ones, or attributed them to the devil, or to nature
as their teacher ; still philosophy, if it had stolen its truths,
had them ; the devil, if he taught them, had taught the truth ;
and there was but one Author of nature, z. e. God.2

But gentile philosophy is not only referred to Divine
inspiration generally as its source, but specially to our Lord
as the Logos ; being a fragment of that truth which after-
wards issued from the Incarnate Word as an harmonious
whole.3 The estimate of the heathen world thus gained
another important step ; and natural goodness, once admitted
to belong to it, did not rest simply such, but rose above

repot avaffrpe(poiJi.ftn)S. — c. 8. Tlpoita-
raffKevdfei rfyv 68bv rrj fiaffiXiKGirdrri
8t8a<r/caAia. — L. I.e. 16. ' A\\a o~v\ha/j.-
€dverai ye rip \oyiK(os eTrtxeipeu/ eef-
7rou5a/c<fn avQaTrreffdai yvuxreus. — c.20.
Kairoi eV TToAAoTs ret. eoiKora eirix^ipei
Kal TriOavcverat <pi\oo~o<pia • aAAa ras
alpefffis cTTippaTrifei. — c, 19. Kal icar'
€fi(paffi,v Se Kal 8id<j>ao~iv ot ctKpiS&s irapa
"EAArjtrt <pi\oyofyT]ffavres 5iop<ao~i rbv
&e6v. — C. 1 9. IlauAos eV rais eirio'roXdis

verai aroi-

crroi-

drrjv riva oixrav, Kal
rrjs aX-nOeias. — Strom. 1. 6. c. 8.

1 &CLUV Swpeay "EAArjcri
— Strom. 1. 1. c. 2. 'Aywybv Se rb 4pa-
ffrbv Trpbs r)]v kavrov &f(i>piav, iravrbs
rov oKov eaurbv rfj TTJS yvcaffeoos aydtrr)
fTriSۤ\f]Koros rfj 6ecapi(f. Aib Kal ras
GPTO\as as eScowey, rds re irporepas rds
re Sevrepas €K fuas apvrr6p.evos TTT^TJS
6 Kvpios. K. r. A. — L. 7. c. 2.

"Ean yap r§ ovri <pi\o(ro(f>ia /jLeyicrrov
KT^O, Kal rifjudirarov ®f(p. — Justin
Martyr, Dial, c, 2. Though in the
Cohortatio ad Grcecos, he disparages
Pagan philosophy, while he acknow-
ledges its possession of some truths,
such as the unity of the Deity as
taught by Plato ; which, as well as his
doctrine of ideas, however, he con-

siders him te have got from the Scrip-
tures, which he saw in Egypt ; the
latter from the mention of the pattern

shown to Moses on the mount Ad.

Graec. c. 21. et seq.

Ea quidem quae ad sapientes seculi de
veritatis scientia pervenerunt, Deo re-
velante pervenerunt : sed dum aut vanee
gloriae student, aut adulantur erroribus
vetustis, aut metu principum refrenan-
tur, damnationis suae ipsi judices fiunt.
— Origen, in Rom. i. 18., vol. 4. p. 471.

2 Ou roivvv fyevbysrj <pi\oao<pia, K.Q.V 6
/cAeTTTTjs, Kal 6 \tyevcrrr]S Kara /j.eraax'nV-0--
rifffjLbvevepyeiasra aATjflr/ \eyrj. — Strom.
1. 6. c. 8. 'O /cAfTTTTjs 'oirep ixpeXo/uievos
eX^t aATjflcos exet, KUV xPvff'iov V, K&v
apyvpos, kav \6yos, Kav ti6y/*a. — Strom.
1. 1. c. 20. Et5 Se (6 5ta§oAos), cos
ayye\os (pcarbs irpo^rjTevei, aAr)9rj apa
fpet. — L. 6. c. 8. EJfr' a§ (pvaiK^v ev-
voiav fcrx^KevaL rovs vEAA7ji/as \eyoi, rbv
rrjs (pvveus St]fji.iovpybv eVa yiV(a<rKOfj.ev.
— L. 1. c. 19.

3 O&TWS olv '-f) re &dp§apos, % re
'E\\^viK^ </>iAo<ro<J>ia rty d'iSiav a.\T]QGtav
ffirapayfj.6v riva, ov rrjs Aiovvcrov fj.v6o-
\oyias, rys 5e rov A6yov rov ovros del
©eoAo7i'as ireiroirfraf 6 Se TO S/TjpTj^ueVa
ffvvQels avQis, Kal ei/OTrotTjo'ay, re\eiov
rbv \6yov aKivSvvus ev "crff on Kar6-

iv a\T)9fiav. — Strom. 1. I.e. 13.

CHAP. IV.]

OF ORIGINAL SIN.

117

nature, and claimed affinity with grace. The dispensation
of Paganism, so far as it contained truth, was but a lower
part of one large dispensation, which our Lord, as the Divine
Reason, had instituted and carried on for the enlightenment
of the human race, and of which the Gospel was the con-
summation ; heathens and Christians were, though in a dif-
ferent measure, still alike partakers of that one " Light that
lighteth every man that cometh into the world ; " and all
mankind, as brought into union and fellowship by that
common participation, formed one religious society and com-
munion— one Church.1

The interpretation of original sin, again, as a privation
of higher good rather than a positive state of sin, affected
the punishment which was assigned to it. The penalty of
the fall was exclusion from Paradise, and with it exclusion
from that state of blessedness for which the life in Paradise
was a preparation.2 Had man kept the commandment
given to him, he would have been allowed to continue in
a state of earthly felicity till his obedience had been tried ;
he would then have migrated by no process repugnant
to nature, but by an easy and painless one, provided by
God for this purpose, from an earthly to a heavenly Paradise.

oAA'

• «ol

1 Udvres avrov ol avOpoyiroi
ol fj.fv /car' tiriyvwffiv, ol 8e
oi p\v us <t>i\oi, ol Se us
ol 5£ us air\us oute'rat • b 8i8a<r/caAos
ovros 6 ira&evuv /j.v<TTiipiois ptv TOP
yvuffTiKbv, 4\-jri(ri 8e ayadais TOJ/TTIO-TOC,
Kal TratSeia -ry firavopBuriKy Si' aladr)-
TIKTJS evepysias rbv o~K\i]poKdp8iov. . . .
ovr6s 4(TTiv 6 8i8oi»s Kal ro7s "E\\r)<rt T V
<piXoao<piav, 8ta ruv vTrepSfeo-repuv ayye-
\uv. . . . "Hroi yap ov <ppovTi£et iravrvtv
avdptoiruv o Kvpios ' Kal TOVTO, rj T$ ^
Suj/ao-001 iraQoi av ' o-rrep ov Qfp.n6v '
affQfvetas yap ff^f"iov % T$ ^ fiov-
\eadai Svvd/Jievos, O&K ayaQbv 5% TO
irdQos. . . . ^ Kr)8fTai TWV (Tvfj.irdvruv •
'6irep Kal KadrjKei T^J Kupiu irdvruv ytvo-
l*.sv(p' (rarr^p yap iffTiv • ovx^ T&v (ifis,
TUV 8' of} — Strom. 1. 7. c. 2.

'ils olv (rvyKiyfirai Ka\

\i6ov

•jrvev/j.ari, 8tA iro\\uv *rS>v fft^i\pS>v e'/cret-
KTvhtui', ovrca Kal T$ a.yt<p
f\K6/j.evoi, ol fjLfV frdperoi,
oiKetovvrai rrj irpurr) (Ji6vri, e^e^s 8'
&*.\oi Aie'xpt T^S T€A.et»ratas. — L. 7. c. 2.

Athanasius (De Incarn. c. 12.) ap-
pears to speak of the heathen as in a
certain sense under the same dispen-
sation as the Jews ; as having the power
Trarpbs \6yov yv&vai from the works
of nature ; the prophets sent by God
to the Jews having been sent for
their sake as well.

2 Tatian, Ad Graec. c. 20. ^upurOf-
ffav ol TrpuToir\ao~Tai airb rrjs yijs peis,
a\\' oijK £K ravrrfs, Kpftrrovos ot rfjs
fvravQa 5iaKofffjL-f]<rfus. See Bull, On
the State o f Man before the Fall, p.
67.

I 3

DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

His disobedience excluded him from both these states.
But both the earthly Paradise and the heavenly one were
states of higher good : one of lower good was still left open
to him, as the reward of such virtue as he was still capable
of reaching.

The distinction between the natural and supernatural life,
it is to be remembered, is a distinction between the two states
themselves, and not between the dates of them, whether
now or in futurity. It is one drawn from their respective
inherent characteristics, which are not affected by the
order of time. Christian association indeed identifies the super-
natural with future life, the natural with present ; because
the future life at which, as Christians, we aim is a super-
natural one : but the two ideas are not identical. The
future eternal world of the Pagan, the Mahometan, and
the savage is a natural order of things, and even an inferior
one of that rank. A much higher and more moral eternity
may be conceived, which would still be, according to the
distinction which has been laid down on this subject *, a
natural one. Such an eternity was, according to early
theology, open to man in a state of original sin, though
shut out from a supernatural or heavenly one ; — the penalty
of which sin was therefore, as regards a future life, made
a privation only, and not a positive punishment. As re-
gards the present life, the exchange of pain, labour, and
sorrow for the happiness of Paradise was indeed in itself
positive punishment. But if transient pain leads to an eter-
nity of happiness, even of the natural kind, the existence
of the creature is on the whole a good to him not an evil.
And therefore, however it may have pleased God to lighten
the state of trial in the first instance, and even to make
it painless and happy, a painful trial is, as the means to
so valuable an end, not otherwise than a good.

The assignment of such a punishment to original sin

1 P. in.

CHAP. IV.] OF ORIGINAL SIN. 119

was in substance the doctrine of a middle state ; and early
theology may be considered as having pointed to such a
state as the final condition of the heathen and unbaptized.
In saying this, however, I give what theology before the
time of S. Augustine upon this subject as a whole comes
to, rather than any definite doctrine that was held. If we
examine the particulars of the early Church's view, or what
was said at different successive times on this subject, these
will appear mainly under the three following heads : —

I. The statements of the three first centuries bearing
on the question are principally confined to a general ac-
knowledgment of real goodness existing among the heathen ;
such an acknowledgment as immediately suggests future
reward as the necessary result, under God's moral govern-
ment, of such goodness ; but without any reference, express
or implicit, to such a result. These statements, however,
assume occasionally a greater significance in this direction,
and appear to include without expressly mentioning, a
future state of reward. The Logos or Son of God is,
according to Clement, not only the Teacher and Light of all
mankind in different degrees, but the Saviour of all ; dis-
pensing His bounty, in proportion to their fitness for it ;
to the Greeks and barbarians a lesser, to the faithful and
elect a greater share; to all, according to the measure
in which He has dispensed His gifts, and the use made
of them, awarding a higher or a lower rank in the uni-
verse.1 And an express allusion to a future life is made
in the application to the heathen of the passage in Hermas
relating to the salvation of just men before the law, bestowed
by means of a baptism after death.2 But while a pro-
portionate eternal reward, in the case of the heathen, is
pointed to, no positive line is as yet drawn between the

1 B€\TIOJ><X o7roAo/igc£i>€ii> Iv rif iravrl j * 'fls "A§f\, us Nwe, us ('• TIS Urtpos
Ta|t». — Strom. 1. 7. c. 2. ! SIXMOS. — Strom. 1. 2. c. 9.

I 4

120

DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

heathen and the Christian states in eternity. One state
with different ranks in it is rather suggested, and all good
men considered Christians in their degree are admitted to
one common, though variously arranged, kingdom of heaven.1

II. But, secondly, the concession to the heathen of some
state of happiness after death not being abandoned, we find, in
course of time, the opinion established in the Church, that
original sin did exclude from that place of supernatural
happiness which was called the kingdom of God, or the
kingdom of heaven. Origen, while he pointedly claims for
heathen goodness some eternal reward, and so applies the
text " Glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh
good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile," at the same
time excludes the heathen, as being still under original tdn,
from the kingdom of heaven.2 The Pelagians, with a doctrine
which did not support, or rather opposed such a conclusion, de-
ferred-to an established distinction, and excluded the unbap-
tized, whom the Church at large regarded as under the guilt
of original sin, though they themselves acknowledged no such
sin in the first instance from which such guilt could arise,
from this state of happiness. The text, " Except a man be
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
Kingdom of God," was, indeed, considered to settle this
question, and that in two ways : first, as deciding that no
one in a state of nature could enter into the kingdom of
God; secondly, as deciding that the only means by which
the penalty of nature was removed was the rite of baptism.

. . . \6yov OVT&, ov
irav yevos avdpuircw jueretrxc ' Kal ot
e \6yov puaffavTss \piaT iavoi eiffi,
aBeot fvofjLi<r6ri<Tav • olos eV "EAATjcrt
Sco/cpcfo-Tj? Kal 'Hpa/cAetTOS, KOI oi
afaois ' fv jSapgapots 8e 'AGpaa/J.
Kal 'Avavlas, Kal 'Afapias, Kal Mt<ra$jA,
Kal 'HAtay, Kal #AAoi TroA^of. — Justin,
Apol. 1. 46., Ben. ed.

2 "Quod (Rom. ii. 10.) de Judacis
«t Gcntibus dicit, utrisque nondum

credentibus. Potest enim fieri . .
ut Gracus, i. e. Gentilis justitiam teneat.
. . . Iste licet alienus a vita videatur
seterna, quia non credit in Christo, et
intrare non possit in regnum coelorum,
quia renatus non est ex aqua et Spiritu,
videtur tamen quod per hsec qua;
dicuntur ab Apostolo, bonorum operura
gloriam, et honorem, et pacem perdere
penitus non possit." — In Rom. ii. 10.,
vol. iv. p. 484.

CHAP. IV.]

OF ORIGINAL SIN.

121

An exception was made in favour of those who died accident-
ally, before partaking of this sacrament, having shown faith
and repentance ; and especially in favour of martyrs. But no
supposition of a subsequent extraordinary Divine mercy, and
extraordinary means, was allowed in favour of the rest, who
were all, heathen and unbaptized infants alike, considered as
cut off for ever from the remission of original sin, and so as
excluded eternally from the kingdom of heaven.1

III. A state of happiness after death, which is not the
highest state, is by implication a middle state. But, thirdly, a
definite idea of a middle state subsequently grew up. Two
distinguished fathers of the Eastern Church, Gregory
Nazianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa, leaned to it2; and the
Pelagians seem to have held it unchallenged till Augustine
— who himself, in his earlier theological life, inclined to
it — rebuked them. But this state was introduced only
to meet the case of infants, not of heathens ; though on
the same principle in which the former were admissible
into it, the latter were also ; for those who have made the
most of inferior opportunities are in no worse case than
those who have had none. But the early Church stopped
short of any large application of the doctrine of a middle
state ; checked by the absence of any allusion to it in
Scripture, and reluctant to give substance, shape, and
expansion to an idea in which Christians had no practical
concern, for the aim assigned to them was no middle one, but
the highest.

But while we have before us as the view on the whole of
the early Church before Augustine's time, with respect to the

1 Augustine appeals to this estab-
lished opinion in the case of infants in
his controversy with Vincentius Victor:
— •' Never believe, or say, or teach that
infants dying before they are baptized
can attain to the remission of original
sin, if you wish to be a Catholic— « vis
esse Catholicus. (De Anima, 1. 3. c.

ix. ) This is opposed to the most fund-
ament al Catholic faith — contra Catho-
licam fundatissimam fidem." — De
Anima, 1. 2. c. xii. See Wall on In-
fant Baptism, part 1. c. 15.; part 2.
c. 6.

2 NOTE. XVI.

122 DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

virtuous heathen and unbaptized infants, partly implied and
partly expressed, a middle state, it is indifferent to the
question before us whether this state was a distinct one or
only a lower rank of one and the same heavenly state ; the
only point important to observe being, that the penalty of
original sin was a privation, not a positive evil.

The doctrine of original sin, thus explained and modified,
was not inconsistent with natural reason and justice. It did
not contradict the truth of common sense, that one man is
not responsible for another man's acts, because it did not
attach any such judicial consequences to the sin of Adam, as
required such a responsibility to justify them. The penalty
of original sin was a particular state and condition of the
human race, which would not have been unjustly ordained,
had there been no original sin at all. The infliction of posi-
tive evil and pain as a punishment is wholly contrary, indeed,
to natural justice, except on the ground of personal guilt;
but every one must admit, that the Author of nature has
a perfect right to allot different degrees of good to His
creatures, according to His sovereign will and pleasure ; and
that He is not bound in justice to give either the highest
moral capacities, or their accompaniment, the highest capa-
cities for happiness to all, because He is able to bestow these
when it pleases Him. We see, in the order of nature, and in
the constitution of the world around us, the greatest variety
on this head ; and on the same principle on which God has
created different kinds of beings He may also create the
same kind with higher or lower faculties. A lower capacity,
then, for virtue and happiness in the human race, was no in-
justice as a consequence of the sin of Adam ; because it was
no injustice had it been no consequence of anything, but
been assigned to man originally at his creation, as that
measure of good which it pleased God to appoint for him.
For, though the fall was the occasion and cause of this
measure being assigned, it is not unjust to do that for a
particular reason which you have a right to do without

CHAP. IV.] OF ORIGINAL SIN. 123

a reason; the agreement of the act itself with justice being
supposed, no great importance, at any rate, will attach to
such a further question. Nor is temporary pain, again, an
injustice, if it is designed to lead to ultimate happiness; but
might have been justly imposed by God on mankind at the
creation, and independently of the sin of Adam, for that end.

From such a limited and modified doctrine of original sin
let us turn to the doctrine of a later school.

The Western Church has, as a whole, entered more deeply
into the mysteries of the inner man than the Eastern has,
into that mixed sense of spiritual weakness and desire, of a
void which no efforts can fill, and of a struggle endless upon
all natural principles. This disposition has characterised her
great schools ; has largely hinged her great conflicts and di-
visions ; the portions which the Reformation separated from
the main body have retained it ; the Koman and Protest-
ant churches meet in it ; and the West has been the pro-
vidential exponent of the doctrine of S. Paul. Tertullian
first set the example of strength and copiousness in laying
down the nature and effects of original siu ; he was fol-
lowed by Cyprian and Ambrose. But language did not
as yet advance out of the metaphorical stage; and apo-
stacy, captivity, death, in a word, the corruption of human
nature, was all that was yet asserted. But language could
not ultimately rest in a stage in which, however strong and
significant, it did not state what definite thing had happened
to human nature in consequence of the fall, and just stopped
short of expressing what, upon a real examination, it meant.
If a man is able to do a right action, and does a wrong one,
he is personally guilty indeed, but it cannot be said that his
nature is corrupt. The passions and affections may be in-
conveniently strong, and so the nature be at a disadvantage ;
but no mere strength of the passions and affections shows
the nature corrupt so long as the will retains its power. On
the contrary, the nature is proved to be fundamentally sound,
by the very fact of its being equal to the performance of the

124

DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS

[CHAP. IV.

right act. The test of a sound or corrupt nature, then, is an
able or an impotent will; and if a corruption of nature
means anything at all, it means the loss of freewill. This was
the legitimate advance which was wanted to complete the
expression of the doctrine ; and this complement it was left to
S. Augustine to give.

S. Augustine's position respecting freewill had its com-
mencement at a date in the history of man earlier than the
corruption of his nature, viz. at his creation. Philosophy
raises an insuperable difficulty to the freedom of any created
will ; for freedom of the will implies an original source of
action in the being who has it, original not relatively only,
in the way in which any cause, however secondary, is original
as compared with its effect, but absolutely ; and to be an ori-
ginal cause of anything is contrary to the very essence of a
being who is not original. Tertullian had a distinct philo-
sophical conception of this difficulty, and met it by the only
answer open to a believer in freewill ; an assertion of the
truth together with an acknowledgment of the difficulty.
Originality is the highest form of being ; and everything
which does not move itself, whatever be its grandeur or sub-
limity as a spectacle, is intrinsically despicable, in comparison
with that which does. The Divine Power, then, resolving
upon its own highest exertion, chose originality itself as a
subject of creation, and made a being which, when made, was
in its turn truly creative, the author and cause of its own
motions and acts. And whereas the creature would, as such,
have possessed nothing of his own, God by an incomprehen-
sible act of liberality, alienated good from Himself in order
that the creature might be the true proprietor of it, and ex-
hibit a goodness of which His own will was the sole cause.1

1 " Sola nunc bonitas deputetur,
quae tantum homini largita sit, id est
arbitrii libertatem. . . . Nam bonus
natura Deus solus. . . . Homo autem
qui totus ex institutione est, habens

initium, cum initio sortitus est formam
qua esset, atque ita non natura in
bonum dispositus est, sed institutione;
non suum habens bonus esse sed in-
stitutione. . . . Ut ergo bonum jam

CHAP. IV.]

OF ORIGINAL SIN.

125

And this redounded ultimately to God's glory, for the
worthiest and noblest creature must know Him best. Tertul-
lian, then, distinctly and philosophically recognised a created
will which was yet an original cause in nature. But S.
Augustine, while, on the ground of Scripture, he assigned
freewill to man before the fall, never recognised philosophi-
cally an original source of good in the creature. As a
philosopher he argued wholly upon the Divine attribute of
power, or the operation of a First Cause, to which he simply
referred and subordinated all motion in the universe ; and
laid down in his dicta on this subject the foundation of scho-
lastic necessitarianism.1

Thus philosophically predisposed, the mind of S. Augus-
tine took up the doctrine of original sin as handed down by
the voice of the Church and by a succession of writers, and
brought the whole mass of language which three centuries
had produced, and which up to his time had advanced in
copiousness and illustration, rather than in strength of mean-
ing, to a point. He explained the corruption of human nature
to mean the loss of freewill; and this statement was the
fundamental barrier which divided the later from the earlier
scheme and rationale of original sin. The will, according to
the earlier school, was not substantially affected by the fall.
Its circumstances, its means and appliances, were altered, not
itself ; and endowed with spiritual aids in Paradise ; deprived
of them at the fall ; re-endowed with them under the Gospel,
it retained throughout these alterations one and the same
unchanged essential power, in that power of choice whereby
it was, in every successive state of higher or lower means,
able to use and avail itself of whatever means it had. But
in Augustine's scheme the will itself was disabled at the

suum haberet homo, emancipatum sibi
a Deo, et fieret proprietas jam boni in
homine et quodammodo natura, de in-
stitutione ascripta est illi quasi libripens

emancipati a Deo boni, libertas et po-
testas avbitrii, quae efficeret bonum ut
proprium." — Adv. Marc. 1. 2 c. 0.
1 See p. 4.

126 DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

fall, and not only certain impulses to it withdrawn, its power
of choice was gone, and man was unable not only to rise
above a defective goodness, but to avoid positive sin. He
was thenceforth, prior to the operation of grace, in a state of
necessity on the side of evil, a slave to the devil and to his
own inordinate lusts.

Such a difference in the explanation of original sin neces-
sarily produced a corresponding difference in the estimation
of heathen morals. Augustine and Clement both regard the
heathen character as faulty ; but there are two distinct types
of a faulty character. It is a rule in morals, that the mo-
rality of the man must precede the morality of the action,
that some general condition must be fulfilled in the agent's
character before any particular act can be pronounced good
in him ; this morality of the man, the fulfilment of this
general condition, is the foundation. One type, then, of a
faulty character, is that of a character good at the foundation,
and only failing in degree ; another is that of a character bad
at the foundation. The fruits of the former are solid, as far
as they go ; but the apparently good fruits of a fundamentally
corrupt character are hollow, and are not real virtues. Such
a character may display, for example, affection to individuals,
generosity upon occasions, or courage, or industry ; but upon
such a foundation these are not virtues. This is the distinc-
tion between the faultiness which Clement and the faultiness
which Augustine attributes to heathen morality. Clement
allows the foundation to exist — this general condition to be
fulfilled in a degree — in the heathen, because he considers
nature able in a degree to supply it ; he therefore regards
heathen morality as real and solid, as far as it goes, though
imperfect. But Augustine does not admit the power of
nature to supply such a foundation in any degree whatever ;
for constituting which he requires a certain state of mind,
which he considers to be only possible under grace, viz.
faith, so interpreting the texts, " Without faith it is impossi-

CHAP. IV.]

OF ORIGINAL SIN.

127

ble to please God," and " whatsoever is not of faith is sin." l
He therefore regards heathen morality as bad at the founda-
tion, and therefore as a hollow, false, and only seeming mo-
rality itself. Nor does he admit the existence of a good
heathen, though he admits that the heathen did actions
which in Christians would be good ones.2 And though he
allows that the Divine image in which man was created did
not wholly disappear at the fall, a remainder (to preserve
man's identity in the two states) of a rational nature is
alone admitted. He extends this view to heathen philosophy.
Acknowledging in some systems a greater likeness to Christian
truth than in others, he speaks of heathen philosophy as a
whole with coldness, distrust, and hostility, warning the
Christian against it. He looks on the truth it promulgates as
external to Christian truth and not mingling with it, and
sees a barrier between the two where the earlier fathers only
saw a gradual ascent.3

1 " Sed absit ut sit in aliquo vera
virtus, nisi fuerit Justus. Absit autem
ut sit Justus vere, nisi vivat ex fide:
'Justus enim ex fide vivit.' Quis
porro eorum qui se Christianos haberi
volunt, nisi soli Pelagiani, aut in ipsis
etiam forte tu solus, justum dixerit
infidelem, justum dixerit impium,
justum dixerit diabolo mancipatum?
Sit licet ille Fabricius, sit licet Fabius,
sit licet Scipio, sit licet Regulus, quorum
me nominibus, tanquam in antiqua
Curia Romana loqueremur, putasti esse
terrendum."— Contra Julianum,Pelag.l.
4. n. 17. ; see, too, Contra Duas, Ep. 1. 3.
n. 14. 23.

2 " Hi qui naturaliter quae legis sunt
faciunt, nondum sunt habendi in nu-
mero eorum quos Christi justificat
gratia; sed in eorum potius quorum
etiam impiorum nee Deum verum ve-
raciter justeque colentium, quaedam
tamen facta vel legimus vel novimus
vel audimus, quse secundum justitia?
regulam non solum vituperare non
possumus, verum etiam merito recteque
lauclamus" : quanquam si discutiantur
quo fine fiant, vix inveniuntur qua?

justitias debitam laudem defensionemvc
mereantur." — De Spirit et Lit. 1. 1. n.
48.

3 Eosque (Platonists, Pythagoreans,
&c. ) nobis propinquiores fatemur. —
De Civit. Dei, 1. 8. c. 9.

" Cavet (Cbristianus) eos qui se-
cundum elementa hujus mundi philo-
sophantur, non secundum Deum, a quo
ipse factus est mundus. Admonetur
enim praecepto Apostolico : ' Cavete ne
quis vos decipiat,' " &c. (Col. ii. 8.) — De
Civit. Dei, 1. 8. c. 10.

It is worthy of remark, that while
Clement sees in the " rudiments of the
world " which S. Paul speaks of, the
objects of intellectual apprehension, as
distinct from but subsidiary to those
of faith (Strom. 1. 6. c. 8.), Augustine
sees in them carnal and corrupt ideas
only. The latto.r interpretation agrees
more with the text, in which, however,
S. Paul is speaking only of a certain
portion of heathen philosophy, not the
whole of it: but the difference in the
interpretation of the Apostle shows the
different feeling of the two writers on
this subject.

128 DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

But, though no goodness in the heathen is admitted, he
allows different degrees in evil, and that some men in a state
of nature have been less sinful than others, such as Socrates
and Fabricius ; but it is difficult to say whether he allows, in
this admission, any relaxation in the servitude of the natural
will, any kind or degree of liberty of choice as still left in it, or
whether he only means that the evil passions are less strong
in some natural constitutions than in others. Indeed, if it be
asked to what extent Augustine's law of peccatum p&na peccati
operated, — whether that relation of necessary effect in which
actual sin stood to original applied to all the actual sin of
man in a state of nature, — whether the want of power to avoid
sin involved in original sin was a want of power to avoid every
excess of sin which, as a matter of fact, had been committed in
the world, — and so whether the whole of that mass of depra-
vity and crime which the history of mankind presented went
back, according to his doctrine, to original sin, as the neces-
sary development of that one seed, — it must be replied, that
his language varies on this subject. He sometimes represents
the whole of this mass of actual sin as the necessary effect of
original, and accounts for the different degrees in it by sup-
posing different degrees of original sin ; that is to say, by
supposing, the impotence of the will remaining the same in
all, different degrees of strength in the evil passions and
inclinations. Sometimes he only represents a part of it as
such, and the rest as added by the man himself.1 But the
language in which this modification of the effect of original
sin is expressed is obscure and uncertain ; nor is it easy to
see whether those additions are only additions, as effects are
additions to a cause, or whether they are additions man him-
self has made in the use of a lower kind of freewill still left
in his nature. Thus much is certain, however, that such a
liberty of choice, if it is allowed by Augustine, is not the

1 NOTE XVII.

CHAP. IV.] OF ORIGINAL SIN. 129

liberty to choose good, but only lesser evil, and therefore is not
properly freewill ; though whether a will which can do the
one and not the other is a tenable conception, is a question
into which we need not enter.

Original sin was thus represented, in its nature and effects,
by Augustine, as positive sin, and not as, according to the
earlier interpretation, a loss of higher goodness only; and
this difference was followed by a corresponding difference in
the punishment attached to it. S. Augustine held a state of
positive, evil and pain, and not a privation of higher happi-
ness only, as the punishment of original sin. Inclined, at an
earlier stage of his theological life, to the position of a middle
state for unbaptized infants, as a convenient solution of a
difficulty, a stronger subsequent view of the guilt of original
sin rejected it ; and in the controversy with the Pelagians
he not only attacked that position, but made an argumenta-
tive use of the contrary one as proved from Scripture. The
Pelagians adopted the position of a middle state as fitting in
with their own scheme, which they had constructed upon a
mixed ground of their own peculiar doctrine, and of deference
to the general belief of the Church. Denying original sin
altogether, they could not admit any positive punishment as
due to unbaptized infants, much less a punishment in hell ;
while deference to general belief prevented the assignment
of heaven. A middle place, therefore, between heaven and
hell, exactly served their purpose ; neither punishing the in-
nocent being nor exalting the unbaptized one. But Augustine
attacked this position energetically as one which in effect
abolished original sin itself; arguing forcibly, that only two
places were mentioned in Scripture, heaven and hell, and that,
therefore, a third place, which was neither the one nor the
other, was an unauthorised invention of man. He then used
the scriptural position of only two places as a positive argu-
ment in support of his doctrine of original sin. For if there
were only two places, and those guilty of original sin were
excluded by the general belief of the Church from heaven,

K

130

DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

hell only remained for them; and a punishment in hell
necessarily implied a positive original guilt to deserve it.1

The position of a middle state then rejected, Augustine
assigned a punishment in hell to original sin, and, allowing
differences in degree, still left some degree or other of that
punishment necessary for that sin. The heathen who had
not sinned against the light had a milder punishment in hell
than those who had; but ignorance was only allowed to
procure a mitigation of it, not a release from it. Those who
knew our Lord's will and did it not, were beaten with many
stripes ; those who knew it not and did it not, with few
stripes.2 With respect to unbaptized infants, his language
varies in strength. The severest consigns them to the flames
of hell ; the most lenient to such a punishment as left
existence under it better than deprivation of being; — a li-
mitation which might appear to leave no room for positive
punishment at all, as it might be said that it would be better
not to exist than to exist eternally in any degree of pain ;
but such refinements are hardly worth pursuing. A middle
language consigns them to the mildest punishment which

1 " Istam nescio quam medietatem
quam conantur quidam parvulis non
baptizatis tribuere. " — De Pecc. Merit, et
Rern. 1, 28. "An tandem aliquando
extra regnum Dei infelices futures fate-
mini parvulos non renatos? Dicite
ergo hujus infelicitatis meritum, ver-
bosi et contentiosi, qui negatis originale
peccatum." — Op. Imp. 2. 113. " Qui
velut defensione justitiae Dei niteris, ut
evertas quod de parvulorum non re-
generatorum damnatione tota sentit
ecclesia, nunquam dicturus es grave
jugum super parvulos unde sit justum,
si non trahant originale peccatum." —
2. 117. See NOTE XVIII.

2 " Sed et ilia ignorant ia quae non
est eorum qui scire nolunt, sed eorum
qui tanquam simpliciter nesciunt, ne-
minem sic excusat ut sempiterno igne
non ardeat, si propterea non credidit,
quia non audivit omninoquod crederet;
sed fortasse ut mitius ardeat. Non

enim sine causa dictum est 'Effunde
iram tuam in gentes quae te non nove-
runt;' et illud quod ait Apostolus,
' Cum venerit in flamma ignis dare vin-
dictam in eos qui ignorant Deum.'" —
De Grat. et Lib. Arb., c. iii.

" Sicut enim non impediunt a vita
eterna justum quaedam peccata venialia
sine quibus haec vita non ducitur: sic
ad salutem aeternam nihil prosunt impio
aliqua bona opera, sine quibus diffi-
cillime vita cujuslibet pessimi hominis
invenitur. Veruntamen sicut in regno
Dei velut Stella ab stella in gloria
different sancti; sic et in damnatione
poenae sempiternae tolerabilius erit
Sodomae quam alteri civitati : et erunt
quidam duplo amplius quibusdam
gehennse filii: ita nee illud in judicio
Dei vacabit, quod in ipsa impietate
damnabili magis alius alio minusve
peccaverit." — De Spirit, et Lit. 1. 1.
c. 28.

CHAP. IV.] OF ORIGINAL SIN. 131

there is in hell. On the whole, some true punishment in hell
is assigned to unbaptized infants.1

This whole doctrine of original sin, its effects and its
punishment, we must observe, is but the legitimate drawing
out, in statement and consequence, of the true and scriptural
doctrine of original sin. The corruption of human nature
followed deservedly, according to that doctrine, upon the sin
of Adam. But the corruption of human nature can only be
adequately defined as the loss of freewill or necessary sinful-
ness; and sin deserves eternal punishment, and deserving it,
will, according to the Divine justice, infallibly obtain it, unless
it is forgiven. The consignment, therefore, of heathens and
unbaptized infants to the punishment of hell, extreme result
as it was, was but the result of the true doctrine ; because, in
the absence of the only authorised sign of Divine forgiveness,
these lay under the full guilt of a sin which deserved such
punishment. There was no authority, indeed, for the positive
assertion of the fact of such punishment; for the fact implies
that no forgiveness by any other means has been obtained,
and nobody can know whether God may not choose to
employ other means to this end besides those of which He
has informed us; and if an exception to the necessity of
baptism is allowed in certain cases, it can not be arbitra-
rily limited; nor does the doctrine of original sin itself at
all restrict the means by which its guilt may be removed.
In asserting the fact, then, Augustine plainly exceeded the
premiss which the true doctrine supplied ; but, so far as he
left all, who lay under the guilt of original sin, under
desert of eternal punishment, he no more than drew out
the true scriptural and Catholic doctrine. But, while he
interpreted the revealed doctrine on the whole legitimately
and faithfully, he failed in not seeing or not allowing a
place to the counter-truth of natural reason. As Scripture
declares the nature of every man to be corrupt in con-

1 NOTE XVIIL

K 2

132 DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS [CHAP. IV.

sequence of Adam's sin, and from that corruption sinfulness
necessarily follows, and from that sinfulness desert of eternal
punishment, — so Scripture and reason alike declare, that one
man is not responsible for another man's sin ; and from that
position it follows that the posterity of Adam are not as
such sinful ; and from that, that they do not as such deserve
eternal punishment. It was wrong, then, to draw out a
string of consequences from the doctrine of original sin, and
state them as absolute truths, when they were contradicted
at every step by a set of parallel consequences from another
truth, which was equally certain, and to which Scripture
itself bore equal testimony. It was quite true that the
doctrine of original sin, did it stand alone, withdrew from the
heathen the whole foundation of virtue, and so represented
a good heathen as impossible. But this was only one aspect
of his state ; there was also another, in which he came before
us as capable of virtue ; and, under the check of a mystery, the
plain and natural facts of the case might be acknowledged.
And the same may be said, with respect to the heathen, on the
question of future punishment. These were truths, then, to be
held with a special understanding in accordance with the par-
tial premiss from which they were derived ; they were not to
be stated as absolute truths, such as are drawn from ascer-
tained data, like the truths of natural philosophy. It was
incorrect to deduce conclusions of the same certainty from an
incomprehensible relationship, which would be drawn from
ordinary and known ones, and to argue in the same way from
a mysterious Divine wrath, as if it were the same affection
with which we are cognisant in ourselves and in common life.
The doctrine of original sin ought not to be understated or
curtailed because it leads to extreme conclusions on one side
of truth ; and Augustine, who is not deterred by such results
from the full statement of it, is, so far, a more faithful in-
terpreter of it than an earlier school. But those who draw
out this doctrine to the full, and do not balance it by other
truths, give it force at the expense of tenableness and justice.

CHAP. IV.] OF ORIGINAL SIN. 133

From the Augustinian statements relating to original sin
two inferences remain to be drawn. First, the doctrine of
original sin itself was a sufficient premiss for a doctrine of
predestination. The latter consigns a certain portion of
mankind, antecedently to actual sin, to eternal punishment ;
but if antecedently they deserve such punishment, the con-
signment to it is a natural consequence of such desert, and
is no injustice. But, secondly, Augustine says more than
that persons under the guilt of original sin deserve eternal
punishment ; for he asserts that they are punished eternally.
But such actual punishment is more than a premiss for, for
it is itself an instance of predestination. It evidently does
not depend on a man's conduct in what part of the world
he is born, whether in a Christian part or a heathen ; or
in what state as an infant he dies, whether with baptism or
without it. These are arrangements of God's providence
entirely. If such arrangements, then, involve eternal
punishment, the Divine will consigns to such punishment
antecedently to all action — which is the doctrine of predes-
tination. A true predestination, then, is seen in full operation
in his theology, before we come to the specific doctrine ; and
we have substantially at an earlier stage all that can be main-
tained at a later.

134

CHAP. V.

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION.

FROM S. Augustine's doctrine of original sin, I proceed
to his statements on the subject of predestination. S.
Augustine, then, held the existence of an eternal Divine
decree, separating, antecedently to any difference of desert,
one portion of the human race from another; and ordaining
one to everlasting life and the other to everlasting misery.
This doctrine occurs frequently in many of his treatises ;
wholly pervades some, and forms the basis of his whole
teaching in the latter portion of his theological life, It
will be impossible, therefore, by one or two extracts to re-
present duly the position which this doctrine has in his
writings; but the following may be taken as samples of
a general language on this subject.1

" Whoever, therefore, are separated by Divine grace from

1 The dates of the four following
extracts are, — of the first A.T>. 426, of
the second, A.D. 428, of the third, A.D.
421, of the fourth, A.D. 417. But the
Liber ad Simplicianum, written A. D.
394, contains substantially the same
doctrine, though being written just as
he was crossing the boundary line, and
passing from one system to another, it
winds about so and alternates and os-
cillates so long between one conclusion
and another, that it is with some diffi-
culty that we ascertain what his real
conclusion is. He ends, however, in
adopting the strong interpretation of
S. Paul : and his argument, which is to
reconcile the text, " Many are called
but few chosen," with an effectual
call — effectrix vocatio — runs thus :
Is it that they are called and that the
call is not effectual, because they do
not will to obey it? This does not

agree with the text, " Not of him that
willeth," &c. ; for the contrary, not
of God that giveth mercy, but of him
that willeth, would then be true as
well. Is it, then, because God calls
some in a way which He knows will
be effectual, and gives this call to some
and not to others? So that of the
latter it might be said, pofsent olio modo
vocati accommodate fidei voluntatem ?
He decides in favour of this interpre-
tation, on the ground that it agrees
with the text, "Not of him that
willeth," &c. ; while the contrary cannot
be said of it, because the effectual call
thus defined depends not on man's
will but on God's, who would have
given it to others besides those to
whom He has given it, if He had pleased.
Q'da si vellet etiam ipsorum misereri,
posset ita vocare, quomodo eis aptum
esset.

CIIAP. V.] DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION. 135

that original damnation, we doubt not but that there is pro-
cured for them the hearing of the Gospel, that when they
hear they believe, and that in that faith which worketh by
love they continue unto the end; that even if they go astray
they are corrected, and, being corrected, grow better ; or that
if they are not corrected by man, they still return into the
path they left, some being taken away from the dangers of
this life by a speedy death. All these things in them He
worketh whose handiwork they are, and who made them
vessels of mercy; He who chose them in His Son before the
foundation of the world according to the election of grace ;
'and if of grace, then no more of works, otherwise grace is
no more grace,' Of such the Apostle saith, 'We know that
all things work together for good to them that love God, who
are called according to His purpose.' Of them none perish
because all are elect; and they are elect because they are
called according to the purpose ; and that purpose not their
own, but God's; of which he elsewhere saith, ' That the pur-
pose of God according to election might stand, not of works

but of Him that calleth.' If any of these perish, God

is deceived, but none doth perish, for God is not deceived. If
any of these perish, God is overcome by man's corruption :
but none doth perish, for God is conquered by nothing. They
are chosen to reign with Christ, not as Judas was chosen, of
whom our Lord said, 'Have I not chosen you twelve, and
one of you is a devil,' but chosen in mercy as He was in
judgment, chosen to obtain the kingdom as He was to spill

his own blood These it is who are signified to

Timothy, where, after saying that Hymenaeus and Philetus
were subverting the faith of some, the Apostle adds,
'Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having

this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His.'

Their faith, which worketh by love, either never faileth,
or, if it does, is repaired before life is ended; and, all inter-
vening iniquity blotted out, perseverance unto the end is
imputed to them. But those who are not about to persevere

E. 4

\

136

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE

[CHAP. V.

are not, even at the time when they live piously, to be
reckoned among that number ; because they are not
separated from that mass of perdition by the Divine fore-
knowledge and predestination; and therefore are not called
according to His purpose, and therefore not chosen." — De
Correptione et Gratia, c. vii.

Again: "Such is the predestination of the saints, the fore-
knowledge that is, and preparation of the Divine acts of grace,
by which every one is infallibly saved who is saved. But for
the rest, where are they but in that mass of perdition where
the Divine justice most justly leaves them? Where the
Tyrians are, and the Sidoiiians are, who would have been
able to believe if they had seen the miracles of Christ ; but
who, inasmuch as faith was not destined for them, were
denied the means of faith as well. Whence it is evident
that some have a Divine gift of intelligence implanted in
their natures, designed for exciting them to faith, provided
they see or hear preaching or miracles which appeal to that
gift; and yet being, according to some deeper judgment of
Grod, not included within the predestination of grace, and
separated from the jnass of perdition by it, have not those
Divine words and those Divine acts brought before them,
and so are not enabled to believe.1 The Jews who would not
believe our Lord's miracles were left in the mass of per-
dition, and why ? The Evangelist tells us. ( That the saying
of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled which he spake, Lord,
who hath believed our report, and to whom hath the arm of
the Lord been revealed ? Therefore they could not believe,
because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes
and hardened their hearts, that they should not see with their

1 Ex quo apparet habere quosdam in
ipso ingenio divinum naturaliter munus
intelligentia?, quo moveantur ad fidem,
si congrua suis mentibus vel audiant
verba, vel signa conspiciant : et tamen
si Dei altiore judicio, a perditionis
massa non sunt gratiae praedestination*

discreti, nee ipsa eis adhibentur vel
dicta divina vel facta, per quse possent
credere, si audirent utique talia vel vide-
rent. In eadem perditiouis massa
relicti sunt etiam Judsei qui non potu-
erunt credere factis in conspectu suo
tam magnis clarisque virtutibus.

CHAP. V.]

OF PREDESTINATION.

137

eyes and understand with their hearts, and be converted, and
I should heal them.' But the hearts of the Tyrians and
Sidonians were not thus hardened, for they would have be-
lieved if they had seen such miracles. That they were able
to believe, however, was of no service to them, when they
were not predestinated by Him whose judgments are un-
searchable and His ways past finding out; any more than
their not being able to believe would have been of disservice
to them if they had been thus predestinated by God to the
illumination of their blindness and the taking away of their
heart of stone.1 With respect to the Tyrians and Sidonians,
indeed, there may be possibly some other interpretation of the
passage; but that no one comes to Christ except it be given
him, and that this is given only to those who are elected in
Him before the foundation of the world, this must beyond
all question be admitted by every one whose heart is not
deaf to, while his ear hears, the Divine oracles." — De Dono
Per sever antice, c. xiv.

Again : " The Lord knows those that are His. All things
work together for good for those alone who are called accord-
ing to His purpose ; the called according to His purpose, not
the called simply, not the many called, but the few chosen.
For whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to
be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be
the firstborn among many brethren; and whom He did
predestinate them also He called; and whom He called
them also He justified ; and whom He justified them
He also glorified. All things work together for good
to those who were chosen before the foundation of the
world by Him who calleth those things which be not as
though they were ; to the elect according to the election of
grace, who were chosen before the foundation of the world

1 Sod nee tills profuit quod poterant
credere, quiu praedestinati non sunt ab
eo cujus inscrutab'.lia sunt judicia, et
invcstigabilcs viae; ncc istis obfuisset

quod non poterant credere, si ita prae-
destinati essent, ut eos CECCOS Deus
illuminaret, et induratis cor lapideum
vellet auferre.

138 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. V.

freely and not on account of any good works fore-
seen. Within that number of the elect and the predes-
tinated, even those who have led the worst lives are by
the goodness of God led to repentance ... Of these our
Lord spoke when He said, ' This is the Father's will which
hath sent me, that of all He hath given I should lose
nothing.' But the rest of mankind who are not of this
number, but who, out of the same lump of which they are,
are made vessels of wrath, are brought into the world for the
advantage of the elect. God does not create any of them
indeed without a purpose. He knows what good to work
out of them : He works good in the very fact of creating
them human beings, and carrying on by means of them
this visible system of things.1 But none of them does He
lead to a wholesome and spiritual repentance. All indeed
do, as far as themselves are concerned, out of the same
original mass of perdition treasure up unto themselves
after their hardness and impenitent heart, wrath against
the day of wrath ; but out of that mass God leads some
in mercy to repentance, and others in judgment does not
lead." — Contra Julianum Pelag. 1. v. n. 14.

Again: "There is a certain defined number of saints
in God's foreknowledge (Dei prascientia definitus numerus
sanctorum) who love God because God hath given them
His Holy Spirit shed abroad in their hearts, and to whom
all things work together for good ; who are called according

to His purpose There are others, too, called, but

not chosen; and, therefore, not called according to His
purpose. The former are the children of promise, the
elect, who are saved according to the election of grace,
as it is written, f But if of grace, then no more of works,

1 Caeteri autem mortales qui ex isto | operetur ignorat ; cum et hoc ipso

numero non sunt, et ex eadem quidera bonum operetur, quod in eis humanam

ex qua et isti, sed vasa irae facta sunt, creat naturam, et ex eis ordinem prse-

ad utilitatem nascuntur istorum. Non sentis saeculi exornat Istorum ne-

enim quenquam eorum Deus temere ac minem adducit ad paenitentiam salu-

fortuito creat, aut quid . de illis boni I brem et spiritualem.

CHAP. V.J

OF PREDESTINATION.

139

otherwise grace is no more grace.' These are the vessels
of mercy, in whom God even by means of the vessels of
wrath makes known the riches of His glory .... But
the rest of mankind — who do not pertain to this society,
but whose soul and body, nevertheless, God hath made,
together with whatever also belongs to their nature apart
from its corruption — are created by a fore-knowing God
on this account, that by them He may show how little
the freewill of fallen man can do without His grace ; and
that by their just and due punishment the vessels of mercy,
who are separated from the original mass not by their
own works, but by the free grace of God, may know how
great a gift has been bestowed upon them, that every mouth
may be stopped, and that he that glorieth may glory in the
Lord." 1— Epist. 186. c. vii.

The general conclusion to which these passages point,
is that S, Augustine held the predestinarian doctrine; viz.
that God by an eternal decree prior to any difference of
desert, separated one portion of mankind from another, ordain-
ing one to eternal life and the other to eternal punish-
ment.2 But it will be proper to enter into some distinctions
which are drawn on this subject in order to separate S.
Augustine's doctrine from another and a different doctrine
of predestination.

A certain limited and qualified doctrine of predestination
is held by some schools of divines opposed to the predestin-
arians, who maintain the doctrine to be a sound and scrip-
tural one; but maintain the predestination to be first to priv-
ileges and means of grace, not to final happiness ; or, secondly,
if to final happiness, to be a predestination in consequence of
foreseen virtue and holiness in the individuals predestinated.

1 Ut in his ostenderet liberum arbi-
trium sine sua gratia quid valerct ; ut
in eorum justis et debitis pcenis vasa
misericordiae, quae non suorum meritis,
sed gratuita Dei gratia sunt ab ilia con-

crctione discreta, quid sibi collatum
esset addiscerent.

2 See Hooker's Statements of S. Au-
gustine's Doctrine. NOTE XIX.

140 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. V.

A third modification, which rests upon a distinction between
individuals and the body, and allowing predestination to be
to final glory, applies it to the Church as a whole, and not to
individuals, is evidently only the second in another form. For,
as no one can mean to say that the whole of the visible Church
is predestinated to eternal glory, by the Church as a body
must be meant the truly virtupus and pious members of the
Church whom God predestinates to glory in consequence of
foreseeing this piety and virtue in them. Now, had S. Augus-
tine only held predestination in this sense, that God determined
from all eternity to admit a certain portion of mankind to cer-
tain religious privileges and to reward the pious and vir-
tuous with eternal glory, he would only have held what no
Christian, or even believer in natural religion can deny.
It is evident that God has admitted a certain portion of
mankind to certain religious privileges to which He has not
admitted others ; and, as He has done this, it is certain that
He has eternally decreed to do it. And it is certain that
God will finally reward men according to their works;
and, as this will be His act, and this the reason of it,
it is certain He has eternally decreed the one and foreseen
the other. Such a doctrine of predestination as this, then,
is no more than what everybody must hold. But the
passages which have been quoted contain very clearly a
different doctrine of predestination from this. And this
difference will appear the more decisively, the more we
enter into the particulars of S. Augustine's view.

In the first place, we find S. Augustine always speaking
of predestination as a mystery, a dark and perplexing doc-
trine, contradictory to our natural ideas of the Divine
justice, and requiring the profoundest submission of human
reason in order to its acceptance. For example, he says, in
the text (John vi. 45.) : " Every one that hath heard and
hath learned of the Father cometh unto me."

ff Very far removed from our fleshly senses is that school in
which God is heard and teaches — valde remota cst a scnsilus

CHAP. V.]

OF PREDESTINATION.

141

carnis hcec schola in qua Pater auditur et docet. We see many
come to the Son, because we see many believe in Christ : but
where and how they heard and learned this of the Father
we see not. Too secret is that grace ; but that it is grace
who can doubt ? This grace thus secretly imparted is re-
jected by no heart, however hard.1 Indeed, it is given for that
purpose, 'viz. that this hardness of heart may be removed.
When the Father is heard, and teaches the man within to
come to the Son, He takes away the stony heart and gives the
heart of flesh, thus making sons of promise and vessels of
mercy prepared for glory. But why does He not teach all
to come to Christ? Because those whom He teaches He
teaches in mercy, and those whom He teaches not He teaches
not in judgment. * For He hath mercy on whom He will

have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.'

And to him who objects why doth He yet complain,
for who hath resisted His will ? the Apostle answers, not by
denying the objection, but urging submission under it : O
man, who art thou that repliest against God ? " 2

Again : " Why, when both alike hear, and, supposing a
miracle, both alike see, one believes and another does not
believe, lies in the abyss of the riches of the wisdom and
knowledge of God, whose judgments are unsearchable, and
who, without iniquity, has mercy upon whom He will have
mercy, and whom He will, hardeneth. For His decrees are
not unjust, because they are incomprehensible."3

Again : " It displeases him (the objector in Rom. c. ix.)
that God complains of sinners whom, as it appears to him,
He hardens. But God does not harden sinners by obliging
them to sin, but by withholding grace, such grace being
withheld from those from whom it is withheld, according

1 Niinium gratia ista secreta est,
gratiam vero esse quis ambigat ? Haec
itaque gratia, qua; occulte humanis

cordibus divina largitate tribuitur, a
nullo duro cordc respuitur.

2 De Pra?d. Sanct. c. viii.

3 Epist. 194. c. iii.

142 AUGUST JNI AN DOCTRINE [CHAP. V.

to an occult justice, infinitely removed from human percep-
tions."1

Again : te Why He wills to convert some, and to punish
others for being unconverted (quare illos velit convertere,
illos vero pro aversions punire), let none presume to ask as

if to blame God for the law of His secret justice

rests with Him alone (consilium occultioris justifies penes
ipsum esf)" 2

S. Augustine, then, regarded predestination as a perplex-
ing mystery, — a doctrine which disagreed with our natural
ideas of God's justice, and which could only be defended by
a reference to His inscrutable and sovereign will.

I will single out the term "hidden justice — occnltajustitia"
as expressing in a summary and convenient form this charac-
teristic of the doctrine held by him. S. Augustine asserts,
as every one who believes in the existence of a God must
do, that God is just, and therefore that the decree of pre-
destination and reprobation which He has from all eternity
made is just ; but he adds, that this justice is of a nature not
addressed to our natural faculties and perceptions, or dis-
cernible by them. Natural justice — the rule of rewarding
and punishing according to desert — is justice, and is also a
justice cognisable by our natural faculties ; predestinating
justice is as real justice as natural, but is not thus cognisable.
The one is justice and also apparent justice ; the other is
justice, but not apparent justice — i. e. apparent ^justice.

But such language as this is very inapplicable to a doc-
trine of predestination, which is no more than the assertion
that God has determined from all eternity to admit some
portions of mankind and not others to certain privileges and
means of grace ; or, that God has determined to reward or
punish those respectively who He sees will be virtuous or
vicious. There is nothing mysterious in the doctrine of pre-

1 De Div. Qusest. ad Simplic. 1. i. I * De. Pecc. Merit, et Rem. 1. 2. c.
Q. 2. n. 16. | xviii.

CHAP. V.] OF PREDESTINATION. 143

destination as thug explained, nothing from which natural
feeling or reason shrinks, nothing which requires any deep
submission of the intellect to accept. That God should
reward the virtuous and punish the wicked is the simple
rule of justice, and that He should give privileges to some
which He does not give to others, is no injustice.

It may be said, indeed, that the admission of one portion
of mankind to peculiar religious privileges and advantages
not enjoyed by the rest is a mystery ; that there is something
inexplicable in that great inequality of God's administration
in this respect which we see in the world, especially the re-
markable one of one part of the world only having been
admitted into the Christian Church, while far the larger
part has been left in pagan darkness and ignorance : but it
cannot be said, that this is a mystery in the sense of being a
scandal or offence to our reason. It is a mystery, in the first
place, as being a fact which we are obliged to refer simply
to the Divine will and pleasure ; but in this sense many of
the commonest events which take place in the world are
mysteries. It is one thing to be uninformed, and another to
be scandalised ; one thing not to have curiosity satisfied, and
another to have reason perplexed. It is a mystery also in a
sense somewhat stronger than this ; for, without imposing as
obligatory, our moral nature yet favours the rule of equal
dealing, and its bias is in that direction ; so that exceptions
to it are not in themselves acceptable to us. But neither in
this sense is it a difficulty or scandal ; being only the violation
of a rule which is not obligatory. Indeed, this bias of our
minds is one which easily submits, on the first due considera-
tion, that there may be good reasons for the inequality we
see in the Divine dispensing of religious privileges. And,
on the whole, provided the great rule of justice be kept
to, that men are rewarded and punished according to their
use of the means given them, the general sense of mankind
allows the Almighty the right to apportion the means them-
selves as He thinks fit, and give some higher, and some lower,

144

AUCUSTINIAN DOCTRINE

[CHAP. V.

without making any difficulty of the matter. Particular
persons, indeed, have embraced so rigid and importunate an
idea of justice, that they have not been able so to satisfy them-
selves, but have insisted on an absolute equality of spiritual
condition for all. And truly the idea of justice, like other
ideas, may be unduly nourished; and persons, by brooding
narrowly upon it, may get themselves to regard many things
as grievances, both in human society and the system of Provi-
dence, which they would not otherwise have done. But such
an idea of justice is not supported by the general feeling of
mankind, which has adopted a larger and more liberal one.

Inequality, then, in the dispensing of religious privileges,
is not a difficulty to reason or contrary to justice ; but S.
Augustine speaks of predestination as a difficulty, and contrary
to our instinctive ideas of justice ; and therefore must have
included something more than this kind of inequality in his
idea of what predestination was.

Indeed, the very circumstances of the argument which S.
Augustine is carrying on, if any one will consider them, will
be found to involve something more than this as his meaning
of predestination ; for, had he meant no more than this, there
would have been no occasion for this defence of the doctrine
at all, In arguing with an infidel he might have had to
answer the objection of these inequalities in the Divine dis-
pensation ; but he is defending the doctrine of predestination
not against an infidel, but against a Christian objector — i. e.
an objector who at the very outset admits such inequalities,
and therefore would not object to, or c;ill out a defence of
that doctrine, on that ground. Indeed, S. Augustine's oppo-
nent is not only a Christian, but sometimes even a Catholic
Christian, he having to defend this doctrine not only against
Pelagians but against opponents within the Church.1 But it

1 The Church of Marseilles, which,
through Prosper and Hilary, protested
against the doctrine of the book De

Correptione et Gratia, and were an-
swered by the book De Prcedestinatione
Sanctorum.

CHAP. V.] OF PREDESTINATION. 145

is absurd to suppose such an opponent taking, against a
particular doctrine, a ground only suitable to an infidel
arguing against revelation altogether, just as it would be
absurd, on the other hand, to suppose S. Augustine not
giving the ready and obvious answer to such an objection if
brought. He answers his opponent by referring him to God's
secret and inscrutable will ; but had mere inequality been his
opponent's ground of objection, he would have answered him
much more decisively by referring him to the broad and
evident fact of the inequality in the Divine dispensing of
means of grace involved in the very existence of Christianity,
not to say in the very order of God's natural providence.

But the general admission of mystery, darkness, and
apparent contrariety to justice which S. Augustine makes
with respect to predestination, is only a preliminary, however
decisive an answer, to such an interpretation of his doctrine
as would reduce it to the qualified doctrine of predestination
above referred to. The qualified doctrine drew distinctions,
according as it wanted them, between individuals and the
body as the subjects of predestination, between the means of
grace and final happiness as the gift in it, and between
foreseen merits and arbitrary choice as the reason and
ground of it. But none of these distinctions appear in the
Augustinian statements of the doctrine, which quite plainly
and simultaneously assign to predestination individuals as its
subjects, final glory as its gift, and a sovereign and inscrutable
choice on the part of God, as distinguished from foreseen
merits in the predestinated person, as its reason and ground.

He applies, in the first place, predestination to individuals,
speaking of the subjects of it as " these" and " those " (illi,
isti\ and " many " (multi, plurimi). The question put by the
objector to the doctrine, and met by him with the answer
of God's inscrutable will, is, " Why God liberates this man
rather than that — cur istum potius quam ilium liberet" l

1 Pracd. Sanct. c. viii.
L,

146 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. V.

And the predestinated are considered as amounting to a
certain definite number of persons. " I speak," he says, " of
those who are predestinated to the kingdom of God, of
whom the number is so certain that no one can be added to
them or taken from them. " l

It is evident, in the next place, that S. Augustine is
speaking of the predestination of these individuals to final
glory, and not to means of grace only ; asserting, as he does,
that by predestination " every one is infallibly saved who
is saved — certissime liberantur quicumque liberantur? and
that "of the elect none perish2," and everywhere speaking
of predestination as predestination to eternal life.

It is equally evident that he does not mean that these
individuals are predestinated to eternal life on account of
foreseen goodness in them. This was the ground on which
predestination was placed by some maintainers of a quali-
fied doctrine on this subject in S. Augustine's time ; but it
met not with his agreement but strong condemnation ; and
those who held it are argued with as opponents not so
far gone as the Pelagians, but still labouring under formid-
able error. The distinction of foreseen merits was a
regular and known distinction in the controversy on this
question at that day, and was thus disposed of. Thus, com-
menting on the text, " Ye have not chosen Me, but I have
chosen you " (John xv. 16.), he says, " This, then, is the im-
moveable truth of predestination. The Apostle says, ( He
hath elected us in Him before the foundation of the world.'
If this is interpreted, then, to mean that God elects men
because He foresees they will believe, and not because He
is about to make them believing, against such a fore-
knowledge as this the Son speaks, saying, ' Ye have not
chosen Me, but I have chosen you,' for upon this interpre-
tation God would rather have foreseen that they would
choose Him, and so deserve to be chosen by Him. They are

1 De Corr. et Grat. c. xiii. I 2 pe j)ono pers c

CHAP. V.] OF PREDESTINATION. 147

chosen therefore before the foundation of the world by that
predestination by which God foresees his own future work ;
and they are chosen out of the world by that calling by
which God fulfils what He predestines." l

Again, on the text (Eph. i. 4.) "According as He hath
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love."
" f He foreknew,' says the Pelagian, s who were about to be
holy and without blame by the exercise of their freewill,
and therefore chose them before the foundation of the
world in His foreknowledge, because He foreknew that
they would be such.' But the Apostle says, 'Chose not
because we were, but that we might be holy and without
blame.' They were to be such, then, because He elected
them and predestinated them to be such by His grace." 2

The text, again (Rom. ix. 11.), respecting Jacob and Esau,
"For the children being not yet born, neither having done
any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to
election might stand, not of works but of Him that calleth,"
is strongly insisted upon as obviously, and at first sight
disproving the conditional ground attributed by some to
predestination; and the explanation by which this natural
inference from the passage is met, viz. — that the election
of Jacob in preference to Esau, though not caused by any
difference of conduct between them at the time, inasmuch as
they were not yet born, was yet caused by the difference
which was to be and which God foresaw, is rejected, as
depending on a distinction wholly irrelevant; it making
no difference to works as a cause of election, whether they
operate thus as present or as foreseen works. "Jacob was
not loved because he was of such a character, or because he

1 De Trad. Sanct. c. xvii.— Quod
profecto si propterea dictum est quia
prcEscivit Deus creditnros esse ....
Electi sunt autem ante mundi consti-
tutionem ea praedestinationein qua Deus

L 2

sua futura facta praescivit : electi sunt
autem de mundo ea vocatione, qua
Deus id, quod prasdestinavit, implevit.
2 De Pra?d. Sanct. c. xviii.

148 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. V.

was to be; but he was made of such a character because
he was loved — non ideo quia tails erat} vel talis futurus
erat dilectum, sed talem, quia dilectus est, factum. The
Apostle does not lie. Jacob was not loved on account of
works, for if of works, then no more of grace ; but he was
loved on account of grace, which grace made him to abound
in works."1 — Uf It is not of -him that willeth, or of him
that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy ? ' God
had not mercy on Jacob, therefore, because Jacob willed
and ran; but Jacob willed and ran because God had mercy.
For the will is prepared by the Lord." 2 — " ' Jacob have I
loved, but Esau have I hated.' The Apostle speaks of an
election, where God does not find something done by another
for Him to choose, but something to choose which He Himself
does — ' ubi Deus non ab alto factum quod eligat invenit, sed
quod inveniat ipsefacitS As he says of the remnant of Israel,
f There is a remnant according to the election of grace; and
if by grace, then is it no more of works, otherwise grace is
no more grace.' 3 Wherefore ye are foolish who, when the
truth says, * Not of works, but of Him that calleth,' say, on
account of future works which God foresaw that Jacob
would do, and therefore loved him; contradicting the
Apostle's own words. As if the Apostle would not have
said, not on account of present, but of future works, if he
had meant this — ( quasi non posset dicere, non ex prasentibus
sed ex futuris operibus.'* " 4

The ground of foreseen merits is thus expressly rejected
by S. Augustine as the ground of predestination, which is re-
ferred, instead, to an absolute and inscrutable Divine choice.
Though one distinction must be here made. The most rigid
predestinarian must in one sense allow that God predesti-
nates the elect to eternal life in consequence of goodness fore-
seen in them. For, however absolutely God may predestinate

1 Op. Imp., Contra Jul. 1. 1. c. 133. I 3 Rom. xi. 5, 6.

2 Ibid. c. 141. 4 Contra Duas, Ep. Tel. 1. 2. n. 15.

CHAP. V.] OF PREDESTINATION. 149

particular persons to eternal life in the sense of certainty,
He plainly does not do it absolutely in the sense of re-
quiring no qualifications. His predetermination, then, to
give them eternal life must suppose the foresight of these
qualifications for it in them, though it is the foresight of
qualifications which He Himself has determined to give them
by the operation of efficacious grace. " God foresees His own
future work." He has decreed from all eternity to make, and
therefore foresees that He will make, Jacob of such a cha-
racter. But this is predestination in consequence of foreseen
goodness, in quite a different sense from that which is
intended in the modification of the doctrine above referred
to. The effect of that modification is to make the whole of
predestination conditional, — God predestinating persons to
eternal life in consequence of something which by virtue of
the Divine attribute of foreknowledge He certainly fore-
sees, but which is in itself contingent, depending on the
will and efforts of the persons themselves. But of the dis-
tinction now spoken of this is not the effect. For though,
according to it, God predestinates the elect to their final
reward relatively to their qualifications for it, He predesti-
nates them absolutely to those qualifications ; so that, though
one part of predestination is dependent upon another, the
whole is unconditional.1

It is indeed observable that, when S. Augustine is charged
by the Pelagians with fatalism, he does not disown the
certainty and necessity, but only the popular superstitions
and impieties of that system. He rejects the appeal to
the stars as absurd, and distinguishes between the operation
of fate which is for good and evil alike, and that of
Divine grace which is for good only ; sin and its punishment

1 " Effectum prsedestinationis con-
siderare possumus duplicitcr: unomodo
in particular!, et sic nihil prohibet
aliquem effectum praedestinationis esse
causum altcrius. . . . Alio modo in

communi ; et sic impossibile est quod
totus praidestinationis effectus in com-
muni habeut aliquam causam ex parte
nostra." — Sum. Theol. P, 1. Quaest.
23. Art. 5.

L 3

150

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE

[CHAP. V.

being referable wholly to man. But lie does not disown
a Divine predestination, upon which the future happiness
and misery of mankind depend.1

Such being S. Augustine's doctrine of predestination,
the ground on which the justice of such a doctrine is
defended has already appeared in so many of the extracts
given, that it is hardly necessary to recur to it. Had
mankind continued in the state in which they were ori-
ginally created, the consignment of any portion of them
antecedently to all action to eternal punishment, would
have been unjust. But all mankind having fallen from
that state by their sin in Adam, and become one guilty
mass, eternal punishment is antecedently due to all; and
therefore none have any right to complain if they are
consigned, antecedently to it; while those who are spared
should thank God's gratuitous mercy.

To this mass of perdition, this apostate root, we are referred
for the defence of the justice of predestination. " Those who
are not freed by grace, whether they have not had the oppor-
tunity of hearing, or whether they have heard and refused to
obey, or whether they have not lived to be old enough to hear,
but died before receiving the washing of regeneration to
save them, are all justly condemned ; inasmuch as they are
none of them without sin, original or actual. For all have
sinned, either in Adam or in themselves, and come short of the
glory of God. The whole mass, therefore, deserves punish-
ment ; and were this punishment inflicted upon all, it would
be inflicted beyond all doubt justly." 2 — " It is unjust, say they,
that when both are in one and the same evil case, this man
should be liberated and that man punished. But it were
just that both should be punished. Who can deny this ? Let

1 " Fatum qui affirmant de siderum
positione, ad tempus quo concipitur
quisque vel nascitur, actus et eventa
pendere contendunt: Dei vero gratia
omnia sidera progreditur. . . . Deinde

fati assertores ct bona et mala
hominum fato tribuunt." — Contra
Duas, Ep. 1. 2. n. 12.
2 De Nat. et Grat. c. iv.

CHAP. V.] OF PREDESTINATION. 151

us give thanks, then, to the Saviour, for that He does not
repay to us what, by the damnation of others like us, we
know to be our due. Were every man liberated, it would
not be seen what sin deserved ; were no man, what grace
could bestow .... But the whole lump deserving condemna-
tion, justice repays the due shame, grace bestows the un-
merited honour." l — " Forasmuch as that one man in whom
all have sinned is also in each individual punished." 2—
" Grace alone separates the redeemed from the lost, alone
divides those whom a common original sin formed into
one mass of perdition . . . The whole human mass was
so justly condemned in the apostate root, that, were none
rescued from that damnation, none could blame God's justice.
Those who are rescued are rescued gratuitously ; those who
are not, only show what the whole lump deserved, even the
rescued themselves, had not undeserved mercy succoured
them."3 — "Divine Scripture calleth those in excusable whom
it convicts of sinning knowingly. But neither does the just
judgment of God spare them who have not heard : * for as
many as have sinned without law shall also perish without
law.' And however they may appear to excuse themselves,
He admits not this excuse who knows that He at first
made man upright, and gave him the commandment to
obey ; and that sin has not passed to his posterity but by
his misuse of freewill. Men are not condemned without
having sinned, inasmuch as sin hath passed to all from
one, in whom, previous to their separate individual sins,
all have sinned in common. And on this account every
sinner is inexcusable, either by the guilt of his origin or
the addition of his own will, whether he knows or whether
he is ignorant ; for ignorance itself is sin beyond question
in those who are unwilling to learn, and in those who are
not able is the punishment of sin. So that of both the
excuse is unjust, the damnation just What did

Ep. 194. c. 2. | 2 Ep. 186. c. 4. | 8 Enchiridion, c. 99.

L 4

152

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE

[CHAP. V.

He love in Jacob but the freegift of His own mercy, what
did He hate in Esau but original sin ? " l

One peculiar argument for predestination drawn from the
Incarnation should be added to the general body of state-
ment which we meet with in St. Augustine on this subject —
an argument which is remarkable as showing how intimately
the doctrine of predestination is connected with the funda-
mental truths of Christianity. Original sin is its main
basis; but an oblique proof of it is here drawn from the
assumption of the Man Jesus into unity of person with God.2

"The most eminent instance of predestination and grace
is the Saviour Himself, the Mediator of God and man,
the Man Christ Jesus ; for by what preceding merits of
of its own, either of works or faith, did that human nature
which was in Him earn this ? Answer : How did the
Man Jesus merit to be, as assumed into unity of person
with the co-eternal Word, the only begotten Son of God ?
What good in him preceded ? What did he do, believe,
ask, antecedently, that he should attain to this ineffable
dignity ? Was not this Man, by virtue of his assumption
by the Word, from the first moment that he was Man, the
Son of God? Was it not as the only Son of God that
that woman full of grace conceived him ? Was he not born
the only Son of God of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary
by a singular dispensation? Was there any fear then,
that, on coming to mature age, that Man should sin in the
exercise of freewill ? Or, had he not freewill on that
account ; nay, a will on that very account, and because He
could not serve sin, all the more free? All these singular
and wonderful privileges human nature in him received,
without any preceding merits of its own ? And will any
man dare to say to God, * Why was not I so privileged?

1 Ep. 194. c. 6. 8.

2 Edwards, in his book " On the
Freedom of the Will," uses the same
argument in the chapter on " the acts

of the will of the human soul of Jesus
Christ, necessarily holy, yet truly vir-
tuous, praiseworthy, rewardable," &c.

CHAP. V.] OF PREDESTINATION. 153

. . . Why, when nature is common, is grace so different ?
Why is there respecting of persons with God?' What
I will not say, Christian, but sane man would say this."
From the case of Him, then, who is our Head, we may
understand the operation of grace ; how from the Head it
diffuses itself, according to the measure of each, through
all the members. By what grace that Man was made
from the beginning Christ, by that grace is every man
who is such made from the beginning of his faith a
Christian : reborn of the spirit of which he was born ;
forgiven his sins by the same Spirit by whom he was
made to have none. This is the predestination of saints,
which shone chiefly in him who is the Saint of saints.
In so far as he was Man, the Lord of glory was Himself
predestinated — predestinated to be the Son of God ....
Jesus was predestinated to be of the seed of David accord-
ing to the flesh, and according to the Spirit of holiness

the Son of God with power As, then, that

one Man was predestinated to be our Head, so are we
many predestinated to be his members. Let human merits,
which perished in Adam, be silent, and let grace reign.
Whoever finds in our Head preceding merits to cause his
singular generation, may find in his members the same
to cause their regeneration. But as that generation was
not a reward, but a freegift to Christ, so is our regeneration
no reward but a freegift to us ... He makes us believe
in Christ, who made him that Christ in whom we believe.1
Again: "God therefore took the nature of man, i.e. the
rational soul and flejsh of the Man Christ, by a singularly won-
derful and wonderfully singular adoption; so that, without
any preceding merits, that Man was from the beginning of
his human life the Son of God, even as he was one Person
with the Word, which is without beginning. For no one
is so blindly ignorant as to dare to say that, born of the

1 De Pra:d. Sanct. c. xv. See De Dono Perseverantiae, c. xxiv, Op. Imp. 1. 1.
c. 138.

154 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. V.

Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, the Son of Man, he
obtained, by the merit of a sinless life and the good use
of freewill, the Divine Sonship ; — to say this in the face
of the text : ( The Word was made flesh.' For where
did this take place but in the Virgin's womb, where the

Man Christ began to be? That gratuitous

nativity joined in unity of person man with God, the flesh
with the Word. Good works then followed that nativity,
and did not merit it. There was no risk, when human
nature was thus ineffably taken into unity of Person by the
Word of G od, that it should sin in the exercise of freewill :
— that nature being so assumed by God that it admitted
of no evil motion of the will. As, therefore, this Mediator
was, by reason of his assumption, never evil but always
good ; so those whom God redeems by his blood are made
by him eternally good out of evil." l

This is an argument, however, for predestination which
admits of much the same answer which was given to the
argument drawn from original sin. The sinless life of the
Man Jesus was undoubtedly an infallible consequence of
the Incarnation ; for He could not be one with God and
be capable of sinning. His goodness was therefore a ne-
cessary goodness; and one Man, in being predestin-
ated from all eternity to a union with God, was pre-
destinated to a perfect holiness. The Incarnation is thus
a premiss for a doctrine of predestination. But it should
be remembered what kind of premiss this is, that it is not
a truth of nature or reason which we comprehend, but
a mysterious and incomprehensible truth ; and therefore
that the inference drawn from it is alike a mystery and not
an ascertained and complete truth, like a logical consequence
from a known premiss.

The conclusion, then, to which S. Augustine's general
statements, given at the commencement of this chapter,
of the doctrine of predestination, naturally led, has only

De Corr. et Grat. c. xi.

CHAP. V.]

OF PREDESTINATION.

155

obtained confirmation and accuracy from further examina-
tion and the subsequent particulars into which we have
entered. The characteristic of S. Augustine's doctrine,
compared with the scriptural one is, that it is a definite
and absolute doctrine. Scripture, as a whole, as has been
said *, only informs us of a mystery on the subject ; that
is to say, while it informs us that there is a truth on the
subject, it makes no consistent statement of it, but asserts
contrary truths, counterbalancing those passages which con-
vey the predestinarian doctrine by passages as plain the other
way ; but S. Augustine makes predestinarian statements and
does not balance them by contrary ones. Rather he endea-
vours to explain away those contrary statements in Scripture.
Thus he evades the natural force of the text that " God
would have all men to be saved," by supposing that it only
means that no man is saved except through the will of God 2 ;
or that " all " means not all men, but some out of ail classes
and ranks of men : on the same rule on which we understand
the phrase " ye tithe all herb 3," as meaning not that the
Pharisees gave literally a tenth of all the herbs in the world,
but only of all kinds of herbs.4

1 Chapter II.

'•Enchiridion, c. ciii. ; Contra Jul.
Pelag. 1. 4. c. viii.; Ep. 217. c. vi.

* Luke ii. 42.

4 " Neque enim Pharisaci omnia
olera decimabant. . . . Ita et illic
omnes homines, omne hominum genus
intelligere possumus." — Enchiridion,
c. ciii.

The text that God is no respecter
of persons is, in its general spirit, a
counter text to the predestinarian
ones. But its opposition is not exact,
because it supposes a difference of rank,
or other advantages, in the individuals,
•which is not respected ; whereas pre-
destination applies to those between
whom there is no difference, all de-
serving condemnation. Upon this
ground S. Augustine rejects his oppo-
nent's application of this text altogether
as incorrect ; " Nee ulla est acceptio

personarum, in duobus debitoribus
sequaliter reis, si alteri dimittitur
alteri exigitur, quod pariter ab utroque
debetur." — Contra Duas, Ep. 1. 2. c. 7.
" Cur ergo in regnum coelorum, non
accepto regenerationis lavacro, parvulus
nullus intrabit? Nunquidnam ipse
sibi parentes infideles vel negligentes,
de quibus nasceretur elegit? Quid
dicam de inopinatis et repentinis innu-
merabilibus mortibus, quibus sa?pe etiam
religiosorum Christianorum praesumun-
tur, et baptismo prseripiuntur infantes ;
cum e contrario sacrilegorum et inimi-
corum Christi aliquo modo in Chris-
tianorum manus venientes, ex hac vita
non sine sacramento regenerationis
emigrent. . . . Ista cogitent, ista con-
siderent, hie audeant dicere Deum
vel acceptorem in sua gratia personarum,
vel remuneratorem meritorum." — Ep.
194. n. 32.

156 DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION. [CHAP. V.

S. Augustine then takes that further step which Scrip-
ture avoids taking, and asserts a determinate doctrine of
predestination. He erects those passages of Scripture which
are suggestive of predestination into a system, explaining
away the opposite ones ; and converts the obscurity and in-
consistency of Scripture language into that clearness and
consistency by which a definite -truth is stated. His was
the error of those who follow without due consideration that
strong first impression which the human mind entertains,
that there must be some definite truth to be arrived at on the
question under consideration, whatever it may be ; and who
therefore imagine that they cannot but be doing service,
if they only add to what is defective enough to make it
complete, or take away from what is ambiguous enough to
make it decisive. Assuming arrival at some determinate
truth necessary, he gave an exclusive development to those
parts of Scripture which he had previously fixed on as con-
taining, in distinction to any apparently opposite ones, its
real meaning. But the assumption itself was gratuitous.
There is no reason why Scripture should not designedly
limit itself, and stop short of expressing definite truth ;
though whether it does so or not is a question of fact. If
Revelation as a whole does not state a truth of predesti-
nation, that stopping short is as much a designed stopping
short, as a statement would have been a designed statement.
Nor are we to be discontented with the former issue, when
the comparison of one part of God's word with another
fairly leads to it ; to suppose that an indeterminate con-
clusion must be a wrong one, and to proceed to obtain by
forced interpretation what we had failed to do by natural.
If Revelation as a whole does not speak explicitly, Reve-
lation did not intend to do so : and to impose a definite
truth upon it, when it designedly stops short of one, is as
real an error of interpretation as to deny a truth which it
expresses.

157

CHAP. VI.

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE OF GRACE.

THE doctrine of absolute predestination implies the doctrine
of efficacious or irresistible grace, for the end implies the
means ; and therefore, if eternal life is ensured, the ne-
cessary qualifications for that life, which are holiness and
virtue, must be earned also. But these can only be ensured
by such a Divine influence as does not depend for its effect
on the contingency of man's will ; z. e. by what divines
call irresistible or efficacious grace — a grace which S. Au-
gustine accordingly maintains.

The language which the Church has always used for
expressing the relation in which grace stands to the human
will has been that grace assists the will; and such a term
implies in its natural meaning an original power in ourselves,
to which this assistance was given, and by which it must
be used — an assistance, in short, which is no more than
assistance. S. Augustine, however, in adopting the au-
thorised expression, and speaking of grace as assistance, is
obliged by his system to use the term in a meaning exceeding
this natural and obvious one, viz., — not as assistance, but
as control ; — though he arrives at his definition of such a
controlling grace only gradually, after long familiarity with
the subject, and when controversy has strengthened and
sharpened his ideas.

S. Augustine early in his theological life commits himself
to an idea of the Divine Power as being a power of creating
perfect goodness in the creature, and defends in his book
De Libero Arbitrio, written against the Manicheans,
the act of God in not creating man thus perfect at once,

158

AUGUSTINIAN

[CHAP. VI

but only with the power of becoming so ; arguing that
God dispensed different kinds of advantages 1 according
to His own sovereign will, and that a lesser good is not
to be undervalued because it is not a higher one. The
passage, however, expressing as it does the fitness of loth
kinds of goods to be Divine gifts, he appeals to in his
f< Retractations " to prove how, even in an early work, and
before his mind had expanded on the subject of grace, he
had laid down the principles of his subsequent teaching.2

The first regular attempt, however, at a definition of the
characteristic power of Gospel grace, occurs in the treatise
" De Gratia Christi" in which he calls it " the assistance
of will and action — adjutorium voluntatis et actioni*.*** It
will of course be evident at first sight that this definition
does not of itself describe an irresistible grace, but would
apply to a simply assisting one as well. But, considered in
connexion with the context, and taken in the meaning which
its opposition to another definition of grace fastens upon
it, it will be found to imply the former. It was asserted
by the Pelagians that, inasmuch as the power of willing
and acting in one way or another (jpossibilitas utriusque
partis) was inseparable from human nature, human nature
had of itself the power to will and act aright ; but that this
power needed to be assisted by grace (ut possibilitas semper
gratis adjuvetur auxiUo)* To this Augustine replied, that
not only the power to will and act was assisted by grace,
but that will and action itself were; and therefore to the
Pelagian definition of grace, as the " assistance of power "
(adjutorium possibilitatis), he opposed his own, " the assist-
ance of will and action " (adjutorium voluntatis et actionis).
Now, by assisting will and action we should naturally and

1 " Bona quibus male uti malus
potest, et quorum esse usus non potest
malus ; " the one being freewill or the
power of being good, the other goodness
itself.— De Lib. Arb. 1. 2. c. 17., et seq.:
De Pecc. Merit, et Remiss. 1. 2. c. 18.

3 Retract. 1. 1. c. 9.

3 I give the Jansenist turn to the
phrase gratia qua adjuvat voluntatem et
actionem.

4 De Grat. Christi, c. iii.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 159

ordinarily understand assisting the power to will and act,
taking the words will and action loosely to signify the
faculties; for acts themselves are not susceptible of assist-
ance, being already done. Nor, therefore, should we na-
turally see any difference at all of meaning in these two
expressions, assistance of power and assistance of action.
But if this ordinary meaning is disclaimed for the expression
assistance of action, and, instead of being identified with, the
latter is contrasted to, the assistance of the power to will
and act, it must follow that by assistance of action a grace
of a stronger kind is meant than that which assists the
power to act ; and what can that grace be but one which
causes action itself, — i.e. irresistible grace?

Indeed, this absolute sense is fastened on the word
adjutorium in this, Augustine's, definition of grace, by the
mode in which the same word is used in the rival and
opposing definition. For the word carries to the phrase
adjutorium voluntatis et actionis the same meaning that
it bore in the phrase adjutorium possibilitatis (for the
two sides differ not about the meaning of assistance, but
about what is assisted). But in the latter phrase it bears
the sense of causing as well as of assisting ; for the Pe-
lagians said this power (jpossibilitas) was given by God in
the first instance as well as assisted when had. The word
therefore bears the same sense in the phrase " adjutorium
voluntatis et actionis" and implies the gift or causation
of will and action, and not only the assistance of it.

But the meaning of this definition of grace, which is
evident hitherto with some difficulty, and only by a close and
exact process of comparison, is abundantly clear and mani-
fest when we come to S. Augustine's own explanation
and exposition of it. He says : " Pelagius in his first bcok
on Freewill thus speaks : ' We have,' he says, ( a power of
taking either side — possibilitatem utriusque partis — im-
planted in us by God, as a fruitful and productive root,
to produce and bring forth according to men's different

160 AUGUSTINIAN [CHAP. VI.

wills ; and either shine with the flower of virtue, or bristle
with the thorns of vice, according to the choice of the
cultivator.' In which passage, not perceiving what he
says, he establishes one and the same root of good and evil
men, against evangelical truth and apostolical teaching.
For our Lord says, that a good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit, nor an evil tree good fruit. And the Apostle
Paul, when he says that cupidity is the root of all evil,
intimates also that love is the root of all good. If, therefore,
the two trees good and evil are two men good and evil, what
is the good man but the man of a good will ; that is, the tree
of a good root ? And what is the evil man, but the man of
an evil will ; that is, the tree of an evil root ? And the
fruits of these two trees are acts, words, thoughts ; which
if good proceed from a good will, and if evil from an evil

will It is not true, then, as Pelagius says, that

there is one and the same root of good and evil men ;
for there is one root of good men, viz. love ; and another
root of evil men, viz. cupidity: although it is true that that
power is capable of both roots — ilia possibilitas utriusque
radicis est capax — because a man is able not only to have love
but also to have cupidity." *

He proceeds to say that love, which is the root of good
actions, is a free gift of God, and not given according to our
merits.

Now this passage evidently contains a different doctrine,
as to the source of our actions, from the doctrine of freewill.
The doctrine of freewill is that we do possess a power
of taking both sides, and act well or ill according as we
use it; that therefore good and evil acts may both arise
out of one root or one and the same moral condition of
the agent. But Augustine denies the residence in man of
a power to act either way, on the logical or speculative
ground of the absurdity of supposing, that both virtue and

1 De Grat. Christi, c. xviii.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 161

vice can come out of the same moral condition of the agent,
as this neutral state of power would be ; and maintains that
human actions proceed either out of a moral condition which
necessarily produces right action, or out of a moral condition
which necessarily produces wrong. He denies therefore the
doctrine of freewill. He admits, indeed, that man is capable
of either moral condition, — or, to use his own language,
capable of either root ; but this is not the doctrine of free-
will, which is, that the same moral condition, or the same root,
is capable of either fruit. The former is only the admission
of the obvious fact, that man has a capacity, in the first
instance, both for good and evil ; an admission which is quite
consistent with the subsequent necessity of either in him;
just as a material is capable, in the first instance, of any one
out of many different forms ; but when it has once received
a particular form, is necessarily of that form which it has
received.

The whole of the book, however, De Gratia Christi,
is one comment on the adjutorium voluntatis et actionis, as
involving the sense of irresistible grace, as the following
passage on illuminating grace will exemplify : " Our Lord
saith, 'Every man that hath heard and hath learned of the
Father, cometh unto Me.' Whosoever therefore doth not
come, of him it is not right to say, 'He hath heard and
learned, indeed, that he should come, but he does not will to
do what he has learned.' That is not rightly said, if we
speak of that mode of teaching which God employs through
grace. For if, as the truth saith, 'Every man that hath
learned, cometh,' if any man hath not come, neither hath he
learned. It is true, indeed, a man comes or does not come,
according to the choice of his will. But this choice is alone if
he does not come; it cannot but be assisted if he does come;
and so assisted as that he not only knows what he should do,
but also does what he knows. Wherefore, when God teaches
not by the letter of the law, but by the grace of the spirit, He
so teaches as that what a man learns he not only perceives by

M

162 AUGUSTINIAN [CuAr. VT.

knowing it, but also pursues by willing it, and accomplishes by
doing it. By that Divine mode of teaching will itself and action
itself, not only the natural power of willing and acting, are
assisted. For, were our power alone assisted by this grace,
our Lord would have said, ( Every man that hath heard or
hath learned of the Father is able to come to Me.' But He
has not said this, but * Every man that hath heard and hath
learned of the Father cometh unto Me.' .... Every man
that hath learned of the Father is not only able to come,
but comes ; wherein not only the proficiency of the power,
but the affection of the will, and the effect of action is in-
cluded." !

The grace, then, to which Augustine gives the name or
description of " adjutorium voluntatis et actionis" we find, on
examining his own account and explanation of it, to be en-
dowed with the effect of action ; to be a grace, not only
given in order that such and such actions may be done, but
also causing those actions to be done in fact.

But such a phrase as " adjutorium volunfatis et actionis "
is obviously a very imperfect and awkward description of
irresistible grace ; being, in fact, not of itself any description
of it at all, but depending entirely on the definition to which
it is opposed and on the context generally, for its meaning.
Indeed, hitherto, Augustine appears rather feeling his way
toward some clear and exact definition of the grace for
which he is arguing, than really defining it. His language
as a whole has one evident meaning ; but it is only as a
whole that it has : it effects its object by large, varied, and
diffuse statement and explanation ; but in aiming at point
it altogether fails, and cannot concentrate itself in definition.
As his doctrine of grace, however, obtains a more familiar
hold of his mind, and perpetual controversy multiplies
thought and language about it, and the subject by being
turned over repeatedly is seen in every aspect, his ideas

De Grat. Christi, c. xiv.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 163

become more exact and his choice of terms greater ; and
out of the accumulation of statements he is at last able
to fix on one to serve as a complete definition of this grace.

In the book (f De Correptione et Gratia" he draws a clear
distinction between two different kinds of grace, which he
calls respectively " an assistance without which a thing
cannot be done," and " an assistance by which a thing is
done " (adjutorium sine quo aliquid non fit,> and adjutorium
quo aliquid Jit). He first draws a strong distinction between
the wants of man before and man after the fall, and then
gives this as the corresponding distinction in the nature of
the grace by which these respective wants are supplied.
Man even before the fall, upright and perfect being as he
was, and possessed of freewill, stood in need of grace to
enable him. to act aright ; nor could he do anything ac-
ceptable to God by his own natural strength. But as an
upright being and possessed of freewill he only stood in
need of assisting grace, he was strong enough to have
the ultimate choice of good and evil thrown upon him,
and only wanted grace to advance and aid the choice when
made. So great a burden might be placed upon him, because
he was able to bear it, and was no penalty, but the sign of
strength and perfection. To man, then, before the fall "an
assistance without which a thing is not done " was given ;
that is to say, an assistance which he could not do without,
but which did not effect anything unless he added the
exercise of his own original choice to it, — that which is
commonly called assisting grace. But at the fall this whole
state of things ceased. The fall deprived man of freewill, and
inclined his nature irresistibly to evil. In this state he was
too weak to bear the ultimate choice of good and evil being
thrown upon him, and must perish if it was. The grace,
therefore, which is given to man after the fall is not the
assistance "without which a thing is not done," but that
" with which a thing is done ; " that is to say, an assistance,
upon which being given, the effect of a renewed heart and

M 2

164 AUGUSTINIAN [CHAP. VI.

renewed will follows certainly. A grace is now given him
suited to an entirely impotent nature, wholly controlling
choice and action, and leading irresistibly to good.

Augustine explains at length the difference between
these two kinds of grace, and the reason for it : " Adam
was in the midst of good which he had received from the
goodness of his Creator ; but the saints in this life are in
the midst of evil, out of which they cry aloud to God,
* Deliver us from evil.' He amidst that good needed not the
death of Christ; them from guilt, hereditary and personal,
the blood of that Lamb absolveth. He had not need of
that assistance which they implore, saying, ( I see another
law in my members warring against the law of my mind,
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is
my members.' In them the flesh lusteth against the spirit,
and the spirit against the flesh ; and in this struggle, labouring
and endangered, they ask for strength through Christ's grace
to fight and conquer. He, tried and harassed by no such
conflict, enjoyed in that place of bliss internal peace." l . . .

" The first man, therefore, had an assistance, which he
could desert if he willed, and in which he would abide if he
willed ; not one by which he was made to will. This is
the first grace which was given to the first Adam : but a
stronger than this is given in the second Adam. For the
first is a grace of which the effect is, that a man may have
righteousness if he wills : the second is a more powerful
one, of which the effect is, that he wills, and wills so strongly
and loves so ardently, that the will of the flesh is conquered
by the contrary will of the spirit. Nor was that a small
assistance by which the power of a concurrent freewill was
acknowledged ; being so great, as that he could not remain
in good without it, though if he willed he could desert it.
But this is so much the greater, as that it is not enough
to say that lost freewill is repaired by it, not enough to say

De Corr. et Grat. n. 29.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTKINE OF GRACE. 165

that a man cannot attain to or abide in good without it,
but with it can if he will ; except we add also, that it makes
him to will" 1

" For we must distinguish between one kind of assistance
and another. There is one assistance, without which some-
thing is not done, and another by which something is done.
For example, food is a thing without which we cannot live ;
but we have it and die. And therefore food is an assistance
without which it is not effected, not an assistance by which
it is effected, that we live. On the other hand, if happi-
ness be given to a man, he is forthwith happy. Happiness,
therefore, is an assistance by which something is, not an
assistance without which something is not, effected. The
first man received the gift of being able not to sin, able not
to die, able not to desert good: that assistance of perse-
verance was given him without which he could not be, not
an assistance by which he was persevering. On the other
hand, to the saints, who by grace are predestinated to the
kingdom of God, not such an assistance of perseverance as
this is given, but such an assistance as that perseverance
itself is given — tale ut eis perseverantia ipsa donetur; not only
a gift of perseverance, without which they cannot be, but
a gift by which they cannot but be persevering — non solum
ut sine isto dono perseverantes esse non possint, verum etiam
ut per hoc donum non nisi perseverantes sint.2 . . .

" In truth, a greater freedom, and one fortified and con-
firmed by the gift of perseverance, is necessary against so
many and so great temptations, such as there were not in
Paradise; that, with all its affections, terrors, errors, the
world be conquered. This the martyrdom of the saints
has shown. For Adam, yielding to no terror, but rather
using his freewill against the command of a terrible God,
stood not firm in so great felicity, and so great facility of
avoiding sin : but they, against a world not terrible only

1 De Corr. et. Grat. n. 31. | 2 De Corn et Grat n. 34.

M 3

166

AUGUSTINIAN

[CHAP. VI.

but raging, stood firm in the faith: though he saw those
present advantages which he was about to leave, and they
saw not the future ones which they were about to gain.
Whence this, but by His gift from whom they obtained
mercy that they might be faithful.1 ....

" Perseverance, then, was not given to Adam as a Divine
gift, but the choice of persevering or not was left to himself,
because his will, created as it was without sin and without
concupiscence, was furnished with such strength, that it was
worthy of such a choice being committed to it; so great
goodness and facility of living well was his. But now, after
that great freedom has been lost by sin, it remains that

human infirmity be assisted with greater gifts.2

God not wishing His saints to glory in their own strength,
but in Him, gives them more than that assistance which He
gave to the first man ; for inasmuch as they will not persevere
except they both can and will, He gives them by an act of
free grace the power and the will both. For if their own
will were left in such a way as that if they willed they
would persevere, without it being provided that they should
will, their will must succumb amid so many infirmities,
and persevere they could not. Therefore such a succour is
afforded to the infirmity of their will as that by Divine grace
action takes place, without it being possible to fall away or
be overcome.3 Thus, weak though it is, this will fails not
and is not conquered. The feeble will of man, through the
Divine strength, perseveres in a yet imperfect goodness,
when the strong and sound will of the first man did not in
its more perfect. The strength of freewill failed, because,
though that assistance of God without which a man cannot,
if he wills, persevere, was not wanting ; such assistance as
that by which God works in a man to will, was. God left it

1 De Corr. et Grat. n. 35.

2 Ibid. n. 36.

8 " Ut divina gratia indeclinabiliter

et insuperabiliter ageretur." The ac-
knowledged MS. reading, though some
editions have " inseparabiliter."

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 167

to the strong man to do, if he willed ; to the weak He has re-
served, as a gift from Himself, to will unconquerably what is
good and unconquerably persevere in it." l

Such is the distinction between the two kinds of grace
by which the spiritual wants of man before the fall and
after are respectively supplied, — the grace of the paradisal,
and the grace of the gospel dispensation. Under the former
dispensation grace was weak, because nature was strong -9
under the latter, grace is absolute, because nature is im-
potent. Human nature is too corrupt and weak now to
have anything left to itself to do ; and it must be treated as
such, and be taken in hand with the understanding that
everything must be done for it. It is past all but the
strongest remedy, a self-acting one. The distinction rests
upon the doctrine of the fall of man and the change it in-
troduced into his nature. The doctrine of the fall of man
asserts an essential change in the powers of his moral nature
to have followed from that event, in consequence of which
he cannot will or do anything aright now of his own natural
strength. But if man in a natural state has not the power
to will aright, he has not, Augustine says, freewill. Ac-
cordingly it is assumed in this argument that this is the
difference between man before, and man after the fall; that
before he had a will which exerted a power of its own2, and
after has not ; and Augustine comes to the question of
the nature of Christian grace, with the understanding that
grace has now to deal with a being who has not freewill.
But what kind of grace, he then naturally argues, is to
restore and reclaim such a being, to raise him to spiritual
life, and make him persevere in it, but an over-mastering
and controlling grace? Less power in the grace would
suffice if there were some in the being; for if there is any
power in nature, the complement of it only is needed from

1 De Corr. et Grat. n. 38. I 2 Potentia libcri arbitrii. - De Corr.

et Grat. c. xi.

M 4

168 AUGUSTINIAN [CHAP. VI.

grace; but if there is none, grace must supply the whole.
Had man freewill, grace, to be suited to his condition, must
recognise it, leave it to act, and suspend its own effect upon
its action. But when man has freewill no longer, to leave
the effect of grace dependent upon his freewill is a mockery.
If he is to be reclaimed at all, he must then be reclaimed
by an absolute act of power, and "grace must either do every-
thing for him or do nothing.

Here there is a clear and express definition of irresistible
or efficacious grace, — the assistance with which a thing is done
— adjutorium quo aliquidjit, — as distinguished from assisting
grace — adjutorium sine quo ali quid non fit i or, as abbreviated
by the Jansenist divines, the adjutorium quo, as distinguished
from the adjutorium sine quo non. According to this de-
finition, if the grace defined is given, the effect takes place —
aliquid fit ; the renewal and conversion of the man follows
in fact. By this definition, then, the effect is made the test,
whether the grace is given or not ; and a grace, of which
the bestowal is thus tested, is by the very terms an irre-
sistible and efficacious one.

But, while preceding statements are at last embodied in
a definition, the definition does no more than embody and give
point to them ; for a grace, of the bestowal of which the
effect is the test, has been described all along. " If every
man that hath learned cometh unto Christ, if any man hath
not come, neither hath he learned."1 — "If every one that
hath heard and learned of the Father cometh, whoever hath not
come hath not heard or learned of the Father. For if he had
heard or learned, he would have come. For there is no one
that hath heard or learned, and cometh not ; but every one,
as saith the truth, that hath heard and learned of the Father
cometh."2 Here the test of grace, whether it is given or not,
is the effect. If a man is admitted to hearing and learning,
i.e. to illuminating grace, the effect of a new life or coming

De Grat. Christi, c. xiv. | 2 De Prod. c. viii.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 169

to Christ follows : if this effect does not follow, he has not
been admitted to this grace. We do indeed sometimes use
the words hearing and learning in the sense of a man's
own act of attending to what is told him, and profiting
by what is taught him ; and in this sense the words would
express here, not the enlightening grace of God, but a man's
own use of that grace ; and therefore not the giving of a
grace, but a man's own use of it, would be the thing tested
here by the effect. But the obvious sense of this passage,
and the whole nature of the discussion, to which it belongs,
exclude such a meaning of the words hearing and learning
here, which mean the fact of being told and being taught, or
the act of another telling or teaching. A certain teaching
of God, then1, that is to say, a grace, is the thing of which
the bestowal is in these passages tested by the effect; and to
this purpose Augustine criticises the common saying, that
" God's mercy to us is in vain if we do not will," remarking,
" I do not know how this can be said, for if God has mercy
we also will — si Deus miseretur etiam volumus : God has
mercy on no man in vain — nullius Deus frustra miseretur" 2
This is to adopt the test of the effect. The saying " Agis si
acjaris — thou actest if thou art acted on3" does the same,
its force lying in the contrast and inseparableness at the
same time of an influence on the man and an act of him.
The saying " Grace gives merits, when it is given itself —
gratia dat merita cum donatur 4," the term merit meaning in
Augustine's use of it right action, does the same. Again,
" Grace is given, that the faults both of nature and will may
be conquered ; for that which is impossible with man is easy
to God. But those to whom the grace of God is not given
become sinners, unrighteous men. Though these too live
for the advantage of the children of mercy, that the sight of

1 Iste docendi modus quo per gratiam
docet Dens.

2 De Div. Quaest.ad Simp. 1. 1 . n. 1 2, 1 3.

3 Serm. 128. c. 7.

* Ep. ad Vitalem, 217. n. 5.

170

AUGUSTINIAN

[CHAP. VI.

them may subdue their pride ; reminding them that what
has been given to them is God's free gift, and not of their
own deserving." 1 The test of the effect is clearly adopted
here; the conquest of sin and continuance in it being re-
spectively attached to the bestowal of grace and the with-
holding of it.2

A general body of language to the same effect must be
noticed, in which a holy disposition and conduct is put for-
ward as a Divine gift and a Divine creation. It is certain
from revelation, that God is the Giver of every good thing ;
and this truth is applied absolutely by Augustine to the sub-
ject of human action, which, when good, is described as being
a Divine gift. Conversion is a Divine gift — donum Dei
etiam ipsa ad Deum nostra conversio 3 : so is obedience —
donum obedientice ; a good life — bene vivere donum divinum ;
merit or deserving action — Dei dona sunt, et Dei gratia
conferuntur universa merita justorum 4 ; perseverance —
donum Dei per sever antia 5 ; faith in its beginning — <{ gratuito
munere nobis datur 6 ; " even the very beginning, " when
men begin to have faith which they had not — incipiunt
habere fidem quam non habebant 7 ; " faith in its increase —
augmentum, incrementum, supplementumjidei^ donum Dei.8

Again, it is certain from revelation that God is the Creator
of every thing visible and invisible : and this truth is also
applied absolutely by Augustine to the subject of human
action ; which, when good, is described as being a Divine crea-
tion, And if a reason is asked for this limitation, inasmuch as,

1 Op. Imp., Contra Jul. 1. iv. c. 129.

2 " Nulla omnino medicinalis Cbristi
gratia effectu suo caret; sed omnis
efficit ut voluntas velit, et aliquid ope-
retur. t . . Primo igitur hoc probat,
quod apud Augustinum gratia et opus
bonum ita reciprocentur, ut quemad-
modum ex gratia data mox effectum
operis consecutum inferre solet; ita
vice versa, ex defectu operis gratiam
non esse datam. Quo ratiocinandi
mcdo indicatur gratiam tanquum cau-

sam, et operationem voluntatis bonam
velut effectum, esse, ut philosopbl lo-
quuntur, convertibles, et a se mutuo
inseparabiles." — Jansen, De Gratia
Christi Salvatoris, 1. 2. c. 25.

De Grat. et Lib. Arb, c. v.

De Dono Pers. c. ii,

De Dono Pers. c. i.

Ep. 194. n. 12.

Ep. 217. n. 29.

De Prad. c. ii.1

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 171

according to the argument, God would be the Creator
of all action, good as well as bad, the answer is ready,
that bad action, or sin, is not a thing , but only a negation.
Sin is " nothing," according to Augustine. The faculties of
mind and body which are used in a sinful action, are indeed
things, and are the creatures of God; but the sin itself
is not a thing, and is consequently not a creature. God
is indeed the Author of all that is, of every substance ; but
sin is not a substance, and is not. It is a declination from
substance and from being, and not a part of it : true being
and true substance being necessarily good, and "is good,"
and " is " being convertible propositions. It is unnecessary
to enter at large here into this distinction. It is obvious
that some explanation or other is wanted in order to prevent
the conclusion that God is the Author of evil ; and it is
enough to say that this difficulty is seen and is in some
way disposed of.

This idea of human virtue and piety, as a Divine crea-
tion, is indeed, in itself, a scriptural one ; a point which
deserves consideration. The attribute of God as Creator,
in the strict sense of the word, is a truth almost peculiar
to the Bible; for though this truth may be considered a
part of natural religion, it has not practically been brought
out under that dispensation; the more general notion
having been, that God was the Former of the world, and
put it into shape, but was not the Maker of its substance.
The human mind appears to have had great difficulty in
reaching the idea of positive causation of existence, making
substance out of nothing ; such a power appearing even to
those who entertained a system of religion, and admitted
the existence of a Deity and our duties to Him, incredible,
fictitious, and monstrous. A material was accordingly
provided for the great Architect, ready at hand for Him
to work upon and put into shape; and matter was made
a co-eternal substance with the Deity. The timidity
or fastidiousness of philosophy thus weakened essentially

172 AUGUSTINIAN [CHAP. VI.

the great idea of God's omnipotence; but the Bible
sustains it in a remarkable way upon this head. Exem-
plifying the rule, that " the foolishness of God is wiser
than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men,"
Scripture puts forward prominently, and as a fundamental
truth, that very idea which appeared thus monstrous and
untenable to the philosopher, • viz. that God is the true
Creator of the world, and made substance out of nothing.

This difference between the Bible and ancient philosophy
is specially important as regards one division of the crea-
tion, viz. the world invisible. Philosophy did riot speak
of the intelligent soul as being a created substance, but
rather as being an emanation of the Divine mind ; thus
making it part of the Deity Himself, and forestalling the
peculiar subjection which it derives from creation. But
the Bible teaches that the intelligent soul is a created sub-
stance, as truly as matter is. The subjection which belongs
to the creature thus attaches to the soul in the system of the
Bible ; the susceptibility to and need of influence ; the capa-
city for being moulded and controlled by that Being by whom
it was originally made, and dependence upon this moulding
and controlling Power. The Divine power in Scripture thus
extends from the first act of creating the substance of the
soul to the kindred one of creating it morally ; of forming
and fashioning the inner man, inspiring holy acts, im-
parting holy dispositions, and confirming and sustaining
them afterwards. This absolute dominion over men and
irresistible power over their hearts is illustrated by the
similitude of a potter, who makes what he pleases of
his clay ; now forming it and then breaking it, now
preserving it and then rejecting it.1 The New Testament
both interprets and sustains the language of the old;
appealing to this similitude and describing renewed

1 Isaiah, xxix. 16.; xlv. 9.; Ixiv. 8.; Jeremiah xviii. 6.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 173

hearts as a Divine creation. " Shall the thing formed
say to Him that formed it, why hast Thou made me thus ? " l
" If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." 2 " In
Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor
uncircumcision, but a new creature." 3 " We are His work-
manship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which
God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them." 4

This language, however, receives in Scripture a limita-
tion of meaning from the general doctrine of man's free-
will which Scripture inculcates. But Augustine uses this
language absolutely, and adds to its strength and de-
finiteness. Thus, God " makes men good in order that they
may do good acts — ipse ergo illos bonos facit ut lona
faciant." 5 God ct makes faith — fidem gentium facit." 6 (< He
makes men believers — facit credentes" 7 God " makes men
to persevere in good." 8 " God calls whom He vouchsafes
to call, and makes whom He will religious — Deus quos
dignatur vocat, et quern vult religiosum facit : " a saying of
S. Cyprian's, often quoted, on which he affixes a literal
meaning. " Man never does good things which God does
not make him do. — qua non facit Deus ut faciat homo."9
" The Holy Spirit not only assists good minds, but makes
them good — non solum mentes bonas adjuvat, verum etiam
bonas eas facit" 10 " There is a creation, not that by which
we were made men, but that of which a man already
created spoke, < create a clean heart in me ; ' and'that of which
speaks the Apostle, ' If any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature.' We are therefore fashioned and created in good
works, which we have not ourselves prepared, but God,
that we should walk in them." n

Nor is this language used by S. Augustine in a qualified

Rom. ix. 20.

'2 Cor. v. 1 7.

Gal. vi. 15.

Eph. ii. 10.

De Corr. et Grat. c. xii.

De Pra?d. c. ii.

De Freed, c. xvii.

8 De Corr. et Graf. c. xii.

9 Contra Duas, Ep. 1. 2. c. xxi.

10 Contra Duas, Ep. 1. 4. c. vii.

11 De Grat. et Lib. Arb. c. 8.

174 AUGUSTINIAN [CHAP. VI.

sense, simply to express vividly the power of God's assisting
grace, as if giving and creating were meant by Him to be
conditional upon, and supplemental to, a certain exertion of
man's own freewill, understood though not expressed ; for
he distinctly disclaims this qualification, making a differ-
ence in this very respect between the gift of obedience or
holiness and the ultimate gift of eternal life. Eternal life
is the gift of God, but it is given according to merit; that
is, it is a gift upon certain cond itions, viz. the conditions of
obedience and holiness in the persons to whom it is awarded.
But the conditions themselves of obedience and holiness are
not given according to merit, but are gifts unconditional and
gratuitous. The gift of eternal life is a reward, and not a gift
only ; but that for which it is a reward is not itself a reward,
or given upon condition of endeavours and exercise of will
by the man himself, but is a free gift — dona sua coronal
Dens, non merita tua l — God crowns His gifts and not thy
merits. " Eternal life is the recompense of preceding
merits; but those merits of which it is the recompense
are not prepared through our own sufficiency, but are
made in us by grace ; it is given to merits, but the merits
to which it is given are themselves given — data sunt et
ipsa merita quibus datur."2 God at the last judgment has
respect to His own gifts in those who appear before Him,
not distributing eternal life to this person or that, according
to His own sovereign will and pleasure only, but according
to a rule ; that is to say, according as persons show the
possession of certain previous gifts of His own to them :
but those gifts themselves are not to be divested of their
proper character of gifts because a reward is based upon
them, — the second gift is indeed upon the basis of
the first, but the first gift is upon no basis at all but
the Divine will and pleasure. Here, then, is a contrast
which establishes the sense of the term gift as used of the

1 See Note, p. 9. 2 Ep. 134. n. 19.

CHAP. VI.]

DOCTRINE OF GRACE.

175

qualifications for eternal life, as the more simple and natural
one of a gift absolute, for so used it is opposed to the gift
conditional.

Thus he handles the text " Turn unto me, and I will
turn unto you l ; " a text of which the natural meaning is, that
if man does his part according to the power of free agency
which he possesses, God will do His in the way of pardon
and reward. " They, the Pelagians, gather from this
text, that the grace wherewith God turns to us is given
as a reward for our own turning of ourselves to God ; not
considering that unless this very conversion to God were
the gift of God, it would not have been said, 'Turn us,
Thou God of Hosts V and ' wilt Thou not turn again and
quicken us,' and 'Turn us then, 0 God our Saviour3/
and the like. What else is coming to Christ but turning
to Him by faith ? and yet He saith, e No man can come
unto Me except it were given him of my Father.' 4 All
that this passage asserts is, that obedience is a gift of
God as well as salvation. But obedience is next made a
gift of God in distinction to salvation. " When the Pela-
gians say, that that grace which, is given at the end — i.e.
eternal life, is awarded according to preceding merits, — I
reply, true, if they understand these merits themselves
to be gifts of God." 5 " But how could the just Judge
award the crown, if the merciful Father had not given
the grace ? How could there be the crown of righteousness,
if the righteousness by grace had not preceded ? How
could this final reward be given to merit, if the merit
itself had not been given as a free gift ? " 6 Here the
qualified sense of gift, viz. as a gift according to merit

Zech. i. 3.

Ps. Ixxx. 7.

Ps. Ixxxv. 4. 6.

John vi. 65. ; De Grat. et Lib. Art.

Ibid. c. vi.

Again : " Itaque, charissimi, si vita
bona nostra nihil aliucl cst quam Dei

gratia, sine dubio et vita aeterna qusc
bonse vita* redditur, Dei gratia est : et
ipsa enim gratis datur, quia gratis data
est ilia cui datur. Sed ilia cui datur
tantummodo gratia est: haec autem
qua; illi datur, quoniam proemium ejus
est, gratia est pro gratia, tanquara
merces pro justitia." — C. viii.

176

AUGUSTINIAN

[CHAP. VI.

or upon the fulfilment of certain conditions, is allowed of
the ultimate gift of eternal life, only on the understanding
that it is denied of the preparatory gift of the righteousness
which qualifies for it. The crown of righteousness is a
reward, but the righteousness itself is not a reward; i.e.
anything given in consideration of preceding endeavours
of man's own will. And the gift of obedience is described
as a gift residing in the individual previous to action of
his own ; for Augustine lays it down as the object of the
institution of preaching, that those who have this gift
may be instructed as to the application of it — " ut qui
haberent donum obedientia, quibus jussis obediendum esset
audirent" l

There is another evidence of the sense in which
Augustine uses the term gift, as applied to a holy life
and conduct, in an argument in constant use with him,
drawn from the fact of prayer. We pray, he says, not only
for external good things, but for spiritual dispositions and
habits ; for virtue, holiness, obedience, both for ourselves
and others. But a request implies that we suppose the
thing asked for to be in the gift of him from whom we
ask it, and that he is able to bestow it or not, according
to his will and pleasure, otherwise there is no reason to
account for our asking. If we ask God for holiness then,
and obedience, it follows that we suppose holiness and
obedience to be properly in His gift.2 " If God so prepared
and worked a good will in a man as only to apply His law
and teaching to his freewill, and did not by a deep and

1 De Dono Pers. c. xix.

2 " Frequentationibus autem oratio-
num simpliciter apparebat Dei gratia
quid valeret : non enim poscerentur de
Deo quas praecipit fieri, nisi ab illo
donarentur, ut fierent." — De Prasd.
Sanct. c. xiv.

" Si alia documenta non essent, do-
minica oratio nobis ad causam gratia?
quam dcfendimus sola sufficerct. Si-

quidem ut non discedamus a Deo non
ostendit dandum esse nisi a Deo, cum
poscendum ostendit a Deo. Qui enim
non infertur in tentationem non disce-
dit a Deo."

" Ecclesia orat ut increduli credant.
Deus ergo convertit ad fidem. Orat ut
credentes perseverent : Deus ergo dat
perseverantiam in finem." — De Dono
Pers. c. vii.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 177

occult vocation so act upon his mind, that he complied
with that law and teaching, beyond a doubt it would be
enough to expound and preach to that man, and there
would be no necessity to pray that God would convert him
or give him perseverance when converted. If these things
are to be prayed for then, and you cannot deny that they
are to be, what remains, but that you confess that these
things are gifts ? for you must ask God for what He
gives." l

It is evident that this argument defines an absolute gift of
holiness and obedience, for the force of the argument lies in
pushing the act of prayer to its extreme consequences ; and
this is the logical consequence of prayer, as a request for
holiness and obedience from God. It is undoubtedly of the
very nature of prayer to suppose the subject of its request to
be simply in God's gift ; so far as a thing is not in God's
power to give, so far it is not the subject of prayer. If the
act of prayer, then, in the case of asking for goodness from
God, is to be pushed to its logical consequences, it must
follow from it that goodness is God's absolute gift. Upon
the doctrine of freewill, when the act of prayer extends to
such requests as these, it is understood in such a sense as to
forestall this consequence of it; but Augustine embraces
himself, and presses upon others the extreme consequences
of prayer.

He adds that which is necessary to make this view a con-
sistent one, that prayer itself also is the gift of God; for
it would be evidently inconsistent to make other spiritual
habits the gift of God, if that habit which was a means to
those was not a gift of God too.2

Another convincing proof of the sense in which Au-
gustine uses the terms gift and creation, as applied to a
holy life, is his express connection of this gift with pre-

1 Ep. 217. ad Vitalem. n. 5. | 2 De Dono Pers. c. xxiii. ; Ep. 194. c. iv.

N

178 AUGUSTINIAN [CHAP. VI.

destination, and the referring of it to God's secret and
mysterious will. Had he simply meant by these terms that
God crowned man's own endeavours, and gave the increase
if man make a beginning, such a doctrine would have
approved itself naturally to our sense of justice, and would
not have needed any reference to mystery for its defence.
But Augustine bases this gift of holiness and obedience upon
mystery. " Deaf as thou art, hear the apostle thanking God
that they have obeyed the doctrine from the heart; not
that they have heard the doctrine preached, but that they
have obeyed it. For all have not obeyed the Gospel, but
those to whom it is given to obey ; just as to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of God is given to some, but to
others is not given." l . . . .

Again : "As begun and as perfected, faith is alike the
gift of God ; and that this gift is given to some and not
to others cannot be doubted without opposing the plainest
declarations of Scripture. Nor should this disturb any
believer who knows that from one man all went into justest
condemnation ; so that, were none rescued, God could not
be blamed, the real deserts even of those who are rescued
being the same with those of the damned. It belongs to
God's unsearchable judgments, and His ways past finding out,
why He rescues one man and not another. O man, who art
thou that repliest against God? Bow to the rebuke, rather
than speak as if thou knowest that which God who wills
nothing unjust has yet willed to be secret." 2 Again : " God
converts to faith. God gives perseverance. God fore-
knew that He would do this. This is the predestination of
the saints whom He elected in Christ before the founda-
tion of the world, that they should be holy and with-
out blame before Him in love, having predestinated us
unto the adoption of children by Christ Jesus to Himself,

Op. Imp. 1. 2. c. 230. | 2 De Praed. c. viii.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 179

according to the good pleasure of His will ; in whom we
have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according
to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the

counsel of His own will But why is not the grace

of God given according to merit ? I reply, because God is
merciful. And why is He not merciful to all ? I reply,
because He is just. His justice on some shows how freely
His grace is given to others. Let us not then be ungrate*
ful, because according to the pleasure of His will, and the
praise of His glory, the merciful God frees so many from
a just perdition when He would not be unjust if He
freed nobody. From one man have all gone, not into any
unjust condemnation, but a just one. Whoever is freed
then, let him love the grace ; whoever is not freed, let him
acknowledge the justice. God's goodness is seen in remitting,
His equity in exacting, His injustice in nothing." l Again on
the text " It is He that made us and not we ourselves."
" He therefore makes sheep — facit oves. . .Why dost thou
cast freewill in my teeth, which will not free for righteous-
ness except thou be a sheep ? He it is who makes men sheep,
who frees human wills for works of piety. But why, when
there is with Him no respect of persons, He makes some men
sheep, and not others, is, according to the Apostle, a question
more curious than becoming. O man! who art thou that
repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to Him
that formed it, why hast Thou made me thus ? This ques-
tion belongs to that abyss from which the Apostle shrank
with dread, exclaiming, « O the depth of the riches both
of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! ' . . . Why this
man receives, and that man does not receive, when neither
deserves to receive, measuring thy strength, examine not;
enough that we know that there is no iniquity with God. . .
The vessels of mercy understand how entirely in their own

1 De Dono Pers. c. vii. viii.
N 2

180 AUGUSTINIAN [CHAP. VI.

case mercy is gratuitous, when those, with whom they share
one common lump of perdition, receive their just punish-
ment."1

In these passages the gift of obedience, the gift of faith,
the gift of perseverance, the creation of the holy and good
man, or sheep as he is called, are treated as the effects of
the Divine predestination, and are accounted for on a mys-
terious principle. It is, therefore, a proper gift and creation
of which he is speaking, and not a mere crowning of human
endeavours after holiness, for which such an account would
be both superfluous and unsuitable. For there could be no
occasion to go to mystery for the explanation of a proceeding
of which so very natural and intelligible account could be
given, as of God's giving the advancing and perfecting grace
in proportion as man exerts his own faculties and will.

To sum up briefly, then, the evidences, as far as we have
gone, of the Augustinian doctrine of grace; there is first
an express definition of the nature of grace, under the
Gospel dispensation, arrived at after much thought and
effort, and much handling and discussing of the subject ; a
definition according to which the grace of the Gospel is an
assistance productive of that effect upon man's life and
conduct for which it is given — adjutorium cum quo fit.
And this definition is sustained by a general body of lan-
guage describing goodness and holiness as a Divine gift
and a Divine creation, not in a secondary and qualified
but a natural and proper sense of the terms, as shown by
the caution annexed, that this gift is not given according to
merit — L e. according to any conditions which man himself
previously fulfils ; by the argument from prayer, and by the
express referring of this gift and this creation to the mystery
of the Divine predestination. But a grace which is always
productive of the effect upon life and conduct for which

1 Contra Duas, Ep. Pel. 1. 4. c. 6.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 181

it is given — a grace which gives and creates goodness ab-
solutely is an effective or irresistible grace.

This rationale is, then, confirmed by examples from Scrip-
ture. " I wish," says S. Augustine to the Pelagian who
accounted for change of heart from bad to good by self-
discipline and self-mortification on the part of man, which
Divine grace seconded, " I wish you would tell me whether
that Assyrian king whose bed the holy Esther abhorred,
when he sat on the throne of his kingdom, clad in glorious
apparel, and covered with gold and precious stones, and was
very dreadful, and looked at her with a countenance inflamed
with indignation, so that the queen fainted with fear, —
whether that king had already f run to the Lord, and desired
to be led by Him, and suspended his will upon His will, and
by cleaving constantly to Him had been made one spirit
with Him ' (he quotes the Pelagian statement), ( by the power
of his freewill ; whether he had given himself up to God, and
mortified all his will, and put his heart in God's hand.' It
would be madness to think so ; and yet God converted him,
and changed his fury to mildness. But who does not see
that it is a much greater thing to convert an opposite indig-
nation into mildness, than to convert a heart pre-occupied
with neither the one nor the other affection, but midway
between the two? Read then, and understand, behold and
confess, that not by law and teaching from without, but by a
marvellous and ineffable power within, God produces in the
hearts of men, not only true revelations> but also good
wills."1

The particular conclusion from this passage is, that, in the
change from a bad to a good state of mind in the case of
Ahasuerus, Divine grace could not have waited for any
motive of the will ; his will having been up to the very
instant of that effect taking place violently opposed to such

1 DC Gratia Christi, n. 25.
N 3

182 AUGUSTINIAN [CHAP. VI.

a change ; the general one is, that if grace alone turned the
raging and hostile will of that monarch, it can certainly do
the same with other wills in a more neutral state.

The conversion of S. Paul is appealed to as another in-
stance of the operation of such a grace. " I pardon you,"
he says to his Pelagian opponent Julian, " that on a very
deep matter you are mistaken, as a man may be — ignoscendum
est quia in re in multum abditd, ut homo fallens. God for-
bid that the intention of the omnipotent and all-foreseeing
One should be frustrated by man. Little do they think
about, or small power have they of thinking out a weighty
matter, who suppose that God omnipotent wills anything,

and through weak man's resistance cannot do it If, as

you say, men are not recalled by any necessity from their
own evil intentions, how was the Apostle Paul, yet Saul,
breathing slaughter and thirsting for blood, recalled from
his most wicked intention by the stroke of blindness and
the terrible voice from heaven, and from the prostrate per-
secutor, raised to be a preacher and the most laborious one
of all? Acknowledge the work of grace. But God calls
one man in this way, and another in that, whomever He
prefers to call, and the wind bloweth where it listeth." *
That is, acknowledge the work of God, not only in this
particular instance, but in all cases of conversion from a
wicked to a holy life. The operation of a grace absolutely
determining the will of man comes, as it were, visibly before
us, as in the case of S. Paul. But God calls one man in this
way, and another in that — alium sic, alium autem sic. Be-
cause He does not call all those whom He calls in the same
striking and visible manner in which He called S. Paul,
do not infer any difference of principle upon which His calls
are conducted ; for the laws of God's spiritual dealings are
uniform, and He makes one saint in the same way funda-

1 Op. Imp. 1. 1. c. 93.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTEINE OF GRACE. 183

mentally in which He makes another. In the gentlest and
most gradual conversions, then, acknowledge the operation of
the same power which operates in that of S. Paul.

S. Peter is brought forward as another instance of the
operation of such a grace upon the will ; or of grace alone and
by itself determining it or causing the particular will of the
man to be the will which it is. " What will you oppose to
the text ' I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail
not ? ' 1 Will you dare to say, that even the prayer of
Christ could not have procured indefectible faith for Peter,
had Peter wished that it should fail ; that is, had been unwill-
ing to persevere ? As if Peter could possibly will anything
else but what Christ had prayed that he should will ! True,
indeed, Peter's faith would have failed, if Peter's will to be
faithful had failed. But the will is prepared by the Lord,
and therefore Christ's prayer for him could not be ineffec-
tual." 2 This passage is clear. Peter's faith would have
failed if Peter's will had ; but Peter's will would not be any-
thing else but what God had determined it to be, and God
had determined that it should be faithful.

It remains now to inquire whether anything is said of
the nature or quality of this grace in itself — itself, I mean,
as distinguished from its effects, by which alone it has
hitherto been described. And to this question the answer
is, that Augustine identifies this grace with the disposition
of love.

Christian love is a general affection toward God and
man, productive of all the virtues and the whole of obedience.
" Love is the fulfilling of the law." 3 " If we love one another,
God dvvelleth in us and His love is perfected in us."4 But
this love is, according to the doctrine of freewill, a result,
an ultimate habit, gained by the endeavours of the man
himself assisted by Divine grace. But in the system of

1 Luke, xxii. 32. « Rom. xiii. 10.

2 De Corr. et Grat, c. viii. « 1 John, iv. 12.

N 4

184 AUGUSTINIAN [CHAP. VI-

Augustine it appears as a primary disposition imparted
to the soul by an act of free grace ; not the reward and
effect of, but a gift preceding and producing, a good course
of life. That which is the infallible root of general obedience
is implanted in the man at the outset. The grace of love
is infused into his heart. In consequence of the indwelling
of this gift, he cannot but take pleasure in God's law,
obeying it not out of servile fear and in the spirit of
bondage, but in the freedom of a renewed and converted
inclination. The gift of love makes that sweet to him
which before was difficult, nay impossible. Not that those
who have the gift enjoy the full virtue of it all at once,
and immediately find a holy life pleasant to them ; but in
proportion as the virtue of it comes out, they do find this
result ; and the gift ultimately, by means of this power in-
herent in it of accommodating the human will to the Divine,
inclination to law, does produce a saving and acceptable
obedience.

Thus, in a passage which has been quoted, Augustine lays
down one root of good men, viz. love, and another root of
evil men, viz. cupidity ; adding, " The virtue of love is from
God, and not from ourselves, for Scripture says, cLove is
God, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth
God ; ' and ' Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin,'
and that because ( he cannot sin.' Nor have our preceding
merits caused this love to be given us ; for what good merits
were we able to have at the time when we did not love
God? That we might have that love, we were loved
before we had it ; as the Apostle John saitb, ' Not that
we loved God, but that He loved us,' and, ' We love Him
because He first loved us.' For what good could we do
if we did not love, or, how can we not do good if we do
love?1'1

Here love, which is described as a necessary root of

De Grat. Christi, c. xxi. et seq.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 185

good action, or involving a good life in the individual who
has it, is also made an original and primary gift of God
to man. " Who hath it in his power to secure, either that
something delighting should come across him, or that it
should delight him when it does ? When a holy life delights
us then, this delight is inspired and given by the grace of
God, and not gained by our own will, or endeavours, or
works ; this very will, these very endeavours, and these very
works, being His gifts. " l

Again : " When we ask assistance from Him to work
righteousness, what ask we but that He should open what

was hid, and make sweet what was unpleasant?

There precedes in the will of man a certain appetite for its
own power, so that it becomes disobedient through pride.
Were this appetite away, nothing would be difficult, and man,
as he now seeks his own will, would quite as easily not have
sought it. But there has come upon him, as a just punish-
ment, such a corruption of nature, that it is now disagreeable
to him to obey the Divine law. And unless this corruption
is overcome by assisting grace, no one is converted to
obedience : unless healed by the operation of grace, no one
enjoys the peace of obedience. But by whose grace is he
conquered and healed, but by His to whom it is said, ' Turn
us, then, O God our Saviour, and let Thine anger cease from
us?' which, if He does to any, He does to them in mercy ;
while to those to whom He does it not He does it not in
judgment. And who shall say to Him (whose mercy and
judgment all pious minds celebrate), what doest Thou?
Wherefore even His saints and faithful servants He heals
slowly in some faults, so that good delights them less than is
sufficient for fulfilling the whole law ; in order that, tried by
the perfect rule of His truth, no flesh may be justified in
His sight. Nor is such imperfection intended for our con-

De Div. Quaest. ad Simpl. 1. 1. n. 21.

186 AUGUSTINIAN [CHAP. VI.

demnation, but only our humbling, and to remind us of our
dependence on this same grace ; lest, attaining facility in
everything, we think that our own which is His. . . . Let
us be wise, and understand that God sometimes does not
give even to his saints, with respect to any work, either
a certain knowledge, or a victorious delight — victricem delec-
tationem — in order that they may know that not from
themselves but from Him is that light by which their dark-
ness is illuminated, and that sweetness by which their land
yields her fruit." l

Love, which he calls delight and sweetness, is de-
scribed in this passage as a " conquering " or irresistible
grace ; upon the bestowal of which certain effects of life
and conduct follow naturally, though not always in a full
measure, but only in proportion to the amount imparted
of the gift itself. And being such a gift, it is described
as a free gift ; not half given by God, half attained by
man, or given in proportion to our natural striving after
it. For why it is given to one more than another he
treats as a mystery, or a question belonging to the secret
counsels of God ; whereas, on the latter supposition there
would have been no difficulty to account for. Moreover,
the gift is described throughout as preceding and producing
action, and not following it.

Again : " The appetite for good is from God ; the most
high, unchangeable good ; which appetite is love, of which
John saith, 'Love is of God.' Not that its beginning
is of us, and its perfecting of God, but that the whole of
love is from God. Fof God avert such madness as to make
ourselves prior in His gifts and Him posterior ; seeing, it
is said, ' Thou preventest him with the blessings of sweet-
ness.' For what can be meant here but that appetite for
good of which we speak. For good begins to be desired

1 De Pecc. Mer. et Rem. 1. 2. c. xix.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 187

as soon as it begins to be sweet. But when good is done
through fear of punishment, and not through love, good is
not done well. It is done in the act, but not in the heart,
when a man would not do it if he could refuse with im-
punity. The blessing of sweetness is therefore given as
a grace whereby that which is commanded delights us, and
is desired and loved." l Again : (e If grace co-operates with
a previously existing good will, and does not prevent and
produce that will, how is it truly said that ' God worketh
in us to will,' and that the will is prepared by the Lord
and that ( Love is of God,' love which alone wills beatific
good ? " 2 Again : " When the love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts, not that love is meant with which He loves
us, but that love by which He makes us lovers of Him ;
as the righteousness of God is that by which He makes
us righteous of free grace, and the salvation of God that
by which He saves us, and the faith of Jesus Christ
that by which He makes us believers."3 Again: "God
alone gives love ; for ' love is of God.' This you will not
reckon among your assistances of grace, lest you should
concede the truth, that the very act of obedience is of
that grace." 4 Again : •* Thou mentionest many things by
which God assists us, viz. by commanding, blessing, sancti-
fying, coercing, exciting, illuminating; and then mentionest
not, by giving love ; whereas John saith « Love is of God,'
and adds, 'Behold what manner of love the Father hath
bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God.' " 5
Again : " If among the kinds of grace you refer to you
would place love, which the Scriptures most plainly declare
to be not from ourselves but from God, and to be a gift of
God to His own sons, that love without which no one lives
piously, and with which a man cannot but live piously ; with-

1 Contra Duas, Ep. 1. 2. c. viii.

2 Op. Imp. 1. 1. c. 95.

« De Spirit et Lit. c. xxxii.

4 Op. Imp. 1. 3. c. 114.
8 Ibid. 1. 3. c. 106.

188 AUGUSTOIAN [CHAP. VI.

out which no one has a good will, and with which a man
cannot but have a good will, you would then define a true
freewill, and not inflate a false one." l

Throughout these passages the gift of love is described
as a disposition of mind necessarily productive of holy
action, and at the same time it is described as the gift
of God without any qualification, of the simple and natural
sense of that term. f And, lastly, this gift is identified ex-
pressly with efficacious or irresistible grace, as that grace was
formally defined above ; it being described as a gift fe with
which a man cannot but live piously — cum qua nemo nisi pie
vivit" which is a repetition of the language above — " ad~
jutorium cum quo aliquid fit ; donum per quod non nisi per-
severantes sunt." 2

Having thus shown, what it was the object of this
chapter to show, that Augustine held the doctrine of
efficacious or irresistible grace, I shall conclude with two
observations.

It is evident, then, in the first place, that this doc-
trine is no more than a supplemental one to the doctrine
of predestination described in the preceding chapter. If
there be a Divine decree predestinating from all eternity
antecedently to any acts of their own certain individuals
of the human race to everlasting life, there must be an
instrument for putting this decree into effect. The grace
of which the discussion has occupied this chapter is this
instrument. It imparts absolutely to the predestinated
persons those acts and dispositions which are the conditions
of this final reward. The Divine decree, in ensuring this
end to certain persons, ensures them the means to it ; but
piety and virtue are the necessary means for attaining
this end; this decree therefore necessarily involves, as its
supplement, a grace which ensures the possession of piety
and virtue,

V Op. Imp. 1. 3. c. 122. | 2 Pp. 163. 165.

CHAP. VI.] DOCTRINE OF GRACE. 189

In the next place I will guard the reader against a
mistake which is not unlikely to arise with respect to
this doctrine. For it may be asked whether the assertion
of an efficacious or irresistible grace involves more than
maintaining that there is such a grace which God chooses
to give to certain select and privileged persons, without
maintaining that it is the only grace by which holiness
and salvation can be obtained ? Whether it cannot be
held that God gives an irresistible grace to some, and also
gives a sufficient grace to the rest? Whether the higher
gift to a select number, which ensures holiness, is not com-
patible with the lower one to the rest, which gives them
the power to attain it ?

But, indeed, if we consider the matter, such a question
as this will be seen to proceed from a confusion of thought
on this subject. For upon what ground does any one hold
that there is this irresistible grace, except on the ground
that human nature needs it, and cannot do without it ? but
if human nature cannot do without it, nothing short of it
is sufficient. This is the ground on which Augustine raises
the doctrine, and on which all who do maintain it do maintain
it. Indeed, on what other ground can it be seriously main-
tained ? For whether or not it might attach as a superfluity
to a nature able to do without it, its existence could not
be other than a mere conjecture in such a case. For as-
serting its existence there must be an adequate reason given ;
and what adequate reason can be pretended, except that
which is given, viz. that it is necessary ? Were this grace,
then, maintained as a superfluity, there might consistently
be maintained together with it another grace short of it, and
only sufficient ; but it is maintained as remedial to a fatal
disease, as supplemental to an absolute want. The first dis-
pensation did not provide it because man could do without
it ; the second provides it because he cannot. If an irre-
sistible grace then is maintained at all, it cannot be main-
tained as a grace along with the other or merely assisting

190

DOCTRINE OF GRACE.

[CHAP. VI.

one, but must be maintained as the grace of the Gospel
dispensation, — the grace by the operation of which all the
goodness and holiness there is in men arises. To endeavour,
then, to combine it in one system with the other would be to
treat it apart from and in opposition to the very ground
on which we suppose it to exist. The doctrine of an
absolute predestination cannot combine with any other
account of the origin of human goodness ; it must either be
denied altogether, or applied to the whole. An antecedent
moral inability in the whole human mass is the very occa-
sion of that decree, which is made for no other reason than
to provide a remedy for it. It follows, that while those
who are affected by its remedial provisions are endowed
with that certainty of attaining to holiness which they
impart ; those whom the decree does not affect remain in
their original inability ; and therefore, that, besides those
who have an irresistible grace, there are none who have
sufficient.1

1 Bishop Overall appears to have fallen
into the error of endeavouring to com-
bine irresistible grace to some with suf-
ficient grace to all : " These two things
agree very well together, that God, in
the first place, proposed salvation in
Christ to all, if they believed, and com-
mon and sufficient grace in the means
divinely ordained, if men were not
wanting to the Word of God and to the
Holy Spirit : then, secondly, that He
might help human infirmity, and that

the salvation of men might be more
certain, that He thought good to add a
special grace, more efficacious and
abundant, to be communicated to whom
He pleased, by which they might not
only be able to believe and obey, if so
inclined, but also actually be inclined,
believe, obey, and persevere." — Overall
on the Quinquarticular Controversy,
quoted by Mr. Goode, " Effects of
Infant Baptism," p. 129.

191

CHAP. VII.

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE OF FINAL PERSEVERANCE.

IN the preceding chapter it has been shown that the grace
of the Gospel dispensation is, according to the doctrine
of S. Augustine, an efficacious and irresistible one. But
the question still remains in what measure this grace is
given, how much of it is required for accomplishing the
object for which it is designed, viz. the individual's salvation.
Must it be given to him in perfect fulness, i.e. every
moment and act of his life without exception ? Or is a less
measure of it sufficient ? and if so, what is that measure ?

The answer to this question is, that the measure of this
grace which is required for salvation is the same as the
measure, whatever it may be, of goodness and holiness which
is required. As this grace is the efficacious cause of good-
ness, exactly as much is wanted of the cause as is wanted
of the effect. And to ask this question is exactly the same
as to ask, how much goodness is required for salvation.

If the question, then, be asked, how much goodness is
required for salvation? while it is plain that no definite
amount can be fixed upon in answer, a certain indefinite one
can be. Disobedience and sin for an indefinite portion of
life are not incompatible with it; but a man must on the
whole have manifested a good character. And if it be asked,
further, what constitutes such a manifestation, and what is
the test of goodness on the whole ? the answer is, the end
of life — that which the man is at the close of the state of
probation in which he has been placed.

The amount of efficacious grace, then, which is required
in order to salvation, is that which produces this final state
of goodness, i.e. the grace of final perseverance. And

192 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VII.

therefore I shall endeavour, in this chapter, to explain the
doctrine of final perseverance ; first as a test, and secondly
as a grace.

I. It will be evident, on slight consideration, that the doc-
trine of final perseverance, so far as that doctrine is simply
the adoption of a particular test of an acceptable and saving
obedience, is no predestinarian one, but simply one of
morals and religion. Some test is wanted of what con-
stitutes in the individual goodness on the whole ; and this
doctrine supplies a test, viz. the character of the individual
at the end of life. The doctrine does not, indeed, in form
adopt the end of life, but continuance up to the end, as
this test. But it is evident that in continuance up to the
end, nothing is ruled as to when that course of goodness
which is to be thus continued is to begin. The literal and
absolute end of life is, indeed, excluded as such a point of
commencement ; for there cannot be continuance up to the
end if the end takes place immediately. But, interpreting
the end of life liberally, it is left open in this test whether
such goodness commences at the beginning of life, or at
the middle, or at the end. And though an obedience
which continues up to the end is doubtless more valuable
if it commenced at the beginning of life than if it com-
menced at the middle, and if it commenced at the middle
of life than if it commenced at the end, still so long as it
begins in* sufficient time to be a fair and substantial con-
tinuance in goodness, it fulfils the requirements of the test.

The principle, then, on which such a test goes, and on
which it recommends itself to adoption, is the obvious and
natural one, embodied in the old maxim reAo? cpa, look
to the end, the principle, that the end determines the
character of the whole to which it belongs. This rule
applied to the case of man's moral character leads us to
decide, that if he ends virtuously he is on the whole a good
man ; or, on the other hand, that if he ends immorally, he is

CHAP. VII.] OF FINAL PERSEVERANCE. 193

on the whole a bad man. Solon, indeed, applied this rule
to determine the question, not of a man's moral character,
but of his happiness in life ; and here it does not literally
apply. For it cannot be said to be true, that the happiness
of a man's life does depend on the happiness or misery of
its end ; because happiness being a thing of present sensa-
tion, if the sensation has been, there has been happiness.
The fact has already taken place, then, before the end
comes ; and whatever that end may be, it cannot cause what
has taken place not to have. A man therefore who has
had uninterrupted happiness up to the end of his life, but
has then fallen into misfortune, has undoubtedly had more
happiness than one who has been miserable up to the end
of his life, but has then become prosperous. Solon's asser-
tion applies properly not to the state and condition of the
persons themselves, but to their position in the minds of
the survivors ; for we naturally think of a man afterwards
as we last knew him. However prosperous, therefore, a
man has been up to the end, if at the end he falls, then,
inasmuch as that is the last we saw of him, and he dis-
appeared from that time, and was no more seen, we carry his
image in our minds connected with this fall and adversity.
If the melancholy association is the last in order, it cannot
be corrected, but is fixed and unchanging ; and the same is
true of the contrary one. It was a natural law of associa-
tion, then, which the philosopher observed, of which this
was the result. When he said that a man's happiness in
life was decided by its end, that end was imagined as still
going on ; it was not the real termination of life but an
ideal continuation of it, and, as being ideal, unending, for
we can always summon the idea. The two young men
who, after their work of piety in drawing their sacred
mother to the temple, fell asleep in the holy precincts and
died, enjoy an eternal rest in our minds. Their sweet and
blissful repose still in idea goes on. And so the other who
died in victory fighting for his country enjoys an eternal

o

194 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VII.

transport in our minds. The image of repose, and the
image of glory stay for ever. Such an ideal end of life, were
it real, would indeed be the test of a man's happiness in
life ; because the eternal continuation of a life is the greater
portion of it, and the happiness of the greater portion is
the happiness of the life as a whole. But the literal end of
life is no such test.

But a test which is deceptive as applied to the estimation
of a man's happiness is true as applied to the estimation of
his goodness. For there is a peculiarity in the composition
or organisation of moral character which makes it apply.
It might appear, indeed, at first sight, that as happiness is
present sensation, so goodness is present action ; and there-
fore, that if any portion, large or small, of a man's life has
been conducted well, there has been so much goodness
which cannot be reversed, whatever state of sin may succeed
it. But this is not a true statement of the case. Present
action is certainly present goodness, goodness for the time ;
but goodness for the time is not goodness absolutely.
Moral character is subject to this law, that change in it
affects not only the individual's present life, but his relation
to his former, disconnecting him with it. The change from
bad to good conduct disconnects him with the bad ; the change
from good to bad disconnects him with the good. Good after
bad and bad after good, exert each a rejective power over
the past, to his loss and to his relief respectively. For a
man cannot turn from bad to good conduct sincerely and
heartily without such a sense of aversion, grief, and disgust
for his former life as amounts to a putting it away from him,
a severance of it from his proper self; and in like manner
he cannot turn from a good behaviour to a bad entirely,
without such an indifference to or contempt of virtue as
amounts to a disowning and rejection even of his own.
Thus he loses his property in one set of actions as he turns
to another. The actions, indeed, that he has performed
remain for ever his in the sense that he is the person that

CHAP. VII.] OF FINAL PERSEVERANCE. 195

performed then) ; but they cease to be his in the sense that
they affect his character. From this law, then, it follows
necessarily, that the character of the man is the character
which he has at last, inasmuch as he has no other but that,
being dispossessed, by the fact of having it, of any different one
which he may have had before. The question of property
in acts is the whole of the question of the goodness or bad-
ness of the man ; for how can his previous actions, good or
bad, affect him, except they belong to him ? This law, then,
determines the question of property in acts, and it determines
it by the fact of what come latest. The man's previous
virtue or vice for the time are not his absolutely, unless they
are his then ; they wait in suspense for that final appro-
priation. The question of property in the case of happiness
or pleasure is perfectly simple ; for happiness being only
a present sensation, can only belong to the present possessor,
but goodness is more than present action, and therefore
wants another proprietor besides the present agent.

Indeed, one view which is held of change of character in
persons rejects the idea of real or substantial change in them
altogether, arid, whatever they become at last, regards them
as having been really of that character from the first.
According to this view, change is interpretative simply and
not actual, as regards the man's substantial temper; it only
shows that his former character was superficial, and that he
had at the time another underneath it, which was really
his character, in spite of appearances. Thus the end in-
terprets the whole of life from its beginning, and we wait
in suspense till it arrives, in order to ascertain not what
a man will on the whole turn out, but what he has been all
along. This view rests for its ground upon a certain pre-
sumed necessity for a unity of the moral being. It appears
to be dividing one person into two, to say that he was once
a good man, and is now a bad man; and the division of
his moral unity is considered to be as much a contradiction
as the division of his personal. The popular aspect, then,

o 2

196 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTKINE [CHAP. VII.

of change of character, as an actual change or division of
it, is used as a convenience, just as a metaphor might be
used which expressed a truth with practical correctness and
perhaps even greater vigour than a literal statement would,
while another and a deeper view is really taken of such
change.

And this explanation of change of character is undoubtedly
a natural and true one, properly understood, and with a
certain limitation. A man who changes his character
cannot indeed be said to have had his later character before
in the same sense in which he has it after, nor can such a
meaning be intended; at the same time he must have had
this character before in the sense of having its seed or root,
— that out of which it grew. For it is contrary to experi-
ence and common sense to suppose that a change of character
can take place all at once, without previous preparation and
growth; nor can there be any doubt that men have even
the sure root of alteration in them a longer or shorter time
before they actually alter — i. e. the altered character itself,
before it comes out and manifests itself; the substance having
existed in the shape of secret habits of mind, of which the
formation may date very far back. But if the idea of moral
unity is pushed further back than this, and the root which
contains the man's subsequent character be made coeval
with the man, this cannot be done without intrenching upon
freewill ; and therefore such a supposition, though it may be
entertained as an approach to some truth on this subject with
which we are unacquainted, cannot be entertained absolutely.
I will add, that we find in Scripture both aspects of change of
character ; the popular aspect of it as real change, and the eso-
teric as only external. The prophet Ezekiel uses the former
when he says, " If the wicked will turn from all his sins
that he hath committed and keep all My statutes, and do
that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall
not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed they
shall not be mentioned unto him : in his righteousness that

CHAP. VII.] OF FINAL PEKSEVERANCE. 197

he hath done he shall live. But when a righteous man
turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth ini-
quity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the
wicked doeth, shall he live ? All his righteousness that he
hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he
hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them
shall he die. "* St. John uses the latter when he says,
"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if
they had been of us they would no doubt have continued
with us ; but they went out that they might be made mani-
fest that they were not all of us. " 2

The doctrine of final perseverance, then, so far as it is
the adoption of a test of saving goodness, is only the doctrine
of trial and probation explained. The doctrine of trial and
probation is, that we are placed in this world in order to prove
by our actions whether we are worthy of reward or punish-
ment in an eternal world to come. The doctrine of final
perseverance is, that those actions are not estimated simply
with regard to quantity, but also with regard to order ; that
what. constitutes a good or bad life is not the mere aggregate
of them, in which case it would not signify whether they
came at the beginning or end of life, for so long as there
was enough of them to satisfy the Judge, it would be indif-
ferent how the number was made up ; but their succession,
whether prior or posterior in life : in other words, not the
acts themselves, but their relation to the man, whether they
are appropriated by him or not ; for this is what their
order of prior or posterior tests.

And as the doctrine of final perseverance as a test is
only the doctrine of trial and probation explained; so the
objections to it on the ground of justice are only of the kind
which attaches to the general doctrine of trial and probation.
The doctrine indeed that the whole period of trial must be

Ezekicl, xviii. 21, 22, 24. | 2 1 John, ii. 19.

o 3

198 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VII.

judged by its termination, prominently suggests the question,
in the case of a bad termination of it, Why is this period
terminated now ? As the end makes all the difference, why
could not that end have been postponed? Why could not
the period have been extended to sufficient length to give
room for another, and so, by a small addition to its duration,
the whole of its effects have been removed ? But it is evident
that this objection applies to the end of all trial whatever,
and upon whatever rule proceeding, whether that of the
order of actions or of the aggregate simply. In either case
a longer period might, as far as we see, have produced a
different issue from that of a shorter one. The whole doc-
trine of trial and probation is indeed incomprehensible to
us ; for, whereas probation must in the nature of the case be
limited, we cannot understand how a limitation of it can be
so arranged as to be perfectly just and equitable ; how it is
that a person at a particular time is completely tried and
proved: notwithstanding which difficulty, the doctrine of
trial and probation is a doctrine both of revelation and natural
religion.

The test of final perseverance does indeed, in some of its
applications, appear to be open, not only to this objection,
which applies to all limited probation, that we do not see
its justice, but to a positive charge of injustice. For in the
case of a person who has lived uprightly and religiously up
to the end of life, but has then yielded to some temptation
and fallen into sin, it does appear unjust that the end
should undo the whole of the life previous, and deprive him
of any advantage from it ; and the rule of final perseverance
seems at first to impose such a result. But this will be
found, upon consideration, not to be the case. The rule of
final perseverance is the rule, that a man must be judged
according to his final character ; but what in a particular
case is the final character it does not and cannot determine.
Some rules indeed are of such a kind that they appear when
laid down to decide their own application ; and the rule

CHAP. VII.] OF FINAL PERSEVERANCE. 199

which identifies a man's character, good or bad, with his
final one, will appear, unless we are on our guard, to decide
the particular fact of his final character, its goodness or
badness ; the change which is presented to observation in the
particular case appearing to be, without any further reflec-
tion, the change which is supposed in the rule. But it is
evident that we should be deceived here by an apparent
connection between two things which are really separate.
No rule can possibly decide its own application ; it supposes
the case to which it applies and does not discover or select
it. On the question, whether such and such a case is one
of change of character, we must take the best evidence
which our own experience and observation can apply, as we
would on any other question of fact. In the case of a man
who at the end of a life of steady virtue falls into sin, we
ought certainly to be slow to believe that such sin is a real
change of character. His previous good life, though of no
avail as a counterbalance, supposing a real change from it,
is yet legitimate evidence on the question whether there is
such change; and evidence, as far as it goes, against it. For
there is a difficulty in supposing that one who had evinced
such steadiness and constancy should fall away really, how-
ever he might appear to do so ; and both reason and charity
direct us to a favourable supposition, except something very
peculiar in the case prevents it.1

The rule of final perseverance, then, as a test, is not itself
unjust; but whether it is unjust or not in its application
depends upon our discrimination and charity in applying it.
This rule is not intended to over-ride our natural ideas of
justice, as if because we admitted it, we allowed a self-
applying power to it, to which those ideas must succumb ;
but those ideas of justice must be our guide in applying

1 The following is not a cautious
statement of S. Augustine's, though it
admits of explanation : Potius hanc
perseverantiam habuit unius anni fidelis
et quantum infra cogitan potcst, si donee

O 4

moreretur fideliter vixit, quam multo-
rum annorum, si exiguum temporis
ante mortem a fidei stabilitate defecit — -
De Dono Perseverantiae. c. 1.

200 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VIL

the rule. We must apply it then in the particular case,
according to the evidence ; and remember that, after all, we
cannot apply it with certainty, because God only knows
the final state of man's heart. There cannot in that case be
any unjust application of the rule, because its application
will be suspended altogether. Indeed this rule, when we
go to the bottom of it, issues after, all in being substantially
no more than the rule that a man must be judged according
to his character ; for by a man's character we mean his final
character, and no character previous to it. The rule then
is certain, because it is no more than the rule, that the good
are rewarded and the bad punished ; but it cannot be applied
to the individual with certainty, because we do not know
who are the bad, and who are the good.

II. Final perseverance has thus far been treated of as a test,
in which sense the doctrine is no predestinarian one, but
only one of ordinary religion and morality. But it remains
to see what produces, in the Augustinian system, this
saving obedience of which final perseverance is the test, that
is, to consider final perseverance as a grace.

Final perse verance> then, is maintained by S. Augustine
to be the free gift of God ; that is to say, not a gift
bestowed in consideration of the man's previous acts, or as
an assistance to his own efforts, but an absolute gift bestowed
upon certain individuals of the human race, in accordance
with an eternal Divine decree which has predestinated them
to the privilege of it. This is quite evident from the pre-
vious chapter, and requires strictly no further proof. For
there is no necessity, after it has been shown that all good-
ness under the Christian dispensation is on the Augustinian
doctrine a free and absolute Divine gift, to show that a par-
ticular measure and degree of it is upon the same doctrine
such a gift ; and final perseverance is, as I have shown, only
a particular measure and degree of goodness ; such a one,
viz., as avails for the man's salvation. What is said of the

CHAP. VII.] OF FINAL PERSEVERANCE. 201

whole is of course said of the part. Nevertheless, the grace
of final perseverance occupies so prominent a place in the
Augustinian system, that it appears proper to explain the
position of this grace in particular, and to show that what
is said of grace in general is said of this measure of it.

In the first place, then, S. Augustine says generally that

final perseverance is a gift. " Will any one dare to assert

that final perseverance is not the gift of God ? . . . . We

cannot deny that final perseverance is a great gift of God,

coming down from Him of whom it is written, ' Every good

gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down

from the Father of lights.' " 1 " Perseverance is the gift of

God, by virtue of which a man perseveres in Christ unto the

end." 2 " We pray that the unbelieving may believe : faith,

therefore, is the gift of God. We pray that the believing

may persevere : final perseverance, therefore, is the gift of

God." 3 " Why is perseverance asked of God, if it is not

given by God? It is mocking Him to ask Him for what

you know He does not give, for what you can give yourself.

We pray ' Hallowed be Thy name : ' that is to say, we pray

that, having been sanctified in baptism, we may persevere in

that beginning. We pray, therefore, for perseverance in

sanctification. ... If we receive that perseverance, then, we

receive it as the gift of God, that great gift by which His

other gifts are preserved."4 — "He makes men to persevere

in good who makes men good. He gives perseverance who

makes men stand. The first man did not receive this gift of

God, perseverance." 5

Final perseverance, then, is, according to S. Augustine, a
Divine gift. And that he uses the word gift here in its
natural sense as a free gift, not a conditional one, depending
on man's own disposition and conduct, is evident from the
following considerations.

1 De Corr. et Grat. c. vi.
* De Dono Pers. c. i.
3 Ibid. c. iii.

4 De Dono Pers. <•. ii.

5 De Corr. et Grat. c. xii.

202 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VII.

First, he makes final perseverance a gift in the same sense
in which the end of life is a gift: but the end of life is un-
doubtedly an absolute gift of God ; gift, I say, because we
are supposing a case here in which it is advantageous to the
person, and not the opposite, — it is entirely an arrangement
of Providence when death takes place.

S. Augustine urges strongly that in certain cases, the end
of life, that is to say, the circumstance of the end of life
taking place at the time it does, makes final perseverance.
He takes the case of persons who die young, or when their
characters are unformed, but die while their minds are as yet
innocent and uncorrupted. Such persons, he says, attain
final perseverance, because they do as a fact continue in
goodness up to the end ; but their final perseverance is evi-
dently made by the occurrence of the end while they are in
a good state of mind, not by their own stability and con-
stancy. That it is not any stability of principle in the
person which constitutes in such cases final perseverance is
plain, he argues, because final perseverance takes place, even
where no principle of stability exists, but the very reverse ;
because it takes place even in cases where the person, had he
lived, would have lapsed : and he quotes for this assertion
the text from the Book of Wisdom, " Speedily was he taken
away, lest that wickedness should alter his understanding,
or deceit beguile his soul." Here, he observes, is manifestly
a case in which the person's lapse, had he lived longer, was
foreseen, and yet final perseverance takes place ; in which,
therefore, it is manifest that final perseverance takes place
not by the stability of the man, but by the act of God in
putting an end to his life at the time He does, which is pur-
posely fixed so as to prevent a lapse. And if the want of
authority in the Book of Wisdom, as not being part of the
sacred book, is alleged, he replies that he can do without the
text; because even were the certainty of a lapse lost to his
argument, all that his argument really wants is the danger

CHAP. VII.] OF FINAL PERSEVEEANCE. 203

of one l ; for that, if there is the danger of a lapse, it cannot
be the man's stability which constitutes his final perseverance,
but the act of God in forestalling his trial. What makes
final perseverance in such cases then, is, he concludes, the
Divine location of the end of life. And thence he argues
immediately that in such cases final perseverance itself is a
Divine gift. <f Consider how contradictory it is to deny that
perseverance up to the end of this life is the gift of God,
•when He undoubtedly gives the end of life whenever He
pleases ; and the giving of the end of life before an impend-
ing lapse makes final perseverance." 2 " How is not per-
severance unto the end of God's grace, when the end itself of
life is in God's power, and God can confer this benefit even
on one who is not about to persevere ? " 3

Having proved one kind of final perseverance by this argu-
ment to be a Divine gift, he then infers that all final perse-
verance whatever is the same. There may be a wide interval
between the final perseverance of one who is snatched from
impending trial by some sudden illness or accident, and that
of one who has been reserved for trial and has sustained it
without falling ; but if the one kind is the gift of God, the
other is too. " He who took away the righteous man by an
early death, lest wickedness should alter his understanding,
preserves the righteous man for the length of a long life,
that wickedness does not alter his understanding." 4 " Per-
severance amid hindrances and persecutions is the more dif-
ficult ; the other is the easier : but He to whom nothing is
difficult can easily give both." 5

The substance of this argument is, that the power of re •
sisting temptation is as much a gift of God as the removal
from temptation. Death can only be effective of final per-
severance as being a removal for ever from temptation.

1 De Pra?d. c. xiv.

3 De Dono Pers. c. xvii,

8 Ep. 217. c. vi.

4 De Prad. c. xiv. (980.)
6 De Dono Pers. c. 2.

204 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VIL

And therefore to say that perseverance, which consists in
sustaining temptation, is as much a gift of God as that which
is caused by the occurrence of death, is only to say, that the
power of sustaining temptation is as much a gift of God
as the removal from temptation. And so the argument is
sometimes put by S. Augustine, the substance being given
apart from this particular form of it, which alludes to the end
of life. " God is able to convert the averse and adverse wills
of men to His faith, and work in their hearts a sustaining
of all adversities and an overcoming of all temptation ; inas-
much as He is able not to permit them to be tempted at all
above that they are able:" the resistance to temptation is
pronounced to be in the power of God to give, because the
protection from temptation is in His power.1

Such an argument is, indeed, more ingenious than sound ;
for it does not follow that because God spares some persons
on particular occasions the exercise of a certain power of
choice and original agency inherent in their nature, that
therefore such a power does not exist, and would not have
been called into action by another arrangement of Pro-
vidence. But the argument itself, which is all that we are
concerned with here, certainly shows the sense in which
S. Augustine uses the term " gift " of final perseverance.
For there can be no doubt that removal from temptation is
an absolute and free gift of God ; it being entirely an arrange-
ment of His providence what temptations we encounter in
the course of our life, and what we do not. If perseverance,
therefore, in spite of temptation, is as much a gift of God
as the removal from temptation, it is a gift simple and ab-
solute. And there can be no doubt that the occurrence of
the end of life at a particular time is an arrangement solely
of God's providence. If all perseverance, then, is alike the
gift of God, while one kind of it is said to be constituted

1 De Dono Ters. c. ix.

CHAP. VII.] OF FINAL PERSEVERANCE. 205

by the occurrence of the end of life at a particular time,
all perseverance is a gift of God simple and absolute.

Again, he places the gift of perseverance on the same
ground as the gift of baptism, with respect to the principle
or law upon which it is bestowed. Some persons, he
observes, have baptism given to them, and others have
not ; and in like manner some have the gift of perseverance
given to them, and others have not.1 Now, it is obvious
that the gift of baptism is a free gift, the bestowal of which
depends solely on God's will and pleasure, who gives it to
whom He pleases and from whom He pleases withholds it.
Thus the population of Europe is baptized, the popula-
tion of Asia is not ; evidently not because the inhabitants
of Europe have done anything to deserve it which the
inhabitants of Asia have not done, but simply owing to
an arrangement of Providence. We see with our eyes that
a man's baptism results from causes wholly irrespective of
his own conduct, such as the part of the world he was born
in, in what communion, from what parents. There can be
no more genuine instance, then, of a free gift than baptism ;
and, therefore, if final perseverance is a gift in the same
way in which baptism is, final perseverance is a free gift.

It remains to add, that the notes of genuineness which
were observed in the last chapter to attach to the word
" gift," as used by S. Augustine, of grace in general, attach
to the word equally as used by him of this particular
measure of grace, final perseverance. These notes were
contained in the caution that grace was not given according
to merit; in the argument from prayer; and in the entire
reference of the matter to a ground of mystery, the bestowal
or withholding of grace being attributed wholly to God's
secret counsels and sovereign will. All this is applied in par-
ticular by S. Augustine to the grace of final perseverance. It

1 De Dono Pers. cc. ix. x. ; De Corr. et Grat. c. viii.

206 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VII.

is not given according to merit ; it is given in the same sense
in which other gifts which the act of prayer assigns to God's
absolute bounty are given ; and the reason why it is given
to one man and not to another is altogether a mysterious
and incomprehensible one, belonging to the secret counsels
of God. A considerable part of the books " De Dono Per-
severantia l " and " De Correptione. et Gratia 2 " is devoted
to proving that the gift of final perseverance is not given
according to merit ; that is to say, in consideration of any
previous acts or efforts of the man himself. And the whole
of the beginning of the former book is occupied with proving
that final perseverance must be God's gift, inasmuch as we
ask God for it, both in our own behalf and that of others,
and what we ask God for we necessarily confess to be in His
power to give or to withhold.

With respect to the law upon which the gift of perseve-
rance is given to one man and not to another, he says, " If
any one asks me why God does not give perseverance to
those who by His grace lead a Christian life and have love, I
reply, that I do not know, I recognise my measure in that
text, * O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? O
the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God ! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His
ways past finding out.' So far as He deigns to reveal His
judgments, let us be thankful ; so far as He hides them,
let us not murmur. Say you, who oppose yourself to Divine
grace, you are a Christian, a Catholic, and boast of being
one, do you admit or deny that final perseverance is the gift
of God ? If you allow it to be, then you and I are alike
ignorant why one receives it, and another does not ; then you
and I are alike unable to penetrate the unsearchable judg-
ments of God." 3 Again : " Of two children, why one is

1 De Dono Pers. c. viii. et seq.
3 De Corr. et Grat. c. xii.

3 DC Corr. et Grat. c. viii.

CHAP. VII.] OF FINAL PERSEVERANCE. 207

taken and the other left (i. e. baptized and not baptized), of
two adults, why one is so called, that he follows the caller,
and the other either not called at all or not so called, belongs
to the inscrutable judgments of God. Of two pious men,
why final perseverance is given to one and not to the other,
belongs to His still more inscrutable judgments." 1 Again :
" It is evident that both the grace of the beginning and the
grace of persevering to the end is not given according to our
merits, but according to a most secret, most just, most wise,
most beneficent will ; inasmuch as whom He hath predesti-
nated those He hath also called with that call of which it is
said, ' The gifts and calling of God are without repentance.' "2
Again : " Wonderful indeed, very wonderful, that to some of
His own sons, whom He has regenerated and to whom He
has given faith, hope, and charity, God does not give perse-
verance ! that He who oftentimes pardons and adopts the
stranger's (unbeliever's) son, should withhold such a gift
from His own ! Who but must wonder, be astonished, and
amazed at this ! " 3 Again : " I am speaking of those who
have not the gift of perseverance, but have turned from good
to evil, and die in that declination ; let them (his opponents)
tell me why God did not take such persons out of this world
while they were yet unchanged ? Was it because He could
not ? or was it because He foresaw not their future wicked-
ness? .They cannot assert either of these without perversity
and madness. Then why did He do so ? Let them answer
this question before they deride me, when I exclaim, f How un-
searchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out !
Either God gives that gift to whom He will, or Scripture
lies. . . . Let them confess this truth at once, and why God
gives that gift to one and not to another, — condescend
without a murmur to be ignorant with me." 4

1 De Dono Pers. c. ix. 3 De Corr. et Grat. c, viii.

2 Ibid. c. xiii. 4 Ibid. c. viii.

208 DOCTRINE OF FINAL PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP. VII.

Final perseverance, then, is, upon the Augustinian doctrine,
the true and absolute gift of God to certain members of the
human race ; to whom, according to an eternal decree, He has
determined to give it : and it has that prominent place which
it has in the predestinarian scheme, because it is that measure
of Divine grace which is- sufficient for salvation. The pre-
destinarian doctrine is that certain persons are predestined
by God from all eternity to be saved ; but God only saves
the righteous, and not the wicked. It must therefore be
provided, in accordance with this doctrine, that those persons
shall exhibit as much goodness of life as is necessary for the
end to which they are ordained ; and final perseverance is this
measure of goodness. The gift of final perseverance, then,
is the great gift which puts into execution God's eternal
decree with respect to the whole body of the elect. He
may predestine some to a higher and others to a lower place,
but He predestines all the elect to a place in the kingdom of
heaven ; and therefore, while He provides that some shall ex-
hibit higher and other lower degrees of sanctity and goodness,
He provides that all shall exhibit enough for admission ;
which sufficiency is final perseverance.

20<J

CHAP. VIII.

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE OP FREEWILL.

THE preceding chapters have exhibited a full and sys-
tematic scheme of predestinarian doctrine, as held by S.
Augustine, who asserts in the first place an eternal Divine
decree, whereby one part of mankind has been, anteced-
ently to any moral difference between the two, separated
from the other, and the one ordained to eternal life, and
the other to eternal punishment l ; and next supplies a grace
for putting it into effect.2 But while he lays down this
doctrine of predestination and irresistible grace, S. A.ugus-
tine at the same time acknowledges the existence of freewill
in man — liberum arbitrium; an admission, which, understood
in its popular sense, would have been a counterbalance to
all the rest of his scheme. The question, however, imme-
diately arises, what he means by freewill; whether he uses
the word in the sense which the ordinary doctrine of free-
will requires, or in another and a different sense. Persons
are apt indeed to suppose, as soon as ever they hear the
word freewill, that the word must involve all that those
who hold the regular doctrine of freewill mean by it. It
remains, however, to see whether this is the case in S.
Augustine's use of the word.

The doctrine of freewill consists of two parts ; one of
which has respect to the existence of the will, and the
other to the mode in which it is moved and determined.
That part which respects the existence of the will, the doc-
trine of freewill, and the contrary doctrine, hold in common.
No person in his senses can deny the fact of the will, that

Chap, V. j 2 Chaps> vi. and VII.

210 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VIII.

we will to do this, that, and the other thing, that we act
with intention, design, deliberation. We are directly con-
scious of all this. No predestinarian, therefore, however rigid,
denies it; and the whole set of sensations which are con-
nected with willing, or the whole fact of the will, in its
minutest and most subtle particulars, is the common ground
both of him and his opponent. But the fact of the will
admitted, the further question remains, how this will is
determined ; that is, caused to decide on one side or another,
and choose this or that act. The doctrine of freewill is
that the cause of this decision is the will itself, and that the
will has a power of self-determination inherent in it. This
appears to the maintainers of this doctrine the natural
inference from that whole fact of willing, of which they are
conscious, so that they could not draw any other without
seeming to themselves to contradict plain reason. Nobody
can assert indeed that he is conscious distinctly, and after
the mode of clear perception, of a power of determining
his own will, for all that he is distinctly conscious of is his
will itself. Nevertheless, the will as we feel and experience
it, acting with struggle, effort, resolution, summoning up of
force, and deliberate choice of alternatives, has so much the
appearance of being self-determining and original, that when
the notion is suggested that it is not, such a notion is felt to
be contrary to an idea which we naturally and instinctively
have respecting our will, its originality appearing to be im-
plied in this kind of motion and operation. Nor is this
self-determining power of the will interfered with by the
doctrine of assisting grace, which is so formed as to admit
the human will as an original agent, co-operating with
grace. The doctrine of freewill, then, is that the will is
determined by itself, or is an original agent, as distinguished
from the assertion simply of a will in man, which latter it
holds in common with the rival and opposite doctrine re-
specting the will.

The validity indeed of this whole distinction between the

CHAP. VIII] OF FREEWILL. 211

will itself and the will as self-determining, i. e. the existence
of this self-determining power in the will over and above
the fact of willing, is denied by the school of metaphysi-
cians, who take against the common doctrine of freewill and
favour that of necessity. They maintain freewill to consist
in the simple fact of will ; that we act willingly and without
constraint ; and they deny that we can go any further than
this, or see anything whatever more than this fact, however
far we may try to look. They say that in this consists the
whole of freewill, that this is all we mean or can mean by
it ; and that if we try to go any deeper^ we involve our-
selves in confusion and absurdity. This position is among
others maintained by Locke, whose great fairness of mind
and anxiety to represent faithfully and exactly the truth
respecting the human mind and its constitution entitle his
opinions on this subject to much consideration, because he does
not appear to have started with any bias one way or another
on the examination of the question, but to have decided
according to what he thought the plain facts of the case. I
cannot but think, however, that his love of exact truth
and the test of actual perception and apprehension which
his philosophy applies, have been carried too far in this in-
stance, and led him into a mistake. For this test cannot
be applied with absolute strictness in all cases, as I have
often said ; there being truths of reason, which do not admit
of it, truths in their very nature indeterminate and indistinct ;
to which class belongs the truth now in question, that of the
self-determining power of the will.

Locke's elaborate argument on this subject divides itself
into two questions ; one whether the will is free, the other
whether the man or the agent is free to will.

The first question is not really the question at issue be-
tween the two sides ; for what those who maintain the self-
determining power of the will mean by the will being free,
is, that the agent is free to will : nor does their position at
all necessarily involve the particular expression, — freedom

p 2

212 AUGU8TINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAF. VIII.

of the will, which Locke first impugns in his argument,
though they use it as a convenient mode of stating the
real truth for which they contend. Locke, however, first
examines this expression, and starts the question in this
particular form, whether the will is free ; and he decides
against its freedom on the ground that freedom is a power
and the will a power, and that a -power cannot be predicated
of a power, power being the attribute of an agent. Free-
dom, he says, is the power to act as we will. " So far as
a man has power to think or not to think, to move or
not to move, according to the preference or direction of

his own mind, so far is a man free The idea of

liberty is the idea of a power in any agent to do or forbear
any particular action, according to the determination or
thought of his mind." 1 Freedom, then, being the power to
act as we will, assert this power of the will, he says, and what
does it become ? — the power of the will to act as it wills ; i. e.
for this is the only act the will can do, the power of the will
to will as it wills. But this is a power which is contained
in the very act of willing, and does not go at all beyond the
mere fact of will. So that, he argues, when we would
attribute this power — i. e. freedom — to the will, we find im-
mediately that we are making no assertion beyond that of the
will itself, not advancing a step farther, but going on like
a rocking horse upon the same ground. Though in a certain
incorrect way he allows this freedom to be asserted of the
will, because its exertion is thus ipso facto freedom. <f If
freedom can with any propriety of speech be applied to
power, it may be attributed to the power that is in man
to produce or forbear producing, by choice or preference,
which is that which denominates him free, and is freedom
itself. But if any one should ask whether freedom were
free, he would be suspected not to understand well what
he said ; and he should be thought to deserve Midas' ears,

Essay, book 2. c. 21.

CHAP. VIII.] OF FREEWILL. 213

who, knowing that rich was a denomination for the posses-
sion of riches, should demand whether riches themselves
were rich." l

But the question Whether the will is free being thus
decided, the next follows, whether the man is free to will ;
which is, as has been just said, the real question at issue
between the two sides. On this question, then, he first de-
cides — and no one will oppose him,- — that the man is not free
in the case of any proposed action, generally and altogether
in respect of willing ; but that he must will one thing or
another, either doing the act or abstaining from it. " Will-
ing or volition being an action, and fteedom consisting in a
power of acting or not acting, a man in respect of willing
or the act of volition, when an action in his power is once
proposed to his thoughts as presently to be done, cannot
be free. The reason whereof is very manifest ; for it being
unavoidable that the action depending on his will should
exist or not exist, and its existence or not existence follow-
ing perfectly the determination and preference of his will,
he cannot avoid willing the existence or not existence of
that action ; it is absolutely necessary that he will the one
or the other This, then, is evident, that in all pro-
posals of present action, a man is not at liberty to will or
not to will, because he cannot forbear willing."

It being decided, then, that the man must will one way or
another — i. e. is not free to will neither way, — Locke comes
at last to the question, which is the only real one between the
two sides, and upon which the whole controversy turns — Is
he free to will either way ? And he settles it thus summarily.
" Since, then, it is plain that in most cases a man is not at
liberty, whether he will or no, the next thing demanded is,
Whether a man le at liberty to will which of the tiuo he pleases?
This question carries the absurdity of it so manifestly in

Essay, book 2. c. 21.
P 3

214 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VIII.

itself, that one might thereby be sufficiently convinced that
liberty concerns not the will. For to ask whether a man
be at liberty to will either motion or rest, speaking or silence,
which he pleases, is to ask whether a man can will what he
wills, or be pleased with what he is pleased with. A ques-
tion which, I think, needs no answer ; and they who can
make a question of it, must suppose one will to determine
the acts of another, and another to determine that, and so on
in infinitnm?

Upon this ground it is decided that the man or agent does
not determine his own will. But is not this an argument
which simply takes advantage of the difficulties of language,
with which questions like these are beset ? The position that
the man determines his own will is stated in a form in which
it becomes absurd, and then the charge of absurdity is
brought against the position itself. It is described as the as-
sertion, that " the man is at liberty to ivill which of the two he
.pleases? or wills. And certainly in this form the position
is absurd ; for it assumes the previous existence of a particular
decision of the will, as the condition of the power or liberty
of the man to make it. But though in loose speech the self-
determining power of the will may sometimes be expressed
in this way, the truth really intended and meant does not
depend on such an expression of it. The truth which is
meant, is not the man's power to will as he wills or pleases,
but simply his power to will ; that his will rises ultimately
and originally from himself as the agent or possessor of the
will : in other words, that that whole affair of the man
Billing is an original event.

The question of such a self-determining power in the
will may be called " an unreasonable, because unintelligible
question 1 ; " and the other ground be preferred, as simpler
,and more common sense and straightforward, that will is will,
and that that is all that can be said about it. But if truths

1 Essay, book 2. c. 21. s. 14.

CHAP. VIII.] OF FREEWILL. 215

are to be rejected because they are indistinct, indefinite, and
incapable of consistent statement, we must reject a large
class of most important truths belonging to our rational
nature.1 This self-determining power in the will cannot be
stated accurately, nor can it be apprehended accurately ; but
have we not a perception in this direction ? Is there not a
rational instinct which speaks to our originality as agents,
as there is a rational instinct which tells us of substance,
of cause, of infinity ? And does not this instinct or per-
ception see a certain way, so that we have some sort of idea
of the thing in our minds ? Locke's rejection of this power
in the will on such a ground appears to be inconsistent with
his admission of the class of indistinct ideas?2 For if we
admit such a kind and order of truths, are we arbitrarily to
exclude such a truth as this from the benefit of it — a truth
which is felt and asserted by the great mass of mankind ?
But this is the line which Locke takes on this question. He
sees there is no distinct idea of originality or self-determina-
tion in the human mind ; and he does not allow such an idea
a place as an indistinct one. He thus rests ultimately in
the simple fact of will, as the whole of the truth of the free-
dom of the will. " For how can we think any one freer, than
to have the power to do what he will ?...... We can

scarce tell how to imagine any being freer than to be able to
do what he wills." 3

It must be added, that important results in theology follow
the decision of this question respecting the will, one way or
another. On the supposition of a self- determining power in
the will, and so far as it is a true one, the Divine justice is
freed from all substantial difficulty ; for moral evil is brought
instantly home to the individual, who is made responsible
for it, and so justly subject to punishment. But deny this
power, and suppose the will to be moved from without, and

1 See Chap. II. I » Essay, book 2. c. 21. s. 21.

2 NOT* IV.

P 4

216 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VIII.

the Divine justice is immediately challenged, and we are
involved in whatever difficulty accompanies the depravation
of moral beings from a source external to themselves, and
their punishment when their depravation has proceeded from
such a source. I am speaking of the latter doctrine as held
definitely or exclusively. It may be said, indeed, that the
will which is thus moved from without is still will, the will
of the individual, — that it has all the properties which we can
distinctly conceive of will ; but these characteristics of will
will not prevent the difficulties which arise from this theory
of its motion or determination. And this perhaps is worth
the consideration of those who not so much deny the self-
determining power of the will, as set the question aside as
unimportant ; as if the acknowledgment of will as a fact
were the only thing of real importance. Of course, if this
is so, it is impossible to be in the wrong on this subject ; for
nobody in his senses can deny the fact of the will. But the
further question of its determination cannot be said to be
unimportant, both in itself, and as involving these theo-
logical results. It makes a difference in what way we
decide it.

A distinguished writer of the present day, Archbishop
Whately, adopts this line : " Let, then, necessarians of all
descriptions but step forth into light, and explain their own
meaning ; and we shall find that their positions are either
obviously untenable, or else perfectly harmless and nearly
insignificant. If in saying that all things are fixed and ne-
cessary, they mean that there is no such thing as voluntary
action, we may appeal from the verbal quibbles which alone
afford a seeming support to such a doctrine to universal con-
sciousness ; which will authorise even those who have never
entered into such speculations as the foregoing, to decide on
the falsity of the conclusion, though they are perplexed with
the subtle fallacies of the argument. But if nothing more
be meant than that every event depends on causes adequate to
produce it, that nothing is in itself contingent, accidental., or

CHAP. VIII.] OF FREEWILL. 217

uncertain^ but is called so only with reference to a person
who does not know all the circumstances on which it depends,
— and that it is absurd to say anything could have happened
otherwise than it did, supposing all the circumstances connected
with it to remain the samei — then the doctrine is undeniably
true, but perfectly harmless, not at all encroaching on free
agency and responsibility, and amounting in fact to little
more than an expansion of the axiom, that it is impossible for
the same thing to be and not to be." 1

Archbishop Whately in this passage more than tolerates
necessitarianism, because he adopts it. He asserts that
" nothing is in itself contingent, accidental, uncertain," and
that, supposing all the circumstances connected with it to
remain the same, f< it is absurd to say anything could have
happened otherwise than as it did." This is the doctrine of ne-
cessity. Suppose two men under exactly the same circum-
stances as regards a particular temptation to which they are
subjected — the same even to the minutest particulars. Let
the circumstances which are thus identical be not external
only, but internal ones. Let them have the same amount of
inward bias or inclination, and let this inclination be acted
upon from without by a whole, complex, manifold and intri-
cate machinery of invitations and allurements, precisely the
same in both casee. Let every thing, in short, which is pro-
perly circumstantial — i. e. is not the very act of the will itself
- be by supposition the same in both cases. . Now, the doc-
trine of freewill is, that these two agents may, under this
entire and absolute identity of circumstances, act differently ;
the doctrine of necessity is that they must act the same.
According to the doctrine of freewill there is an ultimate
power of choice in the human will, which, however strongly
it may be drawn, or tempted, or attracted to decide one way
or another by external appeals or motives, is not ruled and

: Appendix to Archbp. King, On Predestination, p. 99.

218 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTPaNE [CHAP. VIII.

decided by such motives, but by the will itself only. This is
the self-determining power of the will, the assertion of which
is the characteristic of that doctrine. Under this identity of
circumstances, an original act or motion of the will is said to
take place, which may be different in the two persons, and be
the one single difference in the whole of the two cases. On
the other hand, the necessitarian maintains that where the
circumstances, external and internal, are really and completely
alike, there is not room for this further difference ; but that
the issue will be the same in both cases, and both will
act alike. Archbishop Whately's position, that " supposing
all the circumstances connected with it to remain the same, it
is absurd to say anything could have happened otherwise than
as it did," is identical with this necessitarian one. He adds,
that this assertion that the event must always be the same
under the same circumstances, is <( little more than an ex-
pansion of the position that it is impossible for the same
thing to be and not to be." Of course, supposing it true
that the whole of the circumstances of an act or event
amount to and really are and constitute that act or event
itself, it immediately follows, that to say that under the
same circumstances the same event will take place, is an iden-
tical assertion. But that the assertion should be thus identical
supposes that circumstances do constitute the act or event ; i.e.
it sets aside and ignores an original motion of the will under
the circumstances, as if it had no place in the question, and
there were no such thing : which is the necessitarian assump-
tion. The Archbishop slightly qualifies his remark indeed,
and only calls the two assertions nearly identical : the asser-
tion that the same event must take place under the same cir-
cumstances " amounts to little more than an expansion of the
axiom that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not
to be." But surely the two assertions must be either abso-
lutely and completely identical, or not at all. For if it is not
true, wholly and entirely, that identity of circumstances is the
identity of the act, what is the reason of this defect of truth ?

CHAP. VIII. ]

OF FREEWILL.

219

It is — for there can be no other, — that there is an original
motion of the will, which may be different in spite of the
circumstances being the same. But if there is an original
motion of the will in the case, then the whole position that
the same circumstances will produce the same event or act
falls at once to the ground ; another principle comes in, which
altogether upsets the necessary force of circumstances, and
produces the widest possible differences of acts under circum-
stances exactly the same.1

The writer, indeed, appears to think that the admission
of the fact of the will, or " voluntary action," is itself a safe-
guard against necessitarianism ; and that necessitarians have
to be driven by argument into the acknowledgment of this
fact ; the admission of which, when they are forced to see and
confess it, makes them virtually cease to be such. But all
necessitarians acknowledge in limine, and without any dif-

1 A position maintained in another
passage in Archbp. Whately's Essay,
is in . tendency and language, necessi-
tarian, though it admits of an expla-
nation. " But some may say, have I
the power of choosing among several
motives at once present to my mind ?
or must I obey the strongest? for if so,
how can I enjoy freewill ? Here, again,
Is an entanglement in ambiguous words:
* must ' and ' obey ' and ' strongest '
suggest the idea (which belongs to
them in their primary sense) of com-
pulsion, and of one person submitting
to another ; whereas here they are only
used figuratively, the terms ' weak '
and 'strong,' when applied to motives,
denoting nothing but their greater or
less tendency to prevail (that is, to
operate and take effect} in practice ; so
th'.it to say < the stronger motive pre-
vails' is only another form of saying
that ' that which p.-evails prevails ! ' "
— P. 95. Now, when persons talk of
the stronger motive prevailing, they
sometimes make the assertion in a
sense involving an original act of the
. will Itself. A man is drawn by some
strong temptation towards a had act,
while conscience dissuades: the bad

motive is at the first much the stronger
of the two; he feels the former as
almost overwhelming, while the latter
is but feebly felt: but his will now
comes in and deliberately increases and
strengthens the conscientious motive,
calling up every consideration of pre-
sent or future interest to outweigh the
other, and putting the advantages of
the right side as vividly before the
mind as possible. Thus in time what
was the more feebly felt becomes the
more strongly felt motive ; and the man
acts on the right side. In this sense,
then, there is no doctrine of necessity
involved in the position that a man
must act upon the strongest motive.
For in every act of choice between
good and evil, the will either docs or
does not create this good stronger
motive ; in either case it is the man's
will acting well or ill, and not the
power of externally caused motives,
which produces the result. But under-
standing by the term motive something
simply acting from without upon the
mind, to say that the stronger motive
must prevail, is to say that the in-
dividual's act is decided by causes out-
side of himself.

220 AUGUSTINIAK DOCTRINE [CHAP. VIII.

ficulty, the fact of the will : indeed, every one of sound mind
must.

I will not, however, understand Archbishop Whately in
this passage as more than neutral ; tolerating the necessitarian,
and treating the question between him and his opponent, pro-
vided the fact of the will is admitted, as one of no importance.
But perhaps even this assertion should be modified. It is
true, indeed, that, so long as men acknowledge a will, re-
sponsibility, and moral obligations, there is nothing in neces-
sitarianism to interfere with practical religion. But still the
theory has important consequences in theology, and largely
affects our idea of the Divine dealings, which it represents
under an aspect repulsive to our natural feeling and sense of
justice. And though a mystery must be acknowledged on
this subject, it is a different thing to hold the predestinarian
doctrine, as the Church at large does, as a mystery and with
a reserve, and to hold it as a definite and complete doctrine.

The language of S. Augustine respecting the will may be
put under two heads; under the first of which it does not
come up to the received doctrine of freewill, and under the
second is opposed to it.

I. First, freewill, as maintained by S. Augustine, does
not mean so much as the freewill above described, or a self-
determining will; but only a will; his language not advancing
beyond that point up to which the doctrine of freewill and
the opposite doctrine agree.

In examining the language of Augustine on this subject
we must take care to distinguish between what he says of
the freewill of man in his former perfect, and that of man
in his present corrupt state. In the book De Libero Ar-
bitrio, a freewill is indeed described which comes up to the
above definition of it as original and self-determining. The
Manichean there, not content with the fact of the human
will as accounting for moral evil in the world, demands the
cause of that will; and Augustine replies: " The will being

CJJAP. VIII.]

OF FREEWILL.

221

the cause of sin, you ask the cause of the will : should I
discover it, will you not ask then the cause of that cause ; and
what limit of inquiry can there be, if you will go deeper
than the very root ? . . . What cause of will can there be
before will ? For either this cause is will, and we are no
nearer the root than we were before ; or it is not will, and in
that case there is no sin." ] Here a will is described which
is truly an original agent in nature, having no cause but
itself. But the will thus described is the will of man in his
created, not in his fallen state.2 In some passages, again,
quoted in a former chapter, a will was described which was
self-determining and original ; for it was said that the first man
" had such an assistance given him as he could use if he
willed, and neglect if he willed ; not one by which it was
caused that he did will." 3 His wil!3 therefore, had no
cause beyond itself, or was self- caused, that is to say, self-
determined and original : but this, he expressly says, was the
will of the first man in his state of integrity, and not of man
as now existing.

When Augustine comes to describe the will of man as now
existing, he describes it simply by the fact of will or willing.
There are various passages in his works, especially a passage
in the book De Libero Arbitrio, another in the book De Spi-
ritu et Literd, and another in his Retractations explanatory of
a passage in the book De Diversis Qucestionibus ad Simpli-
cianum, in which it is defined with much minuteness and
labour what the freedom of the will is, and in what it consists;
and this definition terminates in the fact of a will. First,
freedom itself is defined ; and it is said to consist in power.
We are free when it is in our power to do a thing. But
what is power? for it becomes necessary now to say what
power is, if there is anything to be said about it. He pro-
ceeds accordingly to define next what is meant by its being

1 L. 3. c. xvii.

2 Cum autem de libera voluntate
faciendi loquimur, de ilia scilicet in qua

homo factus est loquimur. — L. 3.
c. 18.

8 De Corr. et Grat. c. xi.

222

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE

[CHAP. VIII.

in our power to do a thing; and this he defines by saying
that it is our having the power to do it if we will. " What
need for further question ? we call that power where to the
will is joined the ability to do. That is in a man's power which
he does if he wills, does not do if he does not will — quod si
vult facit) si non vult nonfacit." l Freedom being thus defined,
it only remains to apply this definition of freedom to the will,
which is a simple and easy process. Freedom is a power to
do a thing if we wilL Freedom of the will, therefore, is the
power to will if we will — a power, he adds, which unques-
tionably every man possesses ; for if we will, we are neces-
sarily not only able to will, but do will : there is the act itself
of willing, and therefore certainly the power for it.2 " It
must be that when we will, we will with freewill — necesse
est ut cum volumus, libero velimus arbitrio" 3

The definition of freewill thus stops at the fact of will
as the ultimate truth beyond which nothing can be said ;
the basis of this definition of will being a particular defini-
tion of power. The question of freedom is first correctly
stated as being a question of power — what it is which
constitutes the power to act in this or that way ; and the
constitution of power is decided by making the will a
necessary element in it. A distinction is acknowledged,
indeed, between power and will; but a man is still not
allowed to have the whole power to do a thing unless he
has the will also — ut potestate aliquid Jiat voluntas aderit ;
" in order that anything may be done by power, there must
be the will ; " and will is a condition of power and a true
ingredient in its composition. Freedom is thus first
defined by power, and power is then conditionated upon

1 " Quid igitur ultra quaerimus :
quandoquidem hanc dicimus potes-
tatem, ubi voluntati adjacet facultas
faciendi? Unde hoc quisque in potes-
tate habere dicitur, quod si vult facit,
Bi non vult, non facit." — De Spir. ct
Lit. c. xxxi.

2 Nihil tarn in nostra potestate
quam ipsa voluntas est. Ea enim
prorsus nullo intervallo mox ut vo-
lumus praesto est. — De Lib. Arb. 1. 3.
c. 3,

8 De Civit. Dei. 1. 5. c. 10.

CHAP. VIII. j

OF FREEWILL.

223

will, and there the definition stops *, leaving the ultimate
test of freewill, and, as all that is meant by it, simple will.
We have freewill or the power to will if we will.

It will be seen that this definition of freewill exactly
coincides with Locke's, quoted above. Both writers define
freedom to be the power of doing what we will; Augus-
tine's ubi voluntati adjacet facultas faciendi just tallying with
Locke's " How can we think any one freer than to have
the power to do what he will ? " Both writers, applying this
freedom to the will, immediately discover the freedom
of the will to consist in willing as it wills: Augustine
saying, " Nildl tarn in nostra potestate quam ipsa voluntas est ;
ea enim prorsus nullo intervallo mox ut volumus prcesto est : "
Locke stating freewill as " the man's liberty to will which
of the two things lie pleases" and challenging any one to ask
" whether freedom itself were free."

Augustine meets the difficulty raised against the freedom
of the will from the Divine foreknowledge with the same
answer ; viz. that as a matter of fact we have will, and that
will is as such free. " Whatever may be the tortuous wrang-
lings and disputes of philosophers, we, as we acknowledge
one supreme and true God, so acknowledge His supreme will,
power, and foreknowledge. Nor do we fear on that account
that we do not do with our will what we do with our will —
nee timemus ne ideo non voluntate faciamus, quod voluntate

facimus We say both that God knows all things

before they take place, and that we act with our will,
inasmuch as we feel and know we do not act except with
our will."'2

This, however, being S. Augustine's definition of freewill,
it must be admitted that a considerable body of language,

1 A dictum of S. Anselm's, expresses
the principle of it scientifically— In
libero arbitrio posse non prcecedit sed
sequitur voluntatem. The will is the

original supposition, on which the defi-
nition of power is raised.
* De Civ. Dei, 1. 5. c. 9.

224

AUGUST1NIAN DOCTRINE

[CHAP. VIIL

especially his language at the commencement of the book
De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, and in the two Epistles l
relating to the occasion on which that book was written,
appears at first sight to advance upon this definition, and
to imply an original and self-determining power in the will.
He argues for freewill as a doctrine of Scripture, and uses
the common arguments which tlie main tamers of the ordi-
nary doctrine of freewill use ; viz. that Scripture employs
commands, promises, and threats, and speaks to men as if
they had freewill. Such an argument proves that he —
i.e. Scripture as interpreted by him — acknowledges a will
in man which is truly and properly the subject of com-
mands, promises, and threats ; and can such a will, it may
be asked, be anything but a self-determining one? Does
not such a mode of addressing man suppose an original
power of choice in him ? But though this w^ould be sound
and correct as a popular inference from such language,
it is not as a logical one. Logically all that can be
inferred from the use of commands and threats in the Divine
dealings with man is, that man has a capacity for choosing,
obeying, and acting upon motives 2 ; but these are operations
of the will, and are wholly performed, if there is only a will
to perform them, without going into the question what
decides that will. If man has a will, which will is intended
to act in the particular way of choice and obedience, he

1 Ep. 214, 215.

* Non eodem modo se habent Deus et
homo ad reddendum prsemium. Homo
namque sicut Rex publico edicto pro-
mulgat, monetque ipse indiflferens et
indeterminatus in voluntate sua circa
sibi subjectos. . . . Non sic autem
Deus. Semper aeque determinate vult.
Per meritum innotescit hominibus,
daemonibus, et forsitan Angelis, quale
premium quis habebit. . . . Cum
dicitur, Deus vult istum propter merita
pnemiarc, hoc est, Deus vult istum

prsemiare propter merita final iter or-
dinanda, i.e. vult quod tails sit finis
talium meritorum secundum ordinem
ab ipso talibus preestitutum, ita quod
merita nullo modo antecedenter, cau-
saliter, a priori, monent, determinant,
vel actuant voluntatem divinam ad
pramia reddenda. . . . Deus primo
vult homini premium et gloriam tan-
quam finem, et ideo vult sibi et facit
merita congrua." — Bradwardine, p.
150. et seq.

CHAP. VIII. ] OF FREEWILL. 225

must be addressed in a manner suitable to such a design ;
he must be commanded, in order that he may obey, and he
must have the alternative placed before him in order that He
choose. But such a mode of addressing him does not neces-
sarily prove any more than that he is possessed of a will to
which those operations belong. While, therefore, in the case
of Scripture we are justified in taking such language to imply
an original and self-determining \vill in man, because Scripture
is addressed to the popular understanding, and this is the
popular inference to draw from such language; in the case
of a philosophical writer like Augustine, — who treats of
the human will and the questions belonging to it in a
scientific and subtle way, and from whose language therefore
we are not justified in inferring more than it logically
contains, — we cannot take it as implying more than the
existence of a will in a man.

Indeed, the fact of a will is all the conclusion which
he himself arrives at by this argument, and all that he
presses upon his readers. * " These commands would not
be given unless man had a will truly belonging to him
with which to obey them — nisi homo haberet propriam
voluntatem, qua divinis prceceptis obediret" — " To the man
who says I cannot do what is commanded, because he is
conquered by concupiscence, the Apostle says, f Will not
to be overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good ; '
' will not to be overcome — noli vinci implying certainly
a choice of his will; for to will and not to will is of the
individual's will — arbitrium voluntatis ejus sine dubio conveni-
tur, velle enim et nolle propria voluntatis est" — " Freewill
is sufficiently proved by Scripture saying, will not this,
and will not that, and demanding an act of the will in
doing or not doing anything. Let no one then blame God
in his heart, but impute it to himself when he sins.
Nor, when he does anything according to God's will, let

1 De Grat. et Lib. Arb. c. ii. et seq.
Q

226 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VIII.

him alienate it from his own. For when he does it
willingly, then it is a good work, then a reward attaches
to it — quando volens facit tune dicendum est opus bonum"
Again on the text (( All men cannot receive this saying, save
they to whom it is given ; " he says, " Those to whom it is
not given either will not or do not what they will : those to
whom it is given so will that they do what they will.
That which is not received* by all, but is received by some,
is both the gift of God and also is freewill — et Dei donum
est) et liberum arbitrium* That is to say, it is freewill
in him, because, from whatever source it comes, when he
has it, it is his own will. These explanations all appeal to
the fact of a will in man, as being sufficient to constitute
a free agent, and a proper subject of promises or threats,
of reward or punishment. Indeed, what these arguments
are designed to remove is not any part of the predestinarian
doctrine, but only a false practical inference from it; for
the occasion on which this treatise was written was, that
certain persons had begun to argue, that if that doctrine was
true, it did not signify what kind of lives men led, because
they were not responsible for them. Augustine corrects this
inference by reminding them, that the predestinarian doctrine
did not exclude a will in man ; and that if he had a will, that
made him responsible.

Augustine's doctrine of freewill, then, does not come up
to that which is ordinarily understood as that doctrine ; not
advancing beyond that point up to which the doctrine of
freewill and the opposite doctrine agree. He acknow-
ledges a will in man, that which makes him act willingly,
as distinguished from acting by compulsion and constraint ;
but this is saying nothing as to how that will is determined.

II. But, in the second place, we come to the question of
the determination of this will, and under this head Augus-
tine's language is not only less than, but is opposed to, the
common doctrine of freewill.

CHAP. VIII.] OF FREEWILL. 227

The doctrine of freewill is, as has been stated, that the
will has a self-determining power, which produces right acts
or wrong, according as it is exercised. On the other hand,
the opponents of the doctrine of freewill object that this
is an absurd and self-contradictory cause to assign to human
actions ; for that, if the power of acting one way or another
be the cause of the distinction in human actions, — z. e. of the
good or bad act which really ensues, — the same cause, can
produce opposite effects. The objection proceeds on the
assumption that human actions must have a cause; which
granted, it follows of course that such a cause cannot be a
neutral or flexible thing, as this freewill or power of choice
is described to be.

Now, there is a passage, which I have already quoted *,
in which the doctrine of freewill, as thus stated, comes under
the notice of Augustine. The doctrine is stated in this
passage thus: that " We have a power of taking either side —
possibilitas utriusque partis, — implanted in us by God, as a
fruitful and productive root, to produce and bring forth
according to men's different wills, and either shine with the
flower of virtue, or bristle with the thorns of vice, according
to the choice of the cultivator." This is a plain statement
of the ordinary doctrine of freewill. There is a power of
taking either side inherent in our nature; that power deter-
mines our wills, and according as our wills are determined
we do good or bad actions. To this doctrine, then, thus
stated, Augustine objects on the same ground as that which
has been just mentioned, viz., that it gives an absurd and
self-contradictory cause to human actions. Such a doctrine
he says, " establishes one and the same root of the good and
the bad, — unam eandemque radicem constitute bonorum et
malorum." That is, he says, it maintains one and the same
ultimate or original condition of the man, out of which the

1 De Gratia Christi, c.~ 18.
Q 2

228

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE

[CHAP. VIII.

opposite lives and actions of the two issue ; to maintain which
is to give the same cause to opposite effects. Augustine's argu-
ment proceeds on the supposition of the necessity of a cause
for human actions, and is substantially the same argument
with that used by Edwards, that "an act of the will cannot
directly and immediately arise out of a state of indifference ; "
because the act implies " an antecedent choice," which choice
cannot be simultaneous with indifference *; — the assumption
in this latter argument being that actions must have a
cause out of which they spring; which cause can only be
calculated to produce one effect, and not either one or
the other of two effects. The advocates of freewill, on the
other hand, do not admit this assumption, and so answer
the argument which is raised upon it. They allow that
this power of choice is no cause of the determination of the
will, nor do they profess it to be such ; but they maintain
that for a determination of the will one way or another, it is
not necessary to assign a cause, such determination being
an original motion of the will. It must be added, however,
that in using such an argument as this, Augustine is
inconsistent, for he admits in the case of the first man this
power, this freewill in the complete sense, this power of
either side; appealing to it, as throwing the responsibility
of sin upon him, and removing it from God; after which
admission, he is properly precluded from arguing upon
abstract grounds against such a power.

The power of choice, as the account of the evil and
good actions and lives of men, being thus set aside, S.
Augustine proceeds to lay down a rationale of two different

1 " If the act springs immediately out
of a state of indifference, then it does
not arise from antecedent choice or pre-
ference. But if the act arises directly
out of a state of indifference, without
any intervening choice to determine it,
then the act not being determined by
choice is not determined by the will."
. . An antecedent choice, then, he says,
must be granted. But if it is, " if the

soul, \vhile it yet remains in a state
of perfect indifference, chooses to put
itself out of that state and to turn
itself one way, then the soul is already
come to a choice, and chooses that way,
And so the soul is in a state of choice,
and in a state of equilibrium, both at
the same time." — On the Freedom of
the Will, part ii. sect. 7.

CHAP. VIII.]

OF FREEWILL.

229

roots or causes for the two. " Our Lord says, that a good
tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, nor an evil tree good
fruit. And the Apostle Paul, when he says that cupidity
is the root of all evil, intimates also that love is the root of
all good. If therefore the two trees good and evil are two
men good and evil, what is the good man but the man of
good will ; that is, the tree of good fruit ? And what is
the evil man but the man of an evil will; that is, the
tree of an evil root? And the fruits of these two trees
are acts, words, thoughts, which if good proceed from
a good will, and if evil from an evil will. And man
makes a good tree when he receives the grace of God.
For he does not make himself good out of evil by him-
self; but of Him, and through Him, and in Him who is

good And he makes an evil tree, when he makes

himself evil, when he departs from immutable good; for
the origin of an evil will is that departure." l In this
passage the lives and actions of the good and evil man are
referred in the first place to two immediate or proximate
roots, and then to two ultimate or original ones. The
proximate roots of the two respectively are a good and evil
will, which he calls also love and cupidity. The original
roots, or those from which this good and evil will themselves
spring, are grace and sin. " Man makes a good tree or root,

1 Habemus autem, inquit, possi-
bilitatem utriusque partis a Deo insitam,
velut quandam, ut ita dicam, radicem
fructiferam atque fecundam qua ex
voluntate hominis diversa gignat et
pariat, et quse possit ad proprli cultoris
arbitrium, vel nitere flore virtutum,
vel sentibus horrere vitiorum. Ubi non
intuens quod loquatur, unam eandemque
radicem constituit bonorum et malorum,
contra evangelicam veritatem doctri-
namque apostolicam. Nam et Dominus
nee arborem bonam dicit posse facere
fructus malos, nee malam bonos ; et
Apostolus Paul us cum dicit radicem
malorum omnium esse cupiditatem,
admonet utique intelligi radieem bono-
rum omnium charitatem. Unde si

duae arbores bona et mala sunt, duo
homines, bonus et malus, quid est
bonus homo, nisi voluntatis bonae, hoc
est arbor radicis bonas? et quid est
homo malus, nisi voluntatis malae,
haac est arbor radicis malae? Fructutf
autem harum radicum atque arbo-
rum facta sunt, dicta sunt, cogitata
sunt, quaa bona de bona voluntate
procedunt, et mala de mala. Facit
autem homo arborem bonam, quando
Dei accipit gratiam. Non autem se
ex malo bonum per seipsum facit, sed
in illo et per ilium, et in illo qui
semper est bonus. . . . Malam vero
arborem facit quando seipsum malum
facit, quando a bono immutabili deficit,
— De Gratia Cnristi, c. 18, 19.

Q 3

230 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VIII.

[tree and root being synonymous here] when he receives the
grace of God ; for he does not make himself good by himself,
but of Him : " that is, his own preparation of his will, by
which he makes it a good will, is itself derived from grace ;
man is the immediate, but grace the original agent. On the
other hand, " Man makes an evil tree or root when he makes
himself evil, and departs from immutable good," as he did
by his transgression in Paradise, for so the general doctrine
of Augustine interprets this allusion. A rationale of two
different roots or causes of the lives of good and evil men
is thus laid down, in the place of one and the same moral
condition out of which they are supposed to arise on the
doctrine of freewill.

The same argument is repeated in a passage from the
book De Peccatorum Mentis et Remissions: "It is strange
if the will can stand at a certain point midway, so as to be
neither good nor bad — voluntas mirum si potest in media
quodam ita consistere, ut nee bona nee mala sit. For either
we love righteousness, and it is good, or we do not love
righteousness, and it is bad ; the bad will not coming from
God, the good one coming from God, and being the gift
whereby we are justified ... a gift which to whomsoever
God gives it, He gives in His mercy, and from whomsoever
He withholds it, He withholds it in His judgment . . .
for the law of His secret justice rests with Him alone." *
The writer here refuses to comprehend a neutral, and simply
determinable will, arid, setting aside such a rationale of human
conduct, lays down two separate wills, good and bad, which
have each possession of the agent prior to all action.

These two distinct wills, or roots or causes of human
action, then, are, as has already appeared, and as the whole
doctrine of Augustine shows, original sin and grace.

I. The will of fallen man is determined to evil by a cause

De Pecc. Merit, et Rem. 1. 2. c 18.

CHAP. VIII.]

OF FREEWILL.

231

out of and beyond the personal will or the will of the indi-
vidual ; i. e. by the transgression of the first man, or original
sin ; which captive will, however, is, notwithstanding, freewill,
for the following reasons.

In the first place, Augustine defends its freedom upon
the simple ground which has been maintained. In reply
to the Pelagian, who presses him continually with the con-
sequences of his doctrine, and asks how a being, who is lite-
rally unable to turn to good from the moment of his birth,
can be treated as a free agent and responsible for his acts,
he answers simply that he is so, inasmuch as he has a will.
He does what he does with his will, and not against it. No
force has compelled him to act contrary to his inclination, but
he has acted according to his inclination. He has therefore
acted as a free agent, and he is responsible for his acts.
What more is wanted for responsibility than that a man has
acted willingly, and without constraint ? " Why perplex a very
plain subject. He is free for evil (i. e. a free agent in doing
evil) who acts with an evil will. He is free for good (i. e. a
free agent in doing good) who acts with a good will."1 —
" Men are not forced by the necessity of the flesh into sin, as
if they were unwilling (quasi inviti) ; but if they are of an age
to use their own choice, they are both retained in sin by their
will, and precipitated from one sin to another by their will.
For he who persuades and deceives them does not work
anything in them, but that they sin with their will." 3 — " The
will is that with which we sin, and with which we live well

1 Quid aperta implicas loquacitate
perplexa? Ad malum liber est, qui
voluntate agit mala : ad bonum autem
liber est qui voluntate agit bona. —
Op. Imp. 1. 3. c. 120.

2 " Non itaque, sicut dicunt nos
quidem dicere, et iste audet insuper
scribere, 'omnes in peccatum, velut
inviti, carnis suzc necessitate coguntur : '
sed, si jam in ea astate sunt ut propviae
mentis utantur arbitrio, et in peccato

sua voluntate retinentur, et a peccato
in peccatum sua voluntate pra?cipitantur.
Neque enim agit in eis qui suadet et
decipit, nisi ut peccatum voluntate
committant." — Contra Duas, Ep. 1. I.
c. 3.

"Liberum arbitrium usque adeo in
peccatore non periit,ut per illud peccent,
maxime omnes qui cum delectatione
peccant."— Ibid. 1. 1. c. 2.

232

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE

[CuAr. VIII.

— voluntas est qua et peccatur et recte vivitur." 1 It is enough
for freedom, according to these statements, if we sin by or
with the consent of our will.

Another answer to this difficulty is more subtle and intricate.
The sin of our nature is voluntary, and men are responsible
for it, because this sin proceeds from a self-determining
human will in the first instance ; the sin of the first man or
the original sin having been committed when man had a
self-determining will. The root or origin, therefore, of sin is
entirely free, and it must be judged by its root or origin.
Subsequently, indeed, to its origin, sin becomes not free in
this sense, but necessary, and our nature is captive to it : but
this does not undo the freedom, of its origin. " Sin cannot
be without the will, in the same way in which we say that the
fruit cannot be without the root. . . . Without the will of him
(Adam) from whom is the origin of all that live, the original
sin was not committed. But the contagion of it could pass to
others without the will. It must exist with the will, in order
that it might pass to others without the will, as a tree must
have a root below, in order that it may be above without a
root. . . . Sin is both with the will and without the will : it
is with the will in so far as it must begin to be with it ; it is
without the will in so far as it remains without it." 2 When it
is said in this passage that sin remains without the will, it is
not of course meant that it remains apart from all will what-
ever, for some kind of will must go along with a sinful act to
make it the man's act ; but will is here used in the highest
sense as a self-determining will, such a will as the first man
in his perfect state had. The meaning of this passage, then,
is this: that sin began in a self-determining will; and that,

1 Retract. 1. 1. c. 9.

2 Ego sic dixi peccatum sine volun-
tate esse non posse, quomodo dicimus
poma vel frumenta sine radicibus esse
non posse. . . . Sine voluntate esse
non posset, ut e«set quod in alios sine
voluntate transiret ; sicut frumenta
sine radicibus esse non possent, ut

essent quae in alia loca transire sine
radicibus possent. . . . Sine voluntate
non potest esse, nam sine voluntate non
potest existere ut sit; sine autem vo-
luntate potest esse, quia sine voluntate
potest manere quod existit. — Op. Imp,
1. 4. cc. 97. 99.

CHAP. VIII.] OF FREEWILL. 233

therefore, though when once existing, it remains in the human
race without such a will, it ever carries about with it the
freedom and responsibility of its commencement. The human
will is viewed as one stream of will, so to call it, flowing
first from a fountain head in the will of the first man, as
he came from the hands of his Creator, undergoing a change
of its powers and condition at the fall, and with that internal
change passing into all the individual members of the human
race, as they are successively born. At its fountain head
this will is self-determining and free in the complete sense ;
but at the fall it loses this freedom, and receives into itself
an inclination to evil, which operates necessarily. Thus
biassed, it passes into the successive generations of individual
men, as they are born, constituting them sinful beings,
and issuing in sinful desires and acts. If mankind complain,
then, of this captive condition, and ask why, when their will
acts under a necessity they are treated as free and responsible
beings subject to punishment for their acts, they are told
that their will was originally free and self- determining ; that
it only lost that power by its own fault ; and that a loss
which it has brought upon itself does not give it immunity.
An analogy is instituted between the effect of original sin
upon the will, and the effect of habit or custom. The will
of the man who is born under the influence of original sin
is treated as identical with the will which committed that sin ;
just as the will of an individual who is under the force of a bad
habit is identical with the will which contracted that habit.
And this view accounts for an apparent contradiction which
we meet with in Augustine, in speaking of the will. He
talks of will as being essentially original and the cause
of itself, or self-determining ; being this, as being will 1 ;
and he also speaks of will as if the fact of a will, whatever
were its cause, made a true and genuine will. He is first
spenking of will as a whole, and secondly of will in a parti-

P. 221.

234 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VIII.

cular stage. Will as a whole must be original and self-deter-
mining ; that is, there must have been a time in the history
of the will when it was so : otherwise we make sin simply
necessary in the world, and fasten its authorship on the
Deity. But will in a particular stage or condition may be
the conscious fact of willing, and no more, acting really under
a necessity. Such an explanation, however, is wholly
mystical.

II. The will of man is determined to good by grace, and
yet it is freewill ; just as his will, when so determined by ori-
ginal sin to evil, was free : because it is true will ; because the
man acts willingly and without constraint. " The human
will is not taken away, but is changed from evil to good by
grace — voluntas humana non tollitur, sed ex mala mutatur in
bonam" * — " Freewill is one of the gifts of God ; not only
itself but the goodness of it — non tantum ut sit sed etiam ut
bonum sit" 2 — "It is certain that when we will, we will ; but
it is He who makes us to will — cerium est nos velle cum volu-
mus, sed illefacit ut velimus bonum. It is certain that when we
do we do ; but He makes us to do, by giving the most effective
strength to the will — cerium est nos facer e cumfacimus, sed
ille facit utfaciamus, prcebendo vires efficacissimas voluntati."3 —
" Some will to believe, others do not ; because the will of some
is prepared by God, the will of others is not — aliis prapara-
tur aliis non prceparatur voluntas a Domino. . . . Mercy and
justice have been respectively exerted in the very wills of men
— misericordia et judicium in ipsis voluntatibus facia sunt." 4
That is to say, the will is moved and determined by Divine
grace, but it is still will, and freewill.

A higher sense, however, than that of freedom from
constraint and force, or simple willingness, though at the
same time including this latter sense, is sometimes given

i De Gratia et Lib. Arb. n. 41. I 8 De Gratia et Lib. Arb. n. 32.

9 De Pecc. Merit, et Rem. 1. 2. c. 6. | * De Praed. Sanct. c. 6.

CHAP. VIII. ]

OF FREEWILL,

235

to the term freewill ; viz., that of freedom from the yoke
and bondage of sin, the dominion of evil inclinations and
passions. The term freedom is raised from its neutrality and
appropriated to a good condition of the will ; such condition
being still, however, not freedom in the sense of power
of choice, but a state of servitude to good, — the contradictory
of servitude to evil.

S. Paul speaks of two bondages, a bondage to righteous-
ness and a bondage to sin ; and of two freedoms, a freedom
from righteousness and a freedom from sin. And S. Au-
gustine, following him, says : " The will is always free in us,
but not always good ; for either it is free from righteousness,
and under bondage to sin, or it is free from sin, and under bond-
age to righteousness."1 Here the term free is evidently used
not in the sense of free for evil or good, i. e. with the power
of doing either ; but as meaning free from evil, and free
from good. There is a state of mind in which the good
principle is dominant and supreme, and the man in entire
subjection to it or under its yoke ; a state of mind in
which the will has reached such a point of strength on
the good side, as that the man could not act against it,
without such a violence as it would be absurd to suppose
him committing toward himself. There is a state of mind also
in which evil has this dominance and supremacy. Freewill
is here understood as will, which is either free from this yoke
of good, or free from this yoke of evil. In this sense of the
word free, then, the freedom of the will is inconsistent with
a power of choice ; for, according to this use of the term, a
freewill, so far from having ability to do evil or good, has its
very name, because it is either not able to do evil on the one

1 " Semper est in nobis voluntas
libera, sed non semper est bona. Aut
enim a justitia libera est, quando servit
peccato, et tune est mala : aut a peccato
libera est, quando servit justitiae, et tune
est bona. Gratia vero Dei semper est
bona, et per hanc fit ut sit homo bonze
voluntatis, qui prius fuit voluntatis
make."— De Grat. et Lib. Arb. n. 31.

" Liberum arbitriura et ad malum et
ad bonum faciendum confitendum est
nos habere : sed in malo faciendo liber
est quisque justitiae servusque peccati;
in bono autem liber est nullus, nisi
fuerit liberatus ab illo." — De Corr. et
Grat. n. 2.

236 AUGUSTIXIAN DOCTRINE [CiiAr. VIII.

hand, or not able to do good on the other. It is not a
will which has yet to make its choice, but which is already
determined, and is an acting will on one side or the other.
Nor has such a freewill arisen in the first instance by a
power of choice, because such a freewill there has always
been on the evil side or the good ; " the will is always
free in us," z. e. is always in one of these states of freedom
or the other. Were the change from the bondage of evil,
of which Augustine speaks, a change from this bondage
to evil to a power of choosing evil or good (and this
is what on the common doctrine of freewill is understood
by the freedom of grace as distinguished from the bondage
of nature), a power of choice in the will would then come
in. But this change is simply an exchange of one bondage
for another, — a bondage to good for a bondage to evil ; and,
therefore, there is no room for the introduction of this power.

A state of bondage to righteousness, then, or a state
in which the will is necessarily good, is, according to this
scheme, a state of freewill; only as yet it has that name
in common with the corresponding state on the side of evil.
S. Paul uses the terms bondage and freedom, instead
of in a respectively favourable and unfavourable sense, in
a neutral one ; and S. Augustine follows him. But the
application of the term is afterwards restricted and appro-
priated to the good side ; and the good state of the will
is called the freedom, in contrast with the other, which is
called the slavery of the will.1

It appears then, upon a general examination of the language
of Augustine respecting freewill, first, that it does not come
up to that which we call the doctrine of freewill, not going
beyond that simple acknowledgment of a will in which
that doctrine and its opposite agree ; and, secondly, that
it is opposed to that doctrine, his language being that

1 " Intantum libera est (voluntas) in quantum liberata est (a dominant?
cupiditate)."— Retract. 1. 1. c. 15.

CH..P. VIII.] OF FKEEWILL. 237

the will has, notwithstanding its freedom, no self-deter-
mining power, but is determined to evil and to good
respectively by original sin and by grace.

It is true, indeed, that language of an apparently
opposite kind to this is to be found occasionally in S.
Augustine; but when such language is examined, it will
be found to be only verbally" opposite to, and really in
harmony with, the doctrine which has been exhibited.
S. Augustine uniformly indeed holds a co-operation of
the human will with Divine grace, and co-operation seems
to imply two original agencies meeting and uniting in
the same work; but on examination we find that the term,
in S. Augustine's use of it, does not imply this. The
co-operation of the human will with Divine grace only
commences, according to S. Augustine, after the human
will has undergone that whole process which has been
just described ; that is to say, after it has been moved by
the sole action of Divine grace into a state of efficiency.
u He works in us that we will, and that is the beginning,
He co-operates with us when we will, and that is the
perfecting, of the work. Being confident of this very
thing, says the Apostle, that He which hath begun a good
work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.
That we will, therefore He works in us without us; and
when we will, and so will that we do, He co-operates with
us — ut ergo velimus sine nobis operatur, cum autem volumus
et sic volumus ut faciamus, nobiscum operatur. And we
can do no good works of piety without Him first operat-
ing that we will, and then co-operating with us when we
will. Of God operating that we will it is said, ' It is God
that worketh in us to will.' Of God co-operating with
us when we will, and so will that we do, it is said, ' We
know that all things work together for good to them that love
God.'" * The condition of the human will is here divided

1 De Grat. et Lib. Arb. c. xvii.

238 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CIIAP. VIII.

into two stages, in the former of which God simply operates
upon it, in the latter co-operates with it. The former stage
lasts till the will is effective, till we will and so will that
we do : that point attained the latter stage commences, and
God co-operates with this will, and this will co-operates
with Him. It is evident from the very terms of this
division what the nature of this, co-operating human will
is ; that it is not an original agent, but a will that has
been made to be what it is by grace wholly. That such
a will co-operates with grace is no more than to say, that
grace co-operates with grace ; for that which the pure
effect does, the cause does really and properly. Grace is
the original, the will is only an instrumental co-operator.
The dictum " Gratia ipsa meretur augeri, ut aucta mereatur
perfici" expresses the same doctrine, making the simple
bestowal of grace the reason of its further bestowal, so that
grace is its own augmenter, and increases upon an internal
law of growth.

It is such a mode of co-operation as this which the follow-
ing passage describes : " It is plain that human righteousness,
although it is not done without the human will, is to be at-
tributed to the operation of the Divine, which is the reason
we cannot deny that the perfection of that righteousness is
possible even in this life ; because all things are possible to
God, both what He does when His own will solely operates,
and what He does when the wills of His creatures operate
with Him — sive quce facit sola sua voluntate, sive qua co-
operantibus creaturcB sua voluntatibus, a se fieri posse con-
stituit? l Here is a co-operation mentioned of the human will
with the Divine, but it is a co-operation subordinated to an
absolute power in the Divine will. Whatever therefore such
co-operation in the human will involves, it does not involve
any dependence of the issue upon it, inasmuch as such issue

1 De Lit. et Spirit, c. 5.

CHAP. VIII. ] OF FREEWILL. 239

is secured by the absolute power of the Divine will to pro-
duce it. The power is on one side, the co-operation on
another ; co-operation abstracted from power is instrumental
co-operation.

The same mode of co-operation is described in the follow-
ing extract : " When God wills the salvation of a man, no
will of man resists Him, For to will or not to will is in the
power of the willing or unwilling man in such sense only
that it does not impede the Divine will or frustrate the Di-
vine power — sic enim velle seu nolle in volentis aut nolentis
est potestate, ut Divinam voluntatem non impediaty nee super
et potestatem"1 Here it is said that in a particular sense
a man's will is in his own power, and were the sense in
which this were allowed a free and natural one, nothing
more would be wanted for a testimony on the side of freewill.
But we see at once that it is anything but a free and natural
sense in which this power is conceded ; for it is conceded
under the salvo, that this power does not interfere with the
natural operation of another power, which other power is
absolute. But what is power which is itself the subject of
absolute power ? Had S. Augustine wished to admit a real
power in the human will, there are many plain and simple
modes in which he might have done it, as a common language
in theology, both ancient and modern, on this subject shows.
But he only admits a power which is negatived by an entire
subordination to another power ; and a will with such a
negatived power over itself is not an original but an instru-
mental co-operator with the Divine will.

One passage, however, has attracted remarkable attention,
in consequence of one particular phrase, contained in it,
appearing at first to involve very decidedly the position
of a self-determining will : " If it be said that we must
beware of interpreting the text, ' What hast thou which

Be Corr. et Grat. c. xiv.

240

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTKINE

[CHAP. VIII.

thou Least not received ? ' of the believing will, and asserting,
because this proceeds from a freewill which was a Divine
gift at our creation, that therefore it is itself & Divine gift,
lest we attribute to God the authorship of sin as well ; — I say,
that a believing will is net to be attributed to God solely
because it proceeds from freewill, but because it depends upon
the Divine persuasion, either external or internal ; though it
belongs to the individual's will to agree with or dissent from this
persuasion. God's mercy always anticipates us, and He works
in man the will to believe; but to assent to or dissent from
the Divine will belongs to the individual will. Nor does this
at all contradict the text, ( What hast thou which thou hast
not received?' but rather confirms it. The soul cannot
receive these gifts without consenting; because, what it
has and what it receives is from God: to have and re-
ceive belongs to a possessor and receiver." He then de-
cides why this Divine persuasion, to which this assent of
the will is necessary, is effectual with some, and not with
others, and decides it by a reference to the inscrutable will
of God.1

We have, then, in this passage the expression, " assentire

1 " Si autem respondetur, cavendum
esse ne quisquam Deo tribuendum putet
peccatum, quod admittitur per liberum
arbitrium, -si in eo quod dicitur, ' Quid
habes quod non accepisti?' propterea
etiam voluntas qua credimus dono Dei
tribuitur, quia de libero existit arbitrio,
quod cum crearemur accepimus; at-
tendat et videat, non ideo, quia ex
libero arbitrio est, quod nobis naruraliter
concreatum est; verum etiam quod
visorum suasionibus agit Deus, ut
velimus et ut credamus, sive extrin-
secus, per evangelicas exhortationes . .
sive intrinsecus, ubi nemo habet in
potestate quid ei veniat in mentem,
sed consentire vel dissentire proprice
voluntatis est. His ergo modis quando
Deus agit cum anima rational!, u". ei
credat (neque enim credere potest
quodlibet libero arbitrio si nulla sit
suasio vel vocatio cui credat) profecto

et ipsum velle credere Deus operatur in
homine, et in omnibus misericordia
ejus praevemt nos : consentire autem
vocationi Dei, vel ab ea dissentire, sicut
dixi, proprice voluntatis est. Quse res
non solum non infirmat quod dictum
est, ' Quid habes quod non accepisti ? '
verum etiam confirmat. Accipcre
quidem et habere anima non potest
dona, de quibus hoc audit, nisi con-
sentiendo: ac per hoc quid habeat et
quid accipiat, Dei est ; accipere autem
et habere, accipientis et habentis est.
Jam si ad illam profunditatem scru-
tandam quisquam nos coarctet, cur illi
ita suadeatur ut persuadeatur, illi autem
non ita: duo sola occurrunt interim
quas respondere mihi placeat ' O altitude
divitiarum' et ' Numquid iniquitas apud
Deum?"' — De Spiritu et Litera, 1. 1.
n. 60.

CHAP. VIII. ] OF FREEWILL. 241

vel dissentire propricB voluntatis est ;" and this expression seems
at first sight to involve a self-determining will. But it will
be seen, that in the course of the statement it receives a
different explanation. In this passage S. Augustine is dis-
cussing the question, whether the will to believe is given by
God ; and he answers, first, that it is given *by God because
it arises out of that freewill which was given to man at
his creation. But then he remarks, that this answer is not
enough, because sin also arises out of freewill, and sin is not
the gift of God. What is the difference, then, he asks, in the
mode in which they respectively arise, which makes one the
gift of God, and the other not ? He decides that this differ-
ence lies in a certain calling or persuading on the part of God,
which is necessary in order to produce the believing will —
neque enim credere potest quodlibet libero arbitrio, si nulla sit
suasio vel vocatio cui credat. And to this calling and per-
suasion the natural will has to consent, in order for it to be
effectual; for that "assenting or dissenting belongs to the
natural will — consentire vocationi Dei vel ab ea dissentire
proprics voluntatis est" The believing will, then, is a Di-
vine gift, inasmuch as it is the result of a Divine calling
with which the human will agrees. But then the ques-
tion immediately arises, whether this is not a compromise
which really gives up the whole point, and makes the be-
lieving will not a gift which man receives simply, but
something which he acquires by an act of his own. And
to that he replies, that it is not, because consent is only the
necessary mode in which the will receives a gift: consent
being, in fact, nothing but the act itself of receiving ; so that
to say that the will must consent in order to receive, is
nothing more than to say that the will must receive when
it receives — accipere et habere utique accipientis et habentis
est. The believing will thus comes out, after due ex-
planation, a simple gift, to which the only consent is one
which is involved in the mere fact of it being given; viz.
reception and possession. And, lastly, why one man has

R

242

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE

[CHAP. VIII.

this gift, and another not, is explained by a simple appeal to
mystery.

Any one who carefully examines this passage will see that
the explanation, here given of it, is the only one by which
a consistent meaning is secured for it throughout. A phrase
apparently owning an original power in the human will to
accept or reject the Divine operation upon it, is admitted ;
but as soon as it has been admitted it is explained in a par-
ticular way, and reduced into entire harmony with a theory
of omnipotent grace, resting upon a basis of mystery.1

To sum up in one distinction the general argument of this
chapter, the Augustinian doctrine of freewill may be said in
a word to describe the nature of freewill as being a mode of
action, not a source of action — taking source in its proper
sense as an original source. The mode of human action is
free. We act willingly and without compulsion whenever
we truly act at all ; for action forced upon us is not our
own, but another's, and to act willingly is to act freely. We
act with deliberation, choice, preference, on certain principles,
and to certain ends. But it does not follow, it is argued,
that our mode of action decides anything as to the source of
action : we act as we will; but the question still remains how

1 Jansen (De Gratia Christi, pp. 220.
225. 908. 936. 955. 980. 989.) pro-
perly explains various passages of
Augustine from which the Jesuits
Bellarmine, Suarez, Molina, Lessius and
others had extracted a freewill meaning,
as applying to the will of man as
created, or simply to will as such. But
while such explanation is sometimes
required on his own side, nothing can
be more far-fetched and artificial than
the Jesuit interpretations of the great
pervading dicta" and fundamental posi-
tions of Augustine ; if interpretations
deserve that name which are obvious
and barefaced contradictions to, rather
than explanations of, S. Augustine's
meaning ; as Lessius' interpretation of
the Augustinian predestination as con-
ditional and incomplete (pp. 955. 981.)

his view of Augustinian election as
ex prcevisis operibus (p. 989.): and
his and Molina's explanation of gratia
ejficax, as efficacious si voluntas cum ea
co-operari velit (p. 936.), omitting the
whole consideration that this consent
of the will is itself, according to Au-
gustine the effect of grace. Having
excluded Augustinianism from the pale
of tolerated opinion, the Church of
Rome is obliged to prove that S. Au-
gustine was not Augustinian. But
the plain language of S. Augustine
refutes such interpreters, and forces
one of two alternatives upon them,
either that they tolerate his doctrines,
and so keep him in communion with
their Church, or anathematise his
doctrines, and confess that S. Augustine
does not belong to their communion.

CHAP, VIII.] OF FREEWILL. 243

we come to will. Underneath all our sensations of original
agency, it is maintained, a deeper cause operates, and
that which is not the will produces the movements and acts
of the will. " Men are acted upon, that they may act, not
that they may not act — aguntur ut agant non ut ipsi nihil
agant" A translation cannot give the point of the original,
which is literally that " men are acted that they may act ; "
the passive and the active of the same verb being used
to express the more pointedly the entire sequency of an
effect from a cause. Men act — agunt, that is the effect ; they
are acted upon — aguntur, that is the cause which accounts
for the whole of the effect. The whole cause, then, of human
acts is beyond the agent himself. But the agent is not
nevertheless inert, because he is not a cause ; on the contrary,
he is an agent, he acts. He is not caused to do nothing ;
caused to be idle, passive, motionless; an actor is the, very
thing he is caused to be. That is to say, his mode of acting,
which is wholly free, coexists with a source of action which
is external. — " When we will we will, but He makes us to
will — • cerium est nos velle cum volumus, sed illefacit ut velimus
bonum." An objector is supposed to say that he must be the
cause of his own acts because he wills them. But he is told
that his mode of action, which is free, decides nothing as to
its source. That a man should be " forced to will — cogatur
velle" would be a contradiction ; for, " if he is forced, he does
not will, he cannot will unwillingly — cum enim cogitur non
vult, et quid absurdim quam ut dicatur nolens velle" l But there
is no contradiction in his being made to will, because the will
cannot resist before it exists, and therefore cannot be opposed
to its own formation. It is the same distinction of mode and
source. " You do not understand," Augustine tells the Pela-
gian who brings against him the text 2 Tim. ii. 21. : "If a man,
therefore, purge himself" &c., as proving man to be the proper
source of his own acts, "you do not understand that both as-

1 Op. Imp. 1. 1. c. 134.
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244

AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE

[CHAP. VIII,

sertions are true, that the vessels of glory prepare themselves,
and that God prepares them. For God makes that man does
— utfaciat homofacit Deus." — (i What can be more absurd
than your idea that because the motives of the will are un-
forced, we are not to inquire whence they are, as if a cause
were contradictory to their freedom, as forcing them to be ?
Is a man forced to exist, because he has an origin? Before
he existed, was there anything to be forced ? The will has
an origin, and yet is not forced to be ; and if this origin is
not to be sought for, the reason is not that it should not be,
but that it need not, — that it is too manifest. The will is
from him whose the will is ; the angel's will from the angel,
the man's from the man, God's from God. God, in working
a good will in man, causes a good will to arise in him whose
the will is — agit ut oriatur ab illo bona voluntas cujus est volun-
tas ; just as He causes man to spring from man." l No lan-
guage could indicate more fully the nature of the will, as an
active, living, willing will, internal and truly our own, than this
which goes even the length of claiming an originality of the
will within, and making it arise out of ourselves. But, on the
other hand, this very originality of the will is not original ;
this very source within us is derived from a source without us.
This rise of the will out of ourselves is no more opposed to
its true causation by Divine grace, than the birth of man from
man is opposed to man's creation by Divine power. The will
is a middle cause between God and the act, as man is a middle

1 Op. Imp. 1. 1. c. 101.

Quid autem vanius definitionibus
tuis, qui propterea putas non esse quae-
rendum unde sit voluntas, quia motus
est animi cogente nullo? Si enim
dicatur, ut putas, unde sit; non erit
verum quod dictum est, cogente nullo :
quia illud unde est earn cogit esse; et
ideo non est alicunde, ne cogatur esse.
O stultitiam singularem ! Non est
ergo alicunde ipse homo, qui non est
coactus esse, quia non erat qui cogeretur
antequam esset. Prorsus et alicunde
est voluntas, et esse non cogitur ; et si

ejus origo quaerenda non est, non ideo
quaerenda non est quod voluntas ali-
cunde non sit, sed quia manifestum est
unde sit. Ab illo est enim voluntas
cujus est voluntas ; ab angelo scilicet
voluntas angeli, ab homine hominis, a
Deo Dei, et si operatur Deus in homine
voluntatem bonam, id utique agit, ut
oriatur ab illo bona voluntas, cujus est
voluntas ; sicut agit ut homo oriatur
ab homine ; non enim quia Deus creat
hominem, ideo non homo ex homine
nascitur. — Op. Imp. 1. 5. c. 42.

CHAP. VIII.] OF FREEWILL. 245

cause between God and the human birth. It is a cause, but
that very cause is caused ; i. e. the will is an absolutely free
mode of action, but not a true original source of action. Such
a doctrine is not fairly open to the charge commonly brought
against it, that it converts man into a machine, and degrades
him to the level of matter ; for it does not do so. A machine
has no will ; but this doctrine expressly admits in man a will.
But it allows a will as a mediate, and not a first cause, of
action.

The Augustinian doctrine of freewill having been thus
stated, it only remains to point out wherein lies its pecu-
liarity, in what the true difference between it and the
ordinary doctrine of freewill consists.

The first characteristic, then, that we observe in the doc-
trine which we have been considering, is, that it combines
freewill with necessity. The terms themselves necessity
and necessary are not indeed in constant use in Augustine
though he does use them; maintaining man in a state of
nature to be under " a necessity to sin — peccati necessitas V
and under grace to be recalled by necessity to a spiritual
life — necessitate revocari.2 Not selecting them for his own
use, — conveying as they do to ordinary minds the idea
of force, — when challenged by his Pelagian opponent to
admit them, he does not refuse; only securing a distinc-
tion between a co-active and a creative necessity. But
though the word itself is not in constant use, other words
which signify the same thing are; and therefore this doc-
trine may be called, in the first place, a combination of
freewill with necessity.

1 Op. Imp. 1. 5. c. 61.

2 Op. Imp. 1. 1. c, 93. " Necessitatis
inerat plenitude." — L. 5. c. 59. " At-
tende eum qui dicit, Quod nolo malum
hoc ago, et responde utrum necessitatem
non habeat." — L. 5. c. 50. " Quia
vero peccavit voluntas secuta est pec-

cantem peccatum habendi dura ne-
cessitas, donee tota sanetur infirmitas,
. . . ita ut sit etiam bene vivendi, et
nunquam peccandi voluntaria felixque
necessitas." — De Perfectione Justitiae,
c. 4.

246 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VIII.

The peculiarity, however, of the Augustinian doctrine
does not lie in this combination ; for the combination itself
is not, when we examine the matter, open to any substantial
objection. "We are apt indeed at first to think, that no will
can be in any sense free that acts necessarily ; but a little
reflection will show us that this is a first thought resulting
from not properly knowing our own admissions on this subject.
We attribute to the Supreme Being, the angels, and saints
in their state of reward, a necessity on the side of goodness ;
but we attribute to God, the angels, and the saints the oper-
ation of a genuine will. We attribute to the evil spirits and
the wicked, in their state of punishment, a necessity on the
side of evil, and together with it the same genuine will.
Necessity indeed only operates in matter in this lower
world; inevitable growth, inevitable decay, organisation,
and disorganisation, are only seen in the animal, vegetable,
and mineral bodies ; but in the eternal world, the intelli-
gent substance acts necessarily, and that which moves with
certainty in the direction of good or evil is will. The
Supreme Will being essentially good, cannot contradict itself;
the will of the wicked cannot agree with, the will of the
righteous cannot recede from, the Will Supreme. Indeed,
we are conversant with certain approaches to necessity in
human conduct in this life. It is the essential characteristic
of habit, that it makes acts to be performed by us as a
matter of course, implants a kind of law in our minds, by
which we act in this or that way ; and therefore habit is
called a second nature. But we do not consider that men
who have formed habits, virtuous or the contrary, do not act
with freewill.

Nor, again, does the peculiarity of S. Augustine's doctrine,
as it does not lie in the combination of freewill with ne-
cessity, lie either in the source which he assigns to such
necessity, which is one external to the agent. The doctrine
of an eternal state of reward and punishment, which all
Christians admit, asserts the transference of human wills

CHAP. VIII.] OF FREEWILL. 247

into a state of necessity, both for evil and good, by an act
of Almighty Power ; that the wills of wicked men are, on
their departure from this life, put by this act into a state in
which they are beyond recovery ; those of the good into a
state in which they are beyond lapse. The power of choice
being, according to the doctrine of freewill, retained by man
so long as he remains in this world ; its determination, on his
departure to another, is caused not by an act of his own,
but by a Divine act of judgment or of reward, as it may be.
Thus all God's moral creatures pass, at a particular stage
of their being, by an act of Divine Power, from a state in
which their wills are indeterminate and may choose either
good or evil, to a state in which they necessarily choose one
or the other. While there is life there is hope, and there
is fear. The most inveterate habits of vice still leave a
power of self-recovery in the man if he will but exert it ;
the most confirmed habits of virtue still leave the liability
to a fall. The resources for a struggle between good and
evil remain up to the time of departure from life, when
a change takes place which no thought can reach, and by
a Divine act the will, remaining the same in substance, is
changed fundamentally in condition, and put out of a state
of suspense and, in ordinary language, freedom, into one of
necessity.

But the combination of necessity, and that a necessity
communicated to the will from without, with freewill, being
admitted on both sides, the peculiarity of Augustine's doc-
trine lies in the application of this principle ; in the reason,
the time, and the manner he assigns to its operation. That
state of the will to which an original power of choice attaches
is upon the doctrine of freewill identical with a state of
trial ; and this consideration gives us the reason and time of
the introduction of necessity, as well as the manner of its
operation according to the doctrine of freewill. The ground
of its introduction is final reward and punishment ; the time
of its introduction is after a state of trial ; and the manner of

R 4

248 AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE [CHAP. VIII.

its operation consists in the absence of struggle, effort, or
interruption ; in the entire, continuous, and natural yielding
of the will to the impulses of good or evil. The strife is
over in the inind of man ; and the will, finally rooted, goes on
producing good or evil acts and motions with the ease and
uniformity of physical law. But in S. Augustine's applica-
tion of the principle, the reason, and time of its introduction,
and mode of operation, are all different. Necessity is not the
reward or punishment of a previous exercise of liberty of
choice, but the effect of original sin on the one hand, and an
eternal Divine decree of mercy on the other. And with the
difference of reason for, the time of its introduction is also
different. It does not succeed and come after a state of
trial, but is simultaneous with it, and is in full operation in
this life, instead of being reserved for the next. And the
manner of its operation is for the same reason different,
exhibiting the struggle, the variableness, and interruption
incident to this present state of existence. The difference
between the trial, effort, and alternation of the present, and
the peace and serenity of the future life, which is upon the
doctrine of freewill a difference between a state of liberty
and a state of necessity, is, according to the predestinarian,
only a difference between two modes of operation on the
part of the same necessity. That grace from which good
action necessarily follows is not given with uniformity in
this life, sometimes being given and sometimes not, to the
same individual ; whereas, in the eternal world it is either
given wholly or taken away wholly, always given or never ;
so that there the determination of the will is constant for
good or for evil. Its mode of operation, then, in this life is
variable, in the next uniform; here, with pain and effort to
the man, with trouble and anxiety, the feeling of uncertainty,
and other feelings exactly like what we should have, sup-
posing our wills were free and our acts contingent; there
with ease, security, and bliss; here preparatory, there final;
here after the mode of trial, there after the mode of reward.

CHAP. VIII.] OF FREEWILL. 249

Such a difference between two doctrines of necessity, it
will be seen, involves all the difference between a doctrine of
necessity and a doctrine of freewill. The former gives to
freewill that period which is the turning part of man's
existence, this life ; to necessity only that future state which
is here decided. The latter gives to necessity both the
future state itself and the decision of it.

250

CHAP. IX.

SCHOLASTIC THEORY OF NECESSITY.

THE teaching of S. Augustine had that result which
naturally follows from the keen perception and mastery of a
particular truth by a vigorous, powerful, and fertile mind ;
endowed with an inexhaustible command and perfect manage-
ment of language, which seconded and acted as the simple
instrument of the highest religious ardour and enthusiasm.
Copious and exuberant, and concise and pointed, at the
same time ; bold, ingenious, and brilliant, yet always earnest
and natural, he did not write so much in vain. As the pro-
duction of a single mind, the quantity of the writing had a
unity, force, and wholeness which told with surprising effect
upon the Church. The large aggregate of thought and state-
ment came in one effective mass and body. One such writer
is in himself a whole age, and more than an age of authorship ;
a complete school, and more than a school of divinity. He had,
moreover, the advantage of an undoubted and solid ground
of Scripture ; an advantage which his deep and full know-
ledge of the sacred text, and wonderful skill and readiness in
the application of it, enabled him to use with the greatest
effect. He erected on this ground, indeed, more than it
could legitimately bear, and was a one-sided interpreter.
Still he brought out a side of Scripture which had as yet
been much in the shade, and called attention to deep truths
which had comparatively escaped notice in the Church. He
brought to light the full meaning of S. Paul, and did that
which the true interpreter does for his teacher and master, —
fastened the great doctrine of the Apostle, in its full and
complete sense, upon the Church.

Such an exposition had as great and as permanent success

CHAP. IX.]

THEORY OF NECESSITY.

251

as could have been anticipated. The doctrine of S. Au-
gustine reigned in the mediaeval Church, and moulded its
authoritative teaching, till the Reformation produced a
reaction ; and the Roman Church, apprehensive of the
countenance which it gave to some prominent doctrines of
the Reformers, and repelled by the use — sometimes unfair
and fanatical — made of it, fell back upon a strong doctrine
of freewill. The Thomists took an important part, indeed,
in the Council of Trent, and had sufficient influence to
guard its decrees from any turn unfavourable to themselves.
But they ceased after the Reformation to be a prominent
and ruling school, and gave place to the Jesuits, who, as the
antagonists by position and calling of the Reformation,
formed their theology in express opposition to it, and
abandoned the Augustinian ground. The Jansenists at-
tempted a revival of it, to which their enthusiasm and
devotion gave a temporary success, sufficient to alarm the
dominant school : but authority finally suppressed it, and
ejected them, and practically with them the Augustinian
doctrine, from the Roman Church.

The mediaeval Augustinian school presents us with the
names of Peter Lombard, S. Bernard, S. Anselm, Thomas
Aquinas, Bradwardine 19 and others.2 Among these Lombard
and Aquinas occupy the first place as formal and systematic
theologians. The former of these, however, is more of a
compiler and collector of extracts and references, than an
exponent and a constructor. His collection of statements,
indeed, arranged on a plan, and extending over a large

1 I cannot wholly understand, except
as unfavourably characteristic of that
age, the great mediaeval reputation of
Bradwardine, called the "profound
doctor." A dull monotony character-
ises his speculations, which are all spun
out of the idea of the Divine Power, or
of God as the Universal Cause ; but spun
into airy subtleties, which want the sub-
stance of solid thought and argument,

and are more like the shadows and
ghosts of reasonings than the realities.
2 The predestinarian controversy in
the Gallican Church, which arose out
of the statements of Gotteschalcus, in
the ninth century, does not offer much
valuable material to the theological
student. I give the principal points of
it in NOTE XX.

252 SCHOLASTIC THEORY [CHAP. IX.

ground, is in itself an exposition, and an able one ; and it
formed the great text book of the Church for centuries.
But it is not an argumentative exposition : it does not
expand and develope by statement and reasoning theo-
logical ideas. Aquinas, however, supplies the deficiencies
of Lombard, and taking up the scheme and ground-plan
which the older commentator furnishes, applies the argu-
mentative and philosophical talent to it, and fills it out with
thought ; enriching it at the same time with large additions
from the stores of heathen philosophy. Aquinas is ac-
cordingly the great representative of mediaeval Augus-
tinianism — I might say, of mediaeval theology. He re-
flects the mind — he embodies the ideas and sentiments
of the mediaeval Church. In him, as in a mirror, we see
the great assumptions, the ruling arguments of the theo-
logical world ; the mode of inference which was considered
legitimate ; the way of solving difficulties which was thought
satisfactory. In his large and capacious mind we see the
collective theological thought and philosophy of the middle
ages. He fails, indeed, in a power which it was reserved
for a modern age to call forth from the human mind —
the analytical one. He does not turn his mind inward
upon itself to examine its own thoughts and ideas, and
compare received and current truths with the original type
from which they are copied. In this sense he does not
apprehend and realise truths; because he does not put
his mind into that attitude in which it has alone the power
of seeing its own processes, ideas, and modes of entertaining
truth — the attitude of reflection and turning inward of the
mind upon itself. No one can see a thing but by looking
at it ; the mediaeval mind did not look within, or examine
itself: it could not, therefore, see itself — i.e. get such
knowledge as has been since proved to be attainable of its
own operations and ideas. It was left for a later age to call
attention to this world of internal discovery, and force the
human mind back upon itself; changing that progressive

CHAP. IX.] OP NECESSITY. 253

habit, in which it had so long exclusively indulged, of
following up and arguing interminably upon truths, into
the stationary one of examining the truths themselves.
Aquinas accepts the received statements and positions, and
expands them with argumentative subtlety and power.
And the vast amount of statements and positions which
his mind includes and thus expands and treats argumen-
tatively is surprising; showing a truly enormous grasp
and capacity, somewhat analogous to that of a great
statesman, who, without penetrating far below or aiming
at a deeper understanding of the particular subjects and
questions presented to his consideration than he practically
wants, embraces an immense quantity of such particulars;
all of which he treats argumentatively and is ready to
discuss, and come to a conclusion and decision upon them.
The argumentative edifice, however, of Aquinas, for want
of this later and inward attitude of mind, shows deep
deficiencies ; and especially that great vice of the scholastic
intellect — distinguishing without a difference ; a fault
which arises from accepting the superficial meaning of
statements, or the words themselves, without going into
their real meaning, which would often show that different
words really meant the same thing.

Taking Aquinas, therefore, as the representative of
mediaeval Augustinianism, I shall endeavour in this and
the following chapter to give an account of his system so
far as it touches on the particular subject of the present
treatise. The examination will disclose some forms of
thought and modes of arguing with which a modern mind will
not sympathise, but to which it will rather appeal as showing
how differently the intellect of man reasons in different
ages, and how the received thought of one period becomes
quaint and obsolete in another. The system, however, will
be found as a whole to rest upon some broad and common
assumptions, which have always formed, and always will
form, an important portion of the basis of human opinion.

254

SCHOLASTIC THEOEY

[CHAP. IX.

The doctrine of predestination, then, in the system of
Aquinas, rests mainly on philosophy, and rises upon the
idea of the Divine Power. This fundamental position
was laid down, this religious axiom stated with jealous
exactness and the most scientific strength of language,
and the rest was deduced by way of logical consequence
from it. God was the First Great Cause: His will the
source of all things, the spring of all motions, all events :
it could not be frustrated, it must always be fulfilled :
se God hath done whatsoever He would — omnia quacun-
que voluit fecit, in ccelo et in terra" This was contained in
the very idea of Omnipotence ; for no agency can be impeded
but by stronger agency, and none can be stronger than
Omnipotence : it was contained in the very idea of the
Divine Felicity ; for no one can be perfectly happy whose
will is not fulfilled, and the Supreme Being is perfectly
happy.1 Though the Divine Will, then, acted by mediate
and secondary causes, both in the physical and moral world,
these causes were no more than mediate ones, and fell back
upon the First Great Cause, from which they derived all
their efficacy. Nor, because a secondary cause failed of its
effect, was there, therefore, any failure of the power of the
First Cause. One particular cause was impeded in its opera-
tion by another; the action of fire by that of water, the
digestive functions of the stomach by the coarseness of the
food : but the qualities of the water and the food were

1 " Voluntas Dei causa est omnium
quae naturaliter fiunt, vel facta sive
futura sunt, .... prima et summa
causa omnium specierum et motionum."
— Lombard. 1. 1. 'Distinct. 45. " Cassari
non potest, quia ilia voluntate fecit
quaecunque voluit, in ccelo et in terra,
cui, teste Apostolo, nihil resistit." —
Distinct. 46. "Nulla causa impeditur
nisi ab aliquo fortiori agente, sed nihil
est fortius Divina voluntate. . . . Prse-
terea, diminutio gaudii si voluntas non
impleatur, sed Deus felicissimus." —
Aquinas, in Lombard. Distinct. 47.

" Causalitas autem Dei qui est primum
agens, se extendit usque ad omnia entia,
non solum quantum ad principia spe-
ciei, sed etiam quantum ad individua
principia." — Summa Theologica, P. 1.
Queest. 22. Art. 2.

" In hujusmodi autem causis non
est infiriitus processus, est ergo aliqua
omnium una prima qua? est Deus." —
Bradwardine, p. 190. " Omne movens
posterius est instrumentum primi mo-
ventis, alias enim non est posterius na-
turaliter eo, sed prius vel etiam coae-
quum," — p. 173.

CHAP. IX.]

OF NECESSITY.

255

also particular causes, acting under the Universal Cause as
much as those which they impeded. Thus what seemed to
recede from the Divine Will according to one order, returned
to it under another ; and the failure of the particular cause
was the success of the universal.1

To the position that the Divine Will was the cause of
things that were, succeeded the further one, that it could
have caused every thing that was, without a contradiction
in terms, possible? And stated thus indefinitely, this posi-
tion also was only a legitimate expansion of the idea of the
Divine Power. We evidently cannot restrict the Divine
Power to the simple causation of the existing world, with-
out reducing it to a cause acting itself under a necessity, or
to a kind of fate. If we liberate the First Cause, however,
from this tie, and suppose it to act freely, causing some
effects and not others, according to its own sovereign will
and pleasure, we cannot state its Power less narrowly than
as a Power of causing anything which is, in the nature of
things, possible. But while the scholastic position was in
itself legitimate, it was carried out unsoundly and hastily.
Its maintainers advanced beyond the indefinite ground
that God could cause every thing that was possible, to
state what was possible ; and they determined that the
Supreme Being could, had it pleased Him, have made
the whole universe more perfect than it was, both by

1 " Quod si aliqua causa particularis
deficiat a suo effectu, hoc est propter
aliquam aliam causam particularem
immediantem, quse continetur sub or-
dine causse universalis. Unde effectus
ordinem causae universalis nullo modo
potest exire." — Sum. Theol. P. 1. Q.
19. Art. 6. " Sicut lignum impeditur
a combustione per actionem aquaa." —
Q, 22. Art. 2. " Sicut indigestio con-
tingit praeter ordinem virtutis nutritivae
ex aliquo impedimento, puta ex gros-
sitie cibi, quam necesse est reducere in
aliam causam, et sic usque ad causam
primam universalem. Cum igitur Deus

sit prima causa universalis non unius
generis tantum, sed universaliter totius
ends, impossibile est quod aliquid con-
tingat prapter ordinem divinse guberna-
tionis ; sed ex hoc ipso quod aliquid ex
una parte videtur exire ab ordine Di-
vinse providentiae, quo consideratur se-
cundum aliquam particularem causam,
necesse est quod in eundem ordinem
relabatur secundum aliam causam." —
Sum. Theol. P. 1. Q. 103. Art. 7.

2 Cum Deus omnia posse dicitur,
nihil rectius intelligitur quam quod
possit omnia possibilia. — Sum. Theol.
P. 1. Q. 25. Art. 3.

256

SCHOLASTIC THEORY

[CHAP. IX.

adding to its parts and species, and by making the existing
ones better, and not only better but faultless. The universe
was finite, and what was finite could be added to ; and the
scale which ascended^ from this created world to infinity
had numberless places unoccupied, which the Creator could
have filled up, and successive types of being which He
could have embodied and expressed, had He so willed,
and so increased the ranks and orders of the existing uni-
verse. The existing species, too, could have been made
better, and even without fault, for God could, had it pleased
Him, have created a universe in which there was no evil ;
and man himself could have been made so that he neither
could nor would even wish to sin.1

The fundamental idea of the Divine power thus laid down
was applied strictly to the motions of the human will, or to
human actions. God was the cause of all the motions of the
human will, but He caused them by means of the will itself,
as a mediate and secondary cause. The great scheme of
Divine Providence contained two great classes of secondary
causes 2, one necessary, the other contingent. The course of
nature was conducted by means of necessary causes, or

1 "Potest Deus meliorem rem facere,
sive etiam rerum universitatem, quam
fecit."— Lombard, L. 1. Dist. 44. " Se-
cundum philosophum albius est quod
est nigro impermistius : ergo etiam
melius est quod est impermistius malo :
sed Deus potuit facere universum in quo
nib.il mali esset. . . . Quantum ad
partes ipsas potest intelligi universum
fieri melius. Sive per additionem plu-
rium partium, ut scilicet crearentur
multse alias species, et implerentur
multi gradus bonitatis qui possunt esse,
cum etiam inter summam creaturam et
Deum infinita distantia sit ; et sic Deus
melius universum facere potuisset . .
Vel potest intelligi fieri melius quasi
intensive, quasi mutatis omnibus par-
tibus ejus in melius . . . et sic etiam
esset (melioratio) Deo possibilis." —
Aquinas, in Lomb. L. 1. Dist. 44.

" Utrum Deus potuerit facere hu-
manitatem Christi meliorem quam fit."
— " Quamvis humana natura sit Divi-
nitati unita in persona, tamen naturee
remanent distantes infinitum, et ex
hoc potest esse aliquid melius humana
natura in Christo." — Aquinas, in Lomb.
Dist. 44. Art. 3.

" Talem potuit Deus hominem fecisse
qui nee peccare posset nee vellet ; et
si talem fecisset quis dubitet eum melio-
rem fecisse." — Aug. sup. Gen. ad Lit.
xi. 7. Quoted by Lomb. 1. 1. Dist. 44.

2 Causae mediae — proximae — secun-
dae. — " Omnium qua? sunt causa est
Dei voluntas . . . mediantibus aliis
causis, ut sic etiam causandi dignitas
creaturis communicaretur." — Aquinas,
in Lomb. Dist. 45.

CHAP. IX.]

OF NECESSITY.

257

causes acting necessarily ; which class, again, had two different
operations and effects, according to the difference of the
natures to which it was applied. In fixed and permanent
natures, the operation of necessary causes was unfailing, and
they could not by possibility fall short of their effects ; such
was the operation of fixed and unalterable law in the motions
of the heavenly bodies, presenting to us an instance of a
world which was without change, and of which it was said,
that above the sphere of the moon was no evil. In generable
and corruptible natures they had a failing operation, and al-
ternately attained and fell short of their effects : the Univer-
sal Cause, however, being alike effective in either case, and
good alike the result ; for the corruption of one thing was the
generation of another.1 The second class of causes was con-
tingent or voluntary, operating in those creatures which had
in addition to nature the principle of will. The effects, then,
which took place in the world took place necessarily, or con-
tingently, according to the character of those mediate and
secondary causes which were respectively in operation ; but
in either case these causes were but mediate, and fell back
upon the First Great Cause, from which they derived all
their virtue as secondary ones. The Supreme Being fitted
like causes to like effects, necessary to necessary, contingent
to contingent 2 ; but His will it was which gave to these

1 In his autem qui consequuntur finem
per principium quod est natura in-
venitur quidam gradus, eo quod quarun-
dam rerun natura impediri non potest
a consecutione effectus sui, et iste est
gradus altior sicut est in corporibus cae-
lestibus. Unde in his nihil contingit
non intentum a Deo ex defectu ipsorum;
et propter hoc Avicenna dicit quod supra
orbem lunae non est malum. Alius
autem gradus naturae est quae impediri
potest et defi cere, sicut natura generabi-
lium et corruptibilium ; et quamvis ista
natura sit inferior in bonitate, tamen
bona est— Aquinas, in Lomb. 1. 1.
Dist. 39.

8 " Quibusdam effectibus praaparavit
causas necessarias ut necessario eveni-
rent; quibusdam vero causas contin-
gentes, ut evenirent contingenter, se-
cundum conditionem proximarum cau-
sarum." — Sum. Theol. P. 1. Q. 23.
Art. 4.

" Ita omnia movet secundum eorum
conditionem ; ita quod ex causis neces-
sariis per motionem divinam sequuntur
effectus ex necessitate ; ex causis autem
contingentibus sequuntur effectus con-
tingentes." — lma 2a»a Q. 49. Art. 4.

" Effectus consequitur conditionem
causae suae proximo." — Aquinas, in
Lomb. 1. 1. Dist. 39.

258

SCHOLASTIC THEORY

[CHAP. IX,

causes their respective natures, and made one necessary and
the other contingent.1 He moved matter, and He moved
will by causes alike of His own arbitrary and sovereign
creation. He produced the motions of the physical world
by necessary, the motions of the human will by voluntary
causes ; but these voluntary causes were set in motion by
Himself; God was the cause ojf the will.2 The aims, the
designs, the deliberations, and the acts of man were sub-
jected to the Divine Will, as being derived ultimately from
it ; and man's providence was contained under the Divine, as
the particular cause under the universal.3

Such was the logical consequence of the idea of the
Divine power, as regards the human will. Under the notion
of the will, as a mediate cause, the Augustinian schoolmen
left out no function, action, or characteristic of will of which
the human soul is conscious. They acknowledged every in-
ternal act and sensation which belongs to us as having and
exercising will ; that which every reasonable man who does
not deny the plainest facts must admit.; .-They brought all
these characteristics to a point, and expressed them in
one term — self-motion. The will moved itself, was the
cause of its own motion, the mistress of its own acts; it was
in its power to will or not to will. Man moved himself
to action by his freewill. But this self-motion was only
admitted as an internal impression, and was not allowed to
counteract or modify the dominant position of one absolute

1 Dicendum est quod hoc contingit
propter efficaciamDivinaevoluntatis. . .
Vult enim quaedam Deus necessario,
quaedam contingenter, ut sit ordo in
rebus ad complementum universi. Et
ideo quibusdam effectibus aptavit causas
necessarias, ex quibus effectus ex ne-
cessitate proveniant; quibusdam autem
causas defectibiles, ex quibus effectus
contingenter proveniant. Non igitur
propterea effectus voliti a Deo eveniunt
rontingenter, quia causa? proximas sunt
contingentes ; sed propterea quia Deus

voluit eos contingenter evenire, contin-
gentes causas ad eos praeparavit. — Sum.
Theol. lma Q. 19. Art. 8.

2 " Voluntatis causa nihil aliud esse
potest quam Deus." — Sum. Theol. lro"
2dae Q. 10. Art. 6. "Deus est causa
prima movens et naturales causas et
voluntarias." — lm» Q. 83. Art. 1.

3 « Providentia hominis continetur
sub provident ia Dei sicut particularis
causa sub causa universali." — Sum.
Theol. lm» Q. 23. Art. 2.

CHAP. IX.]

OF NECESSITY.

259

causality. The* will was a principle of motion to itself; but
it was not, therefore, ihejirst principle of such motion, — it did
not follow that this principle of motion was not itself set in
motion by something else. The will was the internal prin-
ciple of its own motion ; but this self-determining power moved
the will as causa proximo, not as causa prima ; the internal
principle was only a secondary one, succeeding to a first prin-
ciple, which was external to the will. The will, though it
moved itself, was moved ab alio to this motion. Nor was the
true and genuine voluntariness of its motions at all affected
by their source being external. For the Supreme Mover did
not, by setting natural causes in motion, hinder the acts
in which such causes issued from being natural ; no more,
when He set in motion the voluntary causes, did He hinder
the acts in which they issued from being voluntary. Rather
He Himself caused in these acts their voluntariness, and
their naturalness respectively, working in each nature accord-
ing to its peculiarity — in unoquoque operans secundum ejus
proprietatem.1

And this consideration supplied the answer to the question
how our wills could be moved from without, and yet feel
no force, no constraint, but all its motions go on exactly as
if they originated in ourselves. There were two kinds of

1 " Voluntas domina est sui actus, et
in ipsa est velle et non velle ; quod non
esset si non haberet in potestate movere
seipsam ad volendum." — lm» 2dM Q.
9. Art. 3.

"Liberum arbitrium est causa sui
motus: quia homo per liberum arbi-
trium seipsum movet ad agendum.
Non tamen hoc est necessitate libertatis
quod sit prima eausa sui id quod liberum
est ; sicut nee ad hoc quod aliquid sit
causa alterius, requiritur quod sit
prima causa ejus. Deus igitur est
prima causa movens et naturales causas
et voluntarias. Et sicut naturalibus
causis, movendo eas, non aufert quin
actus earum sint naturales, ita movendo
causas voluntarias, non aufert quin

actiones earum sint voluntarise, sed
potius hoc in eis facit ; operatur enim
in unoquoque secundum ejus proprie-
tatem."— Sum. Theol. lma Q. 83.
Art. 1.

" De ratione voluntarii est quod
principium ejus sit intra ; sed non oport-
et quod hoc principium intrinsecum
sit primum principium non motum ab
alio. Unde motus voluntarius, etsi ha-
bp.at principium proximum intrinsecum,
tamen principium primum est ab extra ;
sicut et primum principium motus na-
turalis est ab extra, quod scilicet movet
naturam." — lma 2dae Q. 9. Art. 3.

" Ipse actus liberi arbitrii reducitur
in Deum sicut in causam." — lma Q.
23. Art. 2.

s 2

260

SCHOLASTIC THEORY

[CHAP. IX.

necessity, the necessity of force, and the necessity of nature
or inclination. The necessity of force was vi termini opposed
to inclination, and if it prevailed, prevailed in spite of it,
and was attended with the sensation to the man of being
forced or obliged to do a thing. But the necessity of in-
clination, or that which made the inclination to be what it
was, could only be felt as inclination, not as force. For the
inclination itself was to begin with that which such necessity
had made it to be ; it could have felt nothing contrary to it,
nothing violating it, in that which was not its combatant, or
its coercer, but its cause.1

Now it is evident that such a scheme as this is necessi-
tarian, and is inconsistent with the ordinary doctrine of
freewill ; because freewill is here not truly self-moving, and
an original spring of action. It is not a first cause, but a
second cause, subordinated to another above it, which sets it
in motion. But the will, as a link in a chain of causes and
effects, is not freewill, in the common and true understanding
of that term, according to which it means an original source
of action. Freewill is here reconciled and made consistent
with the Divine Power ; brought into the same scheme and
theory. But it is of itself a sufficient test that a system is
necessitarian, that it maintains the Divine Power in harmony
with freewill. The will as an original spring of action is
irreconcilable with the Divine Power, a second first cause in
nature being inconsistent with there being only one First
Cause. To reconcile freewill, then, with the Divine Power
is to destroy it ; because such a reconciliation can only be
effected by subordinating one to the other, in the way just
described, as second cause to first cause, and so depriving

1 "Haec igitur coactionis necessitas
omnino repugnat voluntati. Nam hoc
dicimus esse violentum quod est contra
inclinationem rei. Ipse autem motus
voluntatis est inclinatio qusedam in
aliquid : et ideo, sicut dicitur aliquid
naturale, quia est secundum inclinatio-
nem naturae ; ita dicitur aliquid volun-

tarium, quia est secundum inclinationem
voluntatis. Sicut ergo impossibile est
quod aliquid simul sit violentum et
naturale ; ita impossibile est quod aliquid
simpliciter sit coactum, sive violentum,
et voluntarium. Necessitas autem na-
turalis non repugnat voluntati." — 1™»
Q. 82. A. 4.

CHAP. IX.] OP NECESSITY. 261

the will of that which constitutes its freedom, in the common
acceptation of the word, viz. its originality. Freewill to
be true freewill must be inconsistent with the other great
truth ; it must be held as something existing side by side with
the Divine Attribute, but never uniting to our understanding
with it. This inconsistency, this absence of relation, is the
only security for its genuineness ; the removal of which is,
therefore, fatal to it. When, in the place of philosophical
disagreement, we have philosophical unity, one consistent
scheme and theory, one connection of part with part, one
harmony of cause with cause, we have, in the place of two
truths, one truth, and the Divine Power is maintained, but
freewill is abandoned.

Such a compact and harmonious theory, however, en-
countered in limine one great difficulty. Upon the idea
of the Divine Power, thus singly and determinately carried
out, and made the exclusive rationale of all the facts in
the universe, how were we to account for the origin of
evil ? The existence of evil was a plain fact, Was God the
cause of it ? That could not be ; for God could not possibly
will evil. Did it exist in spite of Him, and against His
will ? That could not be ; for God could not possibly be
deficient in power. Then how was its existence to be ac-
counted for ?

Now, evil is sometimes understood in a negative rather
than in a positive sense, — in the sense of a defect and falling
short, of lesser as contrasted with greater good ; and in this
sense it was not difficult to account for the existence of
evil in the universe. For if we considered it inconsistent
with the justice and benevolence of God, that He should
not make everything the very best, where were we to stop
in our demand? We could not pause till we reached in
our wishes the very highest point of all, and arrived at the
Uncreated Perfection itself. Wherever we stopped below
this culminating point, the same charge could be urged as
now, that things were not made so good as they could

s s

262

SCHOLASTIC THEORY

[CHAP. IX.

be made. But a desire that tended straight to the con-
fusion of the distinction between the creature and God,
and could not be satisfied but by a contradiction, was
absurd ; and a charge which would always be made, whatever
the Creator might do, was untenable. The possibility, then,
of things being made better argued no envy in God who
made them worse, and the existence of evil, in the sense
of lesser good, was no real difficulty at all.1

But evil existed in the world, not only in the sense of
lesser good, but in that of positive evil; and this was a
more difficult fact to account for. The explanations of
this fundamental difficulty, then, by the Augustiriian school-
men may be placed under two heads: under the first
of which the explanation is almost purely verbal, and can
hardly be said to come into contact even with the real
difficulty; while under the second the difficulty is really
confronted, and an effort of a philosophical kind made to
solve it.

I. The first of these verbal explanations which I will
instance, and which is a rather extreme specimen of its
class, is an attempt to pare down by simple artifices of
language the opposition of the Divine Will to evil, till
it reaches a point at which it substantially ceases, and
becomes a manageable truth to the metaphysician. It is
evident that, so Ipng as the opposition of the Divine Will
to evil remains decided and absolute, there being this evil
as a plain fact in the world, such opposition affects the
attribute of the Divine Power; because if God does not
will evil, it would appear that evil takes place only because

1 Cuilibet finite possibilis est ad-
ditio; sed cujuslibet creaturae bonitas
finita est. Ergo potest sibi fieri additio,
sed creatura nunquam potest attingere
ad aequalitatem Dei. Nee alia mensura
divinae bonitatis sibi debetur quam se-

cundurn determinationem divinae vo-
luntatis, et ideo nulla invidia in Deo
resultat, si rem meliorem facere potuit
quam fecerit. — Aquinas, in Lomb,
Dist. 43. Q. 1. A. 1.

CHAP. IX.]

OF NECESSITY-.

263

He has not the power to prevent it. The aim, therefore,
was to reduce by niceties of expression this opposition of
the Divine Will, until that will ceased to disagree with evil,
and, as a consequence, its frustration ceased ; and with it the
danger to the attribute of Power. A distinction was accord-
ingly drawn between " God not willing evil — mala velle " and
God not willing that evil should take place — velle mala non
fieri; and, allowing that God did not will evil, it was
determined that He did will that evil should take place.
Again, those who objected to this position as being opposed
to the goodness of the Divine Will, made a distinction
between " God not willing that evil should take place " and
" God willing that evil should not take place ; " accepting the
former, but rejecting the latter formula, the difference being
in the situation of the negative adverb in the two state-
ments ; which in the one is next to " willing," in the other
to " taking place ; " and these denied accordingly - that
"God willed that evil should not take place."1 Here,
then, are two modifications of the opposition of the Divine
will to evil, one professing to be an improvement on the

1 Alii dicunt quod Dens vult mala
ease vel fieri, non tamen vult mala. Alii
vero quod nee vult mala esse nee fieri.
In hoc tamen conveniunt et hi et illi
quod utrique fatentur Deum mala non
velle. Utrique vero rationibus et auctori-
tatibus utuntur ad muniendam suam as-
sertionem. Qui enim dicunt Deum mala
velle esse vel fieri suam his modis mu-
niunt intentionem. Si enim, inquiunt,
mala non esse vel non fieri vellet, nullo
niodo essent vel fierent, quia si vult ea
non esse vel non fieri, et non potest id
efficere, scilicet ut non sint vel non
fiant, voluntati ejus et potentiae aliquid
resistit, et non est omnipotens, quia
non potest quod vult, sed impotens
est sicut et nos sumus, qui quod vo-
lumus quandoque non possumus. Sed
quia omnipotens est et in nullo im-
potens, certum est non posse fieri
mala vel esse nisi eo volente. Quo-
modo enim invito eo et nolente posset ab

aliquo malum fieri, cum scriptum est,
Rom. 9., voluntati ejus quis resistit?
Supra etiam dixit Augustinus quia ne-
cesse est fieri si voluerit. Sed vult
mala fieri aut non fieri Si vult non
fieri non fiunt ; fiunt autem, vult ergo
fieri.

Illi vero qui dicunt Dei voluntate
mala non fieri vel non esse, inductio-
nibus praemissis ita respondent, dicentes
Deum nee velle mala fieri, nee velle non
fieri, vel nolle fieri, sed tantum non velle
fieri. Si enim vellet ea fieri vel esse,
faceret utique ea fieri vel esse, et ita
esset auctor malorum. . . . Item si
nollet mala fieri, vel vellet non fieri,
et tamen fierent, omnipotens non esset.
.... Ideoque non concedunt Deum
velle mala fieri ne malorum auctor in-
telligatur, nee concedunt eum velle mala
non fieri, ne impotens esse videatur, sed
tantum dicunt eum non velle mala fieri.
—Lombard, 1. 1 . Dist. 46.

8 4

264

SCHOLASTIC THEORY

[CHAP. IX.

other. But it is obvious that such modifications are no
more than plays of words, and can lead to no result ; because
in proportion as these statements reduce the opposition of
the Divine Will to evil, they cease to be, in their natural
meaning, true ; while in proportion as an artificial inter-
pretation relieves them of falsehood, it divests them also
of use for the purpose for which they are wanted. They
either deny a characteristic of the Divine Will, and in
that case they are false ; or they admit it, and in that case
they fail of their object of relieving the attribute of the
Divine Power.

Again, a distinction was made between the Divine Will
and the signs of it, — voluntas and signa voluntatis ; between
the will itself of God, and those outward expressions of it
which were given in accommodation to our understandings
and for the practical purposes of life and conduct, — precept,
prohibition, permission, and the like — pr&ceptio, prohibit™,
permissio ; between a real and a metaphorical will of God, —
the one being called voluntas beneplaciti, the other voluntas
signi.1 And the object of this distinction is the same with

1 " Aliquando vero secundum quandam
figuram dicendi voluntas Dei vocatur,
quod secundum proprietatem non est
voluntas ejus: ut praeceptio, prohibitio,
consilium, ideoque pluraliter aliquando
Scriptura voluntates Dei pronuntiat.
Unde Propheta psalm 1 1 0. Magna opera
Domini, exqnisita in omnes voluntates
ejus, cum ron s;t nisi una voluntas Dei
quae ipse est. . . . Ideo autem praeceptio
et prohibitio atque consilium, cum sint
tria, dicitur tamen unumquodque eo-
rum Dei voluntas, quia ista sunt signa
divinae voluntatis: quemadmodum et
signa irse dicuntur ira, et dilectionis
signa dllectio appellantur ; et dicitur
iratus Deus, et tamen non est ira in eo
aliqua, sed signa tantum quae foris fiunt,
quibus iratus ostenditur, ira ipsius no-
minantur. Et est figura dicendi, se-
cundum quam non est falsum qucd
dicitur, sed verum quod dicitur sub
tropi nubilo obumbratur. Et secundum

hos tropos diverse voluntates Dei di-
cuntur, quia diversa sunt ilia quae per
tropum voluntas Dei dicuntur."

" Magna est adhibenda discretio in
cognitione Divinse voluntatis, quia et
beneplacitum Dei est voluntas ejus, et
signum beneplaciti ejus dicitur voluntas
ejus. Sed beneplacitum ejus aeternum
est, signum vero beneplaciti ejus non."
— Lombard, 1. 1. Dist. 45.

" Voluntas Dei distinguitur in volun-
tatem beneplaciti et voluntatem signi.
. . De Deo quaedam dicuntur proprie,
quaedam metaphorice. Ea quae proprie
de ipso dicuntur, vere in eo sunt ; sed
ea, quae metaphorice dicuntur de eo, per
similitudinem proportionabilitatis ad
effectum aliquem, sicut dicitur ignis
Deutero. 4., eo quod sicut ignis se habet
ad consumptionem contrarii, ita Deus
ad consumendam nequitiam. . . Deus
potest did aliquid velle dupliciter ; vel
proprie, et sic dicitur velle Ulud, cujus

CHAP. IX.]

OP NECESSITY.

265

that of the preceding ones ; viz. to enable the theologian
to refer to a Divine Will, which was in some way not
opposed to evil, and with which, therefore, evil could co-
exist without risk to the attribute of the Divine Power.
That will of God which came into contact with our under-
standings, which commanded and which prohibited, was
opposed to evil ; and this will could be violated, neglected,
and trodden under foot by the passion and the pride of man.
But that secret and ulterior will which lay behind this
external and expressed one, was not opposed to any, but
harmonised with all facts ; and evil was no rebel against it,
but its subject ; nothing impeded, then, but everything in
heaven and earth fulfilled this eternal, incomprehensible Will,
which was of the essence of God, and which was God.

Now, this distinction is drawn with greater breadth, bold-
ness, and strength than the preceding ones ; but it is open
to the same answer, viz. that so far as it denies the disagree-
ment of the Divine Will with evil it is false, so far as it
admits it it is useless for its purpose. This position of a real
will of God which is different from His expressed will may be
interpreted in two ways. It may be understood as meaning
that the real will of God is in true and actual harmony with
evil, the expressed being only an outside show, which is
useful in some way for the Divine government of mankind
in this present state, and the maintenance of this existing
system. And a theory like this has been put forward in
modern times, representing the Divine Will, as expressed in
the distinction of good and evil, as a mere mask, concealing
a deeper truth behind it ; a truth of pure fact, in which good
and evil meet and are united, and each is good. The com-
mands and prohibitions, the promises and the terrors of
the moral law, are according to such a theory but a dis-

voluntas vere in eo est, et h<ec est volun-
tas be.neplaciti. Dicitur etiam aliquid
velle metaphorice, eo quod ad modum
volentis se habet, in quantum prcecipit,
vel consulit, vel aliquid hujusmodi facit.

Unde ea, in quibus attenditur similitudo
istius rei ad voluntatem Dei, voluntates
ejus metaphorice dicuntur, et quia talia
sunt effectus, dicuntur signa. " — Aquinas,
in Lomb. 1. 1. Dist. 45. A. 4.

266

SCHOLASTIC THEORY

[CHAP. IX.

play, which deludes the mass, but is penetrated by the
philosopher. And understood in such a way this position
does indeed get rid most effectually of the difficulty of
the existence of evil as being against the will of God,
and so a sign against His Power, But then, understood
in such a way, this position is false and impious. We
cannot suppose any difference between the real and the
expressed will of God1, without destroying the basis of
all morals and religion. But if this position does not mean
this, as in the minds of those who maintained it it did not,
it is not available for the object for which it is designed.
For all it means to assert in that case is the incompre-
hensibility of the Divine Will, and that there is some
mysterious sense in which everything which takes place
agrees with this will ; but this is not to explain the difficulty
of the co-existence of evil with that will, but only to state it,
A distinction, again, was drawn between an antecedent
will of God — voluntas antecedens, and a posterior will —
voluntas consequens ; the former of which willed a thing
absolutely — simpliciter, the latter conditionally — secundum
quid2 ; and the former of which was opposed to evil, the
latter not. Thus God willed the salvation of all men on
the one hand absolutely ; and that will, which was opposed
to all evil, to sin and punishment alike, could be frustrated

1 " Et si ilia dicantur Dei voluntas,
ideo quia signa sunt Divinae voluntatis,
non est tamen iutelligendum Deum
omne illud fieri velle quod cuicunque
praecipit, vel non fieri quod prohibuit.
Praecepit enim Abrahae immolare filium,
nee tamen voluit ; nee ideo prascepit ut
id fieret, sed ut Abrahae probaretur
fides ; et in evangelic praecepit sanato
lie cui diceret ; ille autem praedicavit
ubique, intelligens Deum non ideo
prohibuisse, quin vellet opus suum
praedicari, sed ut daret formarn homini,
laudem humanam declinandi." — Lomb.
1. 1. Dist. 45.

2 « Voluntas Dei duplex, antecedens
et consequens . . . propter diversas

conditiones ipsius voliti. Si in homine
tantum natura ipsius consideretur,
sequaliter bonum est omnem hominem
salvari, et hoc Deus vult, et heec est
voluntas antecedent. . . . Consideratis
autem circumstantii?, non vult omnem
. . . non volentem et resistentem." —
Aquinas, in Lomb. 1. 1. Dist. 46. Q. 1.
A. 1.

«' Quicquid vult Deus voluntate con-
sequent! totum fit, non autem quicquid
vult voluntate antecedent! ; quia hoc
non simpliciter vult, sed secundum quid
tantum ; nee ista imperfectio est ex
parte voluntatis, sed ex conditione
voliti."— In Lomb. Dist. 47. Q. 1.
A. 1.

CHAP. IX.] OF NECESSITY. 267

— imperfectio antecedentis voluntatis. But, on the other
hand, He willed this salvation conditionally — i.e. on the
supposition that men were good; and this will, which was
not opposed to the evil of punishment if men were bad, could
not be frustrated, being as much fulfilled in the damnation
of men as in their salvation. This distinction, then, had the
same aim as the former; viz. to establish a Divine Will which
was not opposed to evil, and which therefore the existence
of evil did not frustrate, and so interfere with the Divine
Power. But while the difficulty which this distinction
professes to meet is in the case of the will antecedent simply
confessed instead of solved, it is only evaded instead of solved
in the case of the will consequent. God wills the salvation
of men on the condition that they are good; which will, if
they are bad, is not opposed to the evil of their punishment.
The evil of punishment, then, is here accounted for and made
to agree with the Divine Power, because made to agree with
the Divine Will : but what account is given of the evil of that
sin which is the reason of punishment ? This evil is passed
over altogether. Yet it is a plain evil which takes place
in the universe, and we must either say that the will of
God is opposed to it or not ; the former alternative being appa-
rently inconsistent with the Divine Power, the latter with
the Divine Goodness. The difficulty put off at one stage thus
meets us at another ; and an evil remains which we cannot
without impiety assert not to be opposed to the Divine
Will, and the existence of which therefore is inconsistent
apparently with the Divine Power.

II. To these verbal explanations, however, there succeeded
two which were attempts at real explanation. One of these
was the argument of variety, which was put in two forms ;
under the first of which, however, it did not satisfy its own
employers, who used it with evident misgivings, though they
would not deprive themselves of its aid altogether. Should
there not be evil in the world, that the contrast may heighten

268

SCHOLASTIC THEORY

[CHAP. IX.

the good and set it off to better advantage ? Would the good
be appreciated as it should be, and its real nature come to
light , but for this evil ? And in this way is not evil of the
perfection of the universe — de perfections universi ? The solu-
tion was a tempting one ; but it was resisted, on the ground
that the loss which evil caused was greater than the com-
pensation it gave for it ; inasmuch as it took away absolute
good, and only gave comparative.1 The solid justice of
this reply embraces within a short compass all the points of
the case. Variety is a sound explanation indeed of a certain
class of evils. The decay and corruption of the vegetable
world set off by contrast the birth and growth ; summer
is all the more agreeable for winter ; the decay of autumn
heightens the freshness of the spring. And on the same
law rest is all the more pleasant after fatigue, food after
hunger ; and much even of the higher and more intellectual
kind of pleasure is relished the more for the void and dul-
ness alternating with it. But this is only by a law of our
nature in present operation, in consequence of which change
is necessary for us, though at the cost of pain. Such a
law is acknowledged to be a sign of great imperfection.
And, what is more to the purpose, all these are cases in
which ourselves alone and our own enjoyment are concerned.
To inanimate nature it is all the same whether it decays
or endures, lives or dies ; and therefore we need not take
its part in the matter into account. But when we come
to moral evil the case is very different. It is true the
law of comparison or contrast operates even here, and
we are pleased with the virtue which meets us in the

1 " Illud sine quo universum raelius
esset non confert ad perfectionem uni-
versi : sed si malura non esset universum
melius esset, quia malum plus tollit uni
quam addit alteri, quia eicujusest tollit
bonitatem absolutam, alteri autera addit
bonitatera comparationis." — In Lomb.
1. 1. Dist. 46. Q. 1. A. 3.

Yet Aquinas reverts to this rationale

of the existence of evil with approval :
" Dicendum quod ex ipsa bonitate Di-
vina ratio sumi potest prsedestinationis
aliquorum et reprobationis aliquorum.
... Ad completionem enim universi
requiruntur diversi gradus rerum, qua-
rum quaedam altum et quaedam in-
nmum locum teneant in universe." —
Sum. Theol. lm* Q. 23. A. 5.

CHAP. IX.]

OF NECESSITY.

269

world, all the more for the evil which we see in it.
Indeed, the nature or quality of goodness — the light that
issues from a good character, is so completely seen in the
sense and degree in which we do see it, by means of this
assistance — i. e. by the contrast between this goodness and a
background of average and indifferent character, formed as
an image in our mind from the experience of human life, —
that it is difficult to contemplate without some surprise
and awe the signal and noble use which the wickedness of
the world answers ; inasmuch as for anything we see to the
contrary, in the present state of our capacities, in which
contrast seems to be so essential to true perception, virtue
could not be appreciated as it is without this contrast, or be
the bright light which it is without this dark background.
The light shineth in darkness. But though moral evil answers
this high purpose in the world, is it a sufficient account
of its existence that it does so ? Is it just that one man
should be wicked in order that the virtue of another may
be set off? The spectator may derive benefit from the
contrast, but there is another whose interests are quite as
important as his.

And the same may be said of the use of which the moral
evil in the world is, for the trial, purification, and confirm-
ation of the good. The wickedness of the bad portion of
mankind is indeed one of the principal means by which the
good portion is educated and disciplined; the pride and
tyranny of one man serve to produce the virtue of patience in
another ; the wrongs of the world subdue and temper, its cor-
ruptions and temptations fortify, those minds that are disposed
to make this use of them. But though the schoolman appeals
to this effect of moral evil as a justification of its existence,1

1 " Si enim omnia mala impediren-
tur, multa bona deessent universe ; non
enim esset vita leonis, si non esset
occisio animalium ; nee esset patientia
martyrum si non esset persecutio tyran-
norum." — Sum.Theol. lm« Q. 22. A. 2.

" Multa bona tollerentur, si Deus
nullum malum permitteret esse; non
enim generaretur ignis nisi corrumpe-
retur aer ; neque conservaretur vita
leonis, nisi occideretur asinus."— Q. 48.
A. 2.

270 SCHOLASTIC THEORY [CHAP. IX.

such an argument admits of the obvious answer, that it is not
just that one man should be wicked in order that another
should be good.

The argument of variety, however, was put in another form,
and another explanation extracted from it. The principle
of variety demanded that there should be different natures in
the universe ; and that, besides such natures as were subject
to necessary laws, there should be other nobler ones possess-
ing will. But this conceded, moral evil, it was said, followed.
For such natures as the latter must, as the very condition of
this higher good, have the power of going wrong and reced-
ing from the end designed for them ; and, with the power to
do so, the fact would in some instances take place.1 Now, this
is a substantially different argument from the former, and is
perhaps the nearest approach we can make to an account of
the existence of moral evil in the world. But it is in truth
no explanation ; for is this will of the creature to which
evil is referred an original cause or only a secondary one ?
If the former, this argument only explains one difficulty by
another as great, the existence of evil by the existence of
an original cause in nature besides God. If the latter,
the existence of moral evil falls back, as before, upon the
First Cause ; the human will in that case being no such bar-
rier intervening between moral evil and God, as is wanted
for the present purpose.

But the principal explanation which was given of this
difficulty, and that in which Aquinas appears finally to
repose, was borrowed from his master. Every reader of S.
Augustine is familiar with a certain view of the nature of

" Sed in nobilioribus creaturis in- I providentiam tolleretur sibi conditio

venitur aliud principium prater natu-
ram, quod est voluntas, quod quanto
"vicinius est Deo, tanto a necessitate na-
turalium causarura magis est Hberum.
. . . Et ideo taliter a Deo instituta est ut
deficere posset. ... Si autem inevita-
biliter in finem tenderet per divinam

suae naturae." — In Lomb. 1. 1. Dist.
39. Q. 2. A. 2.

" Perfectio Universi requirit ut sint
quaedam quac a bonitate deficere possint:
ad quod sequitur ea interdiim deficere"
— Sum. Theol. lma Q. 48. A. 2.

CHAP. IX.]

OP NECESSITY.

271

evil, to which he constantly recurs, and which he seems to
cherish in his mind as a great moral discovery, a fundamental
set-off and answer to the great difficulty of the existence of
evil, and the true and perfect mode of extricating the Divine
attribute of Power from the responsibility of permitting it,
— the position, viz. that evil is nothing — nihiL God was
the source; and as being the source of, included and com-
prised, all existence. Evil was a departure from God.
Evil, therefore, was a departure from existence. External
to God, it was outside of all being and substance ; L e.
was no-being or nothing.

Aquinas adopts this position, and improves upon it in
his usual way. Evil was nothing in another sense besides
that of. pure negation, which is the common meaning of
nothing, viz. that of privation. Every nature aimed at
good as its perfection or true existence ; evil was a depriva-
tion of this good or true existence. In the case of evil, then,
there was something in our idea antecedent to it, of which
it was a loss or absence. That which every nature truly and
properly was, was in scholastic language its form; whence
the formal cause of a thing is that which makes a thing
to be what it is. Evil was a privation of form. There was
an end, and there was an action proper to every thing in the
universe ; evil was inordination to the end, a defect of action.1
The evil proper to the nature of fire was cold; the evil proper
to the nature of water was drought. Thus while, in the col-
lision of different natures in the universe, the defect of one
was the growth of another, the evil to each nature was the

1 " Causam formalem nullam habet,
sed est magis privatio forma : et simi-
liter nee causam finalem, sed magis est
privatio ordinis ad jinem." — Sum.
Theol. lm» Q. 49. A. 1.

" Malum quod in defectu actionis
consistit, semper causatur ex defectu
agentis." — A. 2.

Cum omnis natura appetat suum esse

et suam profectionem, necesse est dicere
quod et perfectio cujuscunque naturae
rationem habeat bonitatis. Unde non
potest esse quod malum signiflcet quod-
dam esse, aut quandam formam, seu
naturam. Relinquitur ergo quod no-
mine mali significetur quaedam absentia
boni.— lm»Q.48. A. 1.

272

SCHOLASTIC THEORY

[CHAP. IX.

defect of that nature.1 Everything, so far as it ivas, was
good — omne ens in quantum hujusmodi bonum ; and evil
was no-thing — non-ens, and no part of the universe.2

And that which was true of evil in general, was true
in particular of moral evil. The act of sin was defined
as an act contrary to the end for which the moral creature
is designed, or, as is expressed in- modern language, to the
constitution of man — actus inordinatus ; which consisted,
however, of two separate and distinct parts. The act —
actus peccati, was simply the material, bodily or mental,
employed in the sin, whether outward motion, or inward
passion, fueling, desire; and this was real substance and
part of the universe of God. A man who committed, for
example, an act of intemperance or anger, sinned with and
by the natural sensation of hunger or thirst, or the natural
passion of resentment, as the internal material of his sin ;
he sinned with the motion of his mouth by which he eat
or drank, or with a motion of his arm by which he struck
a blow, as its external material. All these motions, then,
considered simply as such, whether within or without, were
substantial ; and the act of sin, as such, existed. But the
inordinateness of the act, or the sin of it — the error in
the use and application of these natural passions, these
bodily organs, was no thing? As evil in the case of fire
was a defect of the natural action of fire, so evil in the
case of the will was a defect of the natural action of the
will.

This position, then, was applied as the key to the

1 " Corruptio aeris et aquae est ex
perfectione ignis. ... Si sit de-
fectus in effectu proprio ignis, puta
quod deficiat a calefaciendo, hoc est
propter defectum actionis, sed hoc ipsum
quod est esse deficiens, accidit bono cui
per se competit agere." — lma Q. 49.
A. 1.

2 Nihil potest esse per suam essentiam
malurn. — lma Q. 49. A, 3. Malum non

est pars universi quia neque habet na-
turam substantial neque accidentis, sed
privationis tantuin. — In Lorn. 1. 1.
Dist. 46. Q. 1. A. 3.

8 " Peccatum est actus inordinatus.
Ex parte igitur actus potest habere cau-
sam, ex parte autem inordinationis ha-
bet causam eo modo quo negatio vel
privatio potest habere causam." — lma
2dac Q. 75. A. 1.

CHAP. IX.] OF NECESSITY. 273

solution of the great difficulty of the existence of evil. The
difficulty of the existence of evil respected its cause, how
evil had an existence at all, when the Universal Cause or
cause of everything, could not have given it. It was a
direct answer, then, to this difficulty, to say that it was
a mistake to begin with, to suppose that evil had existence.
This original mistake removed, all was clear ; for that
which had no existence needed no cause1, and that which
needed no cause could dispense with the Universal Cause.
A universal cause was necessary ; but this inconvenience
attended it, viz. that it was universal, and thus contracted
responsibilities from which it had rather be relieved. This
rationale exactly relieved it of its inconvenient charge.
Evil was regarded in an aspect in which it ceased to belong
to the domain even of a universal cause. The fact or
phenomenon of evil, emptied of true or logical essence, had
no place in the nature of things ; seen everywhere, it ex-
isted nowhere, a universal nothing attending on substance
as a shadow, but no occupant of room, and without insertion
in the system. This unsubstantial presence, this inane in
the midst of things, escaped as such the action of the First
Cause ; unsusceptible, as a pure negative, of connection
or relation, it was in its very nature a breaking of from
the chain of causes and effects in nature, and not a link
of it.2 Had evil a cause, indeed, it could have but one,
viz. God ; but nothing had no cause, and was, therefore,
wholly independent of the Universal Cause.

Such an explanation as this, however, it is hardly
necessary to say, is no real explanation of the difficulty.
It is undoubtedly the first truth of religion that true being
and good are identical. The same argument, which proves

1 Malum causam formalem nullam
habet.— lm» Q. 49. A. 1.

2 " Effectus causa? mediae secundum
quod exit ordinem causa primze non

reducitur in causam primam

Defectus a libero arbitrio non reducitur
in Deum sicut in causam. ' — lm'
2dac Q. 79. A 1.

274 SCHOLASTIC THEOKY [CHAP. IX.

a First Cause at all, proves His goodness ; and if Being in
the Cause must be good, being in the effect must be good
too; for the effect must follow the nature of the cause.
Nor can we avoid this conclusion but by a scheme of
dualism, which allows an evil first cause of being ; and,
therefore, evil being as its effect. So far the above rationale
is true, and is the proper contrary to dualism. But this
first truth of sound religion is, when examined, no explana-
tion of the mystery of the existence of evil, but only
another mode of stating it. We rightly say that true being
is identical with good ; but how comes there to be being
which is not true being ? On the religious ground, and as
believers in a God, we say, that evil cannot be an existing
thing ; because God is the Author of every thing, and yet not
the author of evil. But plain common sense tells us clearly
enough that evil exists, and exists just as really as good.
A man commits some act of violence under the influence
of strong passion, malignant hatred, revenge, cupidity ; his
state of mind is as intense as possible ; there is the fullest
determination and absorption in the act. Is not this
something — something going on and taking place in his
mind? We may distinguish, indeed, between the animus
and the material of the act, or, in the scholastic language,
between the act and the sin; but this distinction applies
as much to good acts as to bad. The virtue of a good act
is something quite distinct from the feelings and faculties
of mind and body employed in it, of which it is the direction.
If virtue, then, is something, is not vice something too ?

The real source of these argumentative struggles and vain
solutions was the original position respecting the Divine
Power, which, however true, was laid down without that
reserve which is necessary for this kind of truth. It is
evident that the Divine Power is incomprehensible to us, and
that therefore we cannot proceed upon it, as if it were a
known premiss, and argue upon the vague abstract idea of
omnipotence in our minds as if it were the real truth on this

CHAP. IX.]

OF NECESSITY.

275

subject. Aquinas himself defines the Divine Power at the
outset with a reserve : it was the power of doing any thing
which was possible — omnia possibilia ; and the principle he
lays down with respect to the sense in which the Divine
attributes are to be understood is philosophical ; viz. that
they are to be understood neither -as wholly the same with
(univoce), or wholly different from, the corresponding attri-
butes in man (cequivoce), but as analogous to them — analogice.1
The univocal sense confounded God with the creature ; the
equivocal hid God from the creature, removing and alien-
ating Him altogether as an object of human thought ; the
analogical allowed an idea of God, which was true as far as
it went, but imperfect. But though the human mind, under
scholasticism, saw, as it always must do whenever sane, its
own ignorance, it did not see it so clearly or scientifically as
it has done subsequently, when a later philosophy has thrown
it back upon itself, and forced it to examine its own ideas, how
far they go, and where they stop short. The mediaeval mind
forgot, then, in the conduct of the argument, the principle it
had laid down at its commencement ; and, just as a boy in
learning a problem of Euclid sees some critical point of the
demonstration, but does not see it sufficiently clearly, or master
it enough to carry it with him throughout the proof, the
schoolman first saw that he was ignorant, and then argued as
if he knew. Thus, notwithstanding the preliminary reserve
in the definition of the Divine Power, the vague abstract idea
of omnipotence prevailed as if it were a known premiss in the

1 " Tribus modis contingit aliquid
aliquibus commune esse, vel univoce,
vel aequivoce, vel analogice. Univoce
non potest aliquid de Deo et de creatura
dici . . . et ideo quidam dicunt quod
quicquid de Deo et creatura dicitur, per
puram aequivocationem dicitur. Sed
hoc etiam non potest esse quia in his
quae sunt pure aequivoca ex uno non
agnoscitur alterum, ut quando idem

nomen duobus hominibus conveuit.
Cum igitur per scientiam nostram
deveniatur in cognitionem Divinse sci-
entiae, non potest esse quod sit omnino
aequivocum. Et ideo dicendum quod
scientia analogice dicitur de Deo et
creatura : et similiter omnia hujus-
modi." — Aquinas, in Lomb. 1. 1. Dist.
35. Q. 1. A. 4.

T 2

276 SCHOLASTIC THEORY [CHAP. IX.

argument, entailing these struggles with the fact of evil as
the consequences of it ; for with absolute power in God to
prevent it, how could evil exist ? Hence these vain efforts of
reason, these blind explanations ; for it was necessary to recon-
cile a known premiss with facts. As an unknown premiss,
the Divine Power is in no contradiction to the fact of evil, for
we must know what a truth is before we see a contradiction
in it to another truth ; and with no contradiction, no solution
would have been wanted. But the schoolman vaguely
fancied that he knew his premiss, and therefore involved
himself in these elaborate and futile explanations. We may
admire indeed an obstinate intellectual energy, which strug-
gles against insuperable difficulties, and tries to beat down
by force what it cannot disentangle, and lay down a path
which must be stopped at last. We admire his resolution,
as we would that of some strong animal caught in a net, the
thin meshes of which it would burst any moment with the
least part of that blind force which it exerts, were it not
that their multiplicity and intricacy baffle it. But the resig-
nation of the philosopher is to be admired more, who has one
great difficulty at starting, and a tranquil path after it, who
sees to begin with the inexplicableness of things, and is
saved by the admission from the trouble of subsequent solu-
tion. The clear perception by the mind of its own ignor-
ance is the secret of all true success in philosophy ; while
explanations which assume that the constitution of things
can really be explained, can only be a fruitless waste of
strength. The fault of the schoolman throughout this whole
argument is, that he vaguely imagines, that he really can
explain the origin of evil ; that he sets out with that aim ;
that he really fancies himself in a line of discovery while
he argues, and thinks that he has in his conclusion some-
thing of the nature of a true solution. He does not actually
profess so much, but his general argument betrays the latent
assumption in his mind. His fault then was a want of a
clear and acute perception of his own ignorance; such a per-

CHAP. IX.] OF NECESSITY. 277

ception as the mind acquires by the long-sustained stationary
attitude of reflexion upon itself. There must be a pause, a
cessation from active speculation and inference, from argu-
ment, from words, while the reason looks within, and observes
itself. The passive attitude required for this simple act of
sight, more difficult really than all active arguing, requires
a lull and a calm, an interruption of the busy operations of
the mind, a voluntary suspension of the motion of that whole
machinery of active thought, which is generally going on in
intellectual minds, and constitutes their normal state. But
the schoolman was always busy, always arguing, always in
the thick of words, always constructing upon assumption, and
pushing on to conclusion after conclusion. He could not afford
the time to stop to examine fairly a single assumption on
which he went. He had not the patience to pause, and look
within. He had other work always to do, as he thought more
important. A passive attitude was intolerable to a mind
accustomed exclusively to busy construction; and thought
internal and without words to one, to whom words were the
great machinery by which he thought. Put him to such a
task, and he would feel like a workman without his accus-
tomed tools, or like a man of practical talent and energy
shut up in a dark room and told to think. The consequence
was, that it was a chance whether his assumptions were true
or false. When he thought as a man and with mankind at
large, they were right ; when he thought as a philosopher
they were too often mistaken, extreme and unqualified when
they should have been limited, and absolute when they
should have been with a condition and reserve.

T 3

278

CHAP. X,

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE OP PREDESTINATION.

THE last chapter explained the scholastic theory of the
physical predetermination of the will, or the subordination of
the will to the universal cause — a philosophical doctrine of
necessity. To this theory succeeded the proper or Augus-
tiiiian doctrine of predestination, which went upon the basis
of original sin. All mankind being previously in a state of
ruin owing to original sin, God chose to exercise His mercy
upon some of this whole mass, His judgment upon others ;
to bring some to glory, and others to punishment. Nor was
this Divine determination in favour of one, and against the
other portion of the human race to be attributed to any
foreseen difference of character between the two : this dif-
ference of character being the effect of that determination,
instead of the determination the effect of that difference.
On the principle that the end includes the means, the predes-
tination of the individual to eternal life included in it the
bestowal of all those qualifications of virtue and piety which
were necessary for his admission to that final state. These
qualifications were therefore the effect, and not the cause of
predestination, for which no cause was to be assigned but
God's sovereign will and pleasure.1 Nor had the creature

1 Praescientia meritor um non est causa
vel ratio praedestinationis. . . . Mani-
festum est quod id quod est gratise est
praedestinationis eflfectus ; et hoc non
potest poni ut ratio praedestinationis,
cum hoc sub predestination e conclu-
datur. Si igitur aliquid aliud ex parte

est autem distinctum quod est ex libero
arbitrio et ex praedestinatione, sicut
nee est distinctum quod est ex causa
secunda et causa prima. — lma Q. 23.
A. 5.

Electio Dei qua unum eligit et alium
reprobat rationabilis est, nee tamen

nostra sit ratio prsedestinationis, hoc est j oportet quod ratio electionis sit meri-
prseter effectum praedestinationis, Non | turn ; sed in ipsa electione ratio est

CHAP. X.} DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION.

279

any ground of complaint against this Divine arrangement.
For all deserved eternal punishment; and therefore those upon
whom the punishment was inflicted only got their deserts,
while those who were spared received a favour to which they
had in justice no right, and were indebted to a gratuitous
act of mercy, and an excess of the Divine goodness.1

The doctrine of necessity, however, explained in the last
chapter, and the doctrine of predestination, are in sub-
stance the same doctrine, and only differ in their ground,
which is in one a ground of philosophy, in the other
one of Scripture. The schoolmen attached indeed to these
two doctrines different functions and operations of the
Divine Power. Under the one, God acted as universal
mover ; under the other as special mover ; under the one He
exerted a natural power, under the other a spiritual or
grace ; under the one He moved men to a good proportionate
to their nature, under the other to a good exceeding the
proportions of nature 2 ; under the one He supported the
natural goodness of man unfallen, under the other He healed
man fallen. And in all acts in which the special power
operated, the general power operated too : so that God acted

divina bonitas: ratio autem reproba-
tionis est originate peccatum. — Aquinas,
rol. 8. p. 330.

1 Voluit Deus in hominibus, quantum
ad aliquos quos prsedcstinat, suam re-
praesentare bonitatem per modum mi-
sericordiae parcendo, et quantum ad
aliquos quos reprobat, per modum jus-
titisepuriiendo. . . Neque tamen propter
hoc est iniquitas apud Deum, si in-
icqualia non inaequalibus prrcparat. Hoc
enim esset contra justitiae rationem, si
praedestinationis effectus ex debito red-
deretur, et non daretur ex gratia.
In his enim quae ex gratia dantur,
potest aliquis pro libitu suo dare cui
vult plus vel minus, dummodo nulli
subtrahat debitum, absque praejudicio
justitisc. Et hoc est quod dicit pater-
familias. Matt 20. 1 5. " Tolle quod

tuum est et vade ; an non licet mini
quod volo facere?" — lm» Q. 23. A. 5.

2 Deus movet voluntatem hominis si-
cut TJniversalis motor ad universale ob-
jectum voluntatis, quod est bonum ; et
sine hac universal! motione homo non
potest aliquid velle. . . . Sed tamen
interdumspecialiterDeus movet aliquos
ad aliquid determinate volendum, quod
est bonum, sicut in his quos movet per
gratiam."— S, T. lm» 2d»e Q. 10. A. 6.

Est duplex hominis beatitude ; una
quidem proportionata humanee naturae,
ad quam scilicet homo pervenire potest
per principia suae naturae : alia autem
est beatitudo naturam hominis exce-
dens, ad quam homo sola divina virtute
pervenire potest secundum quandam
Divinitatis participationem." — lma 2d"e
Q. 62. A. 1 .

T 4

280

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE

[CHAP. X.

in both capacities, in the case of the same act.1 But
thus described as two separate and distinct actions, the uni-
versal and special action were really only the same action,
in a higher and lower degree, of the Divine motive Power
over the human will.

Thus clearly and strongly laid down, however, the doctrine
of Aquinas and the Augustinian schoolmen on the subject of
predestination has been mistaken in a well-known treatise,
which professes to give a resume of the opinions of the
schools on this subject. Archbishop Laurence asserts the
predestination maintained by the schoolmen to be, a predesti-
nation in consequence of foreseen good works in the indivi-
dual. " Almighty God before the foundations of the world
were laid, surveying in His comprehensive idea, or, as they
phrased it, in His prescience of simple intelligence, the possi-
bilities of all things, before He determined their actual exis-
tence, foresaw, if mankind were created, although He willed
the salvation of all, and was inclined to all indifferently, yet
that some would deserve eternal happiness, and others eternal
misery; and that, therefore, He approved and elected the
former, but disapproved or reprobated the latter. Thus
grounding election upon foreknowledge, they contemplated it
not as an arbitrary principle, separating one individual from
another, under the influence of a blind chance, or an irra-
tional caprice ; but on the contrary, as a wise and just one,
which presupposes a diversity of nature between those who are
accepted, and those who are rejected. Persuaded that God is
the fountain of all good, that from His Divine preordination
freely flows the stream of grace, which refreshes and invigo-
rates the soul, they believed that He has regulated His pre-

1 Homo in statu naturae integras
potest operari virtute suae naturae bonum
quod est sibi connaturale, absque super-
additione gratuiti doni, licet non absque
auxilio Dei moventis. — lm"2dae Q, 109.
A. 3.

Secundum utrumque statum natura
humana indiget Divino auxilio, ad faci-
endum etvolendum quodcunque bonum,
sicut primo movente. Virtute gratuita
superaddita indiget ad bonum super-
naturale.— Ibid. A. 2.

CHAP. X.] OF PREDESTINATION. 281

determination by the quality of the soil through which His
grace passes, and the effects which in any case it produces,
not restricting His favours, but distributing them with an
impartial hand; equally disposed toward all men, but, be-
cause all are not equally disposed toward Him, distinguish-
ing only such as prove deserving of His bounty ....
They considered the dignity of the individual as the merito-
rious basis of predestination ." 1

The first remark that this passage suggests, is that the
writer confuses sill the schoolmen together, and attributes one
common opinion to them on this subject ; whereas there were
different schools amongst them, as among modern thinkers,
some taking the predestinarian side, and others that of free-
will ; though the great names are chiefly on the former side.
The writer, however, treats them all as one school, and con-
siders the predestination taught by the Augustinian Aquinas
to be of the kind which he here describes ; z. e. a predesti-
nation on the ground of foreseen good life. Of course if this
is so, this is all the difference between predestinarianism and
the doctrine of freewill. But I cannot understand how he
can put this interpretation upon the doctrine of Aquinas,
when the latter plainly and expressly asserts the contrary ;
viz., that foreseen merits are not the cause of predestination,
— prascientia meritorum non est causa velratiopredestinationis,
but predestination the cause of these foreseen merits ; these
merits being the effect of grace, and grace the effect of pre-
destination ; — id quod est gratice est prcedestinationis effectus.
Archbishop Laurence appears to have been misled by two
classes of expressions in Aquinas, one relating to contingency,
the other, to human blame and responsibility.

He refers in support of this interpretation of the doctrine
of Aquinas, to the latter's assertion of contingency. " The
mistakes upon this subject of those who have but partially

1 Laurence's Bainpton Lectures, pp, 148. 152.

282 SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE [CHAP. X.

consulted the speculations of the schools (he is speaking of
those who have interpreted these speculations in a predesti-
narian sense) seem to have arisen from the want of properly
comprehending what was meant by the effect of predestina-
tion, an effect always supposed to be contingent ; the opera-
tions of freewill, whether with or without grace, being
considered only as foreknown, and not necessarily predeter-
mined." * And he quotes a passage relating to contingent
causes, as distinguished from necessary ones — (f Although
all things are subject matter of Providence, all things do
not take place necessarily, but according to the condition
of their proximate causes, — secundum conditionem causarum
proximarum 2," which are in some cases not necessary but
contingent causes. Archbishop Laurence understands this
assertion of contingency as a denial of the doctrine of
necessity, and an assertion of the received doctrine of
freewill. But the system of Aquinas, as explained in the
last chapter, does not verify such an inference from his
use of the term contingent. Aquinas divides proximate
or mediate or secondary causes into two classes, necessary
and contingent ; but the contingent causes are still mediate
causes only, not original ones. They are as in complete
subordination to the first cause, as necessary causes are ;
only differing from the latter in their manner of operation,
which is variable and irregular, instead of fixed and uniform.
And the human will, as a contingent cause, is no more
than a mediate one. God is cause of the will — ipse actus
liberi arbitrii reducitur in Deum sicut in causam. Contin-
gency then in acts is not, according to the doctrine of
Aquinas, opposed to their ultimate causation from without ;
which is the doctrine of necessity : contingency is a certain
mode in which things take place; and volition is such a

Bampton Lectures, p. 152. i 3 Aquinas in Lomb. 1. 1. Disk 40.

! Q. 3. A. 1.; Bampton Lectures, p. 354.

CHAP. X.] OF PREDESTINATION. 283

mode in the case of actions ; but volition is a mode, and not
the cause, in the sense of original cause, of them.

There is another set of expressions in the Augustinian
schoolmen relating to human blame and responsibility, to
which Archbishop Laurence refers. " To the inquiry why
some are unendowed with grace, their answer was, because
some are not willing to receive it, and not because God is
unwilling to give it ; He, they said, offers His light to all :
He is absent from none, but man absents himself from the
present Deity, like one who shuts his eyes against the noon-
day blaze." l The language he refers to is that of Aquinas,
whom again he quotes as saying that there are two reasons
why grace, where it is withheld, is withheld ; one because
the man is not willing to receive it, the other because God
does not will to give it ; of which two the latter is posterior
in order to the former — tails est ordo ut secundum non sit nisi
ex suppositione primi.2 Understanding the want of desire
for grace, referred to here, to be the opposition of the
individual's free and self-determining will, he takes these
expressions as involving the common doctrine of freewill,
that God offers His grace to all, while man rejects or accepts
it according to his own choice. But the fault in the human
agent here referred to is not one to be confounded with the
fault of individual choice : it is the original fault of the
whole race. All mankind are to begin with, according to
the doctrine of original sin, disinclined to grace, and, so far
as themselves are concerned, reject it. Aquinas then can
assert that the reason why grace is withheld is man's own
fault, without committing himself in saying so to the
common doctrine of freewill. It is the old position which
meets us in S. Augustine. The will of man is naturally
a corrupt and faulty will, but it is so at the same time
necessarily, and as the effect of original sin. Eesponsibility

1 Bampton Lectures, p. 151. 2 Aquinas in Lomb. 1. 1. Dist. 40.

Q. 4. A. 2.

284

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE

[CHAP. X.

attaches to it as being will; the voluntary agent is as such
susceptible of praise or blame — ut ei imputetur aliquid ad
culpam vel ad meritum l ; — and legitimately comes under a
dispensation of rewards and punishments. Such is the sense
in which man's fault is said by Aquinas to be the first cause
why grace, where it is withheld, is withheld. It is the faulty
will of the race, not the mere choice of the person, which is
this cause ; which faultiness is therefore consistent with ne-
cessity, and not opposed to it. It is a further test of such a
sense, that the will thus represented as the original barrier
against grace, is next represented as wholly able to be changed
and made a different will, by grace. " God is able when, where,
and in whomever He pleases, to convert men's evil wills from
evil to good." 2 It follows that when man's will is changed
from evil to good, it is by His irresistible power; and
therefore that the admission into a state of grace takes place,
according to this system, on a ground quite different from
that on which Archbishop Laurence considers it to do, upon
his too hasty and superficial interpretation of the scholastic
language. Indeed, if none are to be considered necessi-
tarians who make man a responsible being, and lay his
sins and their consequences at his own door, there cannot
be a Christian necessitarian ; for we must either do this,
or charge God with them — which latter no Christian can do.
The most rigid predestinarian writers impose this responsi-
bility upon man.3

1 S. T. 1™ Q. 22. A. 2.

8 " Quis tarn impie desipiat, ut dicat
Deum malas hominum voluntates quas
voluerit, et quando voluerit et ubi
voluerit in bonum non posse conver-
tere." — Augustine, quoted by Lombard,
1. 1. Dist. 47. Neque ideo prsecepit
omnibus bona, quia vellet ab omnibus
bona fieri, si enim vellet utiqtie fierent. "
—Ibid.

3 Arcbbp. Laurence's use of the fol-
lowing statement in Aquinas (B. L. p.
151.) shows the same want of insight into

his system, and the same contented
resting on the apparent meaning of
particular language, without any con-
sciousness of a different interpretation,
which in a vast and intricate theolo-
gical fabric might be reflected from
other quarters upon it. " Dicendum
quod electio divina non praeexigit diver-
sitatem gratiac, quia haec electionem
consequitur ; sed praeexigit diversitatem
naturae in divina cognitione, et facit
diversitatem gratiac, sicut dispositio
diversitatem naturae facit." — In Lomb.

CHAP. X.]

OF PREDESTINATION.

285

To the doctrine of predestination thus laid down by
Aquinas succeeded a corresponding doctrine of grace.
If eternal happiness is ensured to the individual by a Divine
decree, the means to it, i.e. a good life, must be ensured also ;
and this can only be ensured by the operation of a Divine
grace or influence upon him, the effect of which is not depen-
dent on his own will, but is necessary. Aquinas accordingly
proceeds to lay down the doctrine of effective or irresistible
grace.

And first it must be observed that, without appending the

1. 1. Dist. 41. Q. 1. A. 2. He infers
from this that election is asserted
by Aquinas to be on the ground of
foreseen merits in the individual, — a
diversitas natures in the good man
from that of the bad man. But this
very statement says that this diversitas
naturae is the effect of a divine arrange-
ment or disposing — dispositio diversi-
tatem nature facit. And when we turn
to the part of Aquinas' system which
relates to grace, we find that a certain
Divine preparation of the man, while
in a state of nature and previous to a
state of grace, is necessary as a pre-
paration for grace — proeparatio volun-
tat'is humanas ad consequendum ipsum
gratia habitualis donum — auxilium
gratuitum Dei interius animam mo-
ventis.— lma 2dae Q. 109. A. 6. Gratise
causa non potest esse actus humanus
per modum meriti, sed diapositio natu-
ralis quacdam in quantum per actus
prasparamur ad gratia) susceptionem. —
Aquinas, vol. viii. De Prsed. This is,
then, the dispositio naturae here referred
to, which is a Divine moulding of the
natural man to fit him for grace. The
statement, again, on which Archbp.
Laurence relies — Dicendum quod
quamvis Deus, quantum in se est,
sequaliter se habeat ad omnes, non
tamen sequaliter se habeant omnes
ad ipsum, et ideo non ajqualiter om-
nibus gratia praeparatur (in Lomb. 1. i.
Dist. 40. Q. 2. A, 2.) — cannot be reposed
in against a whole interpretative force
of the system explaining it the other
way. In the first stage of original sin
all men do cequaliter se habentad Deum :
but God lifts some out of this state,
and others not, previously, as we have
just seen, to conferring actual grace upon

them. In this intermediate stage, then,
all men do not osqualiter se habent ad
Deum, but some are and some are not in
a preparatory state for grace: but this
difference is the result of the Divine will.

Archbp. Laurence relies on Calvin's
dissatisfaction with Aquinas, but the
instance to which he refers is no case
of substantial disagreement between
the two, but only of a difference be-
tween a more subtle and a broader
mode of statement. Calvin censures
the refinement or quibble — argutia, of
Aquinas in saying that foreseen human
merit, though not the cause of predes-
tination on God's part, may be called
the cause of it in a certain way — quo-
dammodo — on man's part ; because God,
having predestinated men to goodness,
predestinates them to glory because
they are good. Such a statement makes
no difference in the doctrine of predes-
tination as a whole ; because though
one part of it is regarded as de-
pendent on another, the whole is made
to depend on the Divine will solely.
But Calvin dislikes the subtlety as in-
terfering with the breadth of the doc-
trine : " Ac ne illam quidem Thomse
argutiam moramur, prsescientiam meri-
torum non ex parte quidem actus prse-
destinatis esse praedestinationis causam;
ex parte autem nostra, quodammodo sic
vocari posse, nempe secundum particu-
larem praedestinationis aestimationem ;ut
quum dicitur Deus prsedestinare homini
gloriam ex meritis, quia gratiam ei lar-
giri decrevit qua gloriam mereatur." —
Instit. 1. 3. c. 22. s. 9.

Between the Augustinian and Thomist
doctrine of predestination, and that of
Calvin, I can see no substantial differ-
ence. NOTE XXI.

286

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE

[CHAP. X.

term efficacious, the use of which was introduced by the later
Thomists, grace of itself bears in Aquinas the sense of
efficaciousj i. e. means something, which simply by the fact
of its being given us by God, and of the man himself having
it, has the effect of making the man good and acceptable
to God. The leaning to the side of freewill which has
marked church authority for the' last three centuries, has
impressed for the most part upon the term grace the sense
of assisting grace ; i. e. a Divine influence which excites,
prompts, suggests, and encourages, but which depends on
the human will for its proper and intended effect, and does
not issue in any good act or good and acceptable state of
mind, unless the will has by an original movement of its own
converted it to use. And this is perhaps the sense in which
grace is more generally and popularly understood at the
present day. But the Augustinian schoolmen, following
their master, do not mean by grace such an influence as this,
but a different one ; one which, when received, produces of
itself its designed effect — an acceptable and justifying state
of the soul. They divide grace into two great kinds, one
which is designed for the good of the individual, and makes
him acceptable to God, — gratia gratum faciens ; the other,
which is not the grace of acceptableness, but only some gift
or power with which the individual is endowed for the
benefit of the church, — gratia gratis data.1 The former grace
becomes when imparted a quality of the soul, a certain

1 Duplex est gratia, una quidam per
quam ipse homo Deo conjungitur, quae
vocatur gratia gratum faciens ; alia vero
per quam unus homo cooperatur alter!
ad hoc quod ad Deum reducatur ; hujus-
modi autem donum vocatur gratia
gratis data; quia supra facultatem na-
turae, et supra meritum personae homini
conceditur. Sed quia non datur ad hoc
ut homo ipse per earn justificetur, sed
potius ut ad justificationem alterius co-
operetur, ideo non vocatur gratum
faciens. Et de hac dicit Apostolus 1.
ad Cor. 12. 7. Unicuique datur ma-
nifestatio spiritus ad utilitatem, scilicet,
aliorum.

Gratia autem gratum faciens ordinat
hominem immediate ad conjunction em
ultimi tinis ; gratiae autem gratis data?
ordinant hominem ad qua&dam prsepa-
ratoria finis ultimi, sicut per prophetiam
et miracula. Et ideo gratia gratum
faciens est multoexcellentior quam gratia
gratis data. — lm» 2dae Q. iii. A. 1. 5.

Gratia habitus gratus a Deo — causa
efficiens meriti. . . . Virtutes theolo-
gicae et supernaturales, non sunt minus
efficaces similium actuum quam vir-
tutes morales. — Bradwardine, p. 364.
et seq.

CHAP. X.]

OF PREDESTINATION.

287

graciousness and goodness belonging to it, as beauty belongs
to the body — nitor animce.1

The question then is how this grace is obtained in the
first place, and how in the next place it is sustained and
preserved. Is it obtained by any merit of the individual in
the first place, i. e. is it the reward of any original exertion
of the will ? Or, if not obtained in this way, is it preserved
in this way, i. e. by the freewill of the individual sustaining
and guarding it ? In either of these cases such a grace as
this involves no doctrine of efficacious and irresistible grace ;
because in the former case it is a state of the mind which the
will has in part earned ; in the latter it is one, which, though
the individual is endowed with it, by an act of God, as
Adam according to the authorized doctrine was with a cer-
tain good disposition at his creation ; the individual has to
maintain, as Adam had, by his own freewill. But if this
grace is neither obtained nor preserved by the freewill of the
individual, but is given in the first instance as a free gift of
God, and sustained afterwards by the supporting power of
God, exerted gratuitously and arbitrarily ; it then involves
the doctrine of efficacious grace; for there is no room at
either end for any original motion of the will, upon which
the possession of such grace depends.

But the latter is, according to the Thomist doctrine, the
mode in which this grace is obtained and preserved. First,
the primary possession of this grace is not owing, in whole
or in part, to any merit or original act of will in the indivi-
dual. It was laid down that to a man who prepared* himself
as much as possible for grace, grace was still not necessarily
given ; — non necessario data se prceparanti ad gratiam et
facienti quod in se est? But if a man's best possible prepa-

1 Gratia est nitor animse sanctum
concilians amorem. — lms 2a"e Q. 110.
A. 2.

8 Homo comparatur ad Deum sicut
lutum ad flgulum, secundum illud
Jer. 18. 6. Sicut lutum in manu figuli

sic vos in matin mea. Sed lutum non
ex necessitate accipit formam a figulo,
quantumcunque sit praeparatum. Ergo
neque homo recipit ex necessitate prra-
tiam a Deo, quantumcunque se prze-
paret. — lma 2dae Q. 1 12. A. 3.

288

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE

[CHAP. X.

ration of himself for it was no claim in the eye of God to it,
the bestowal of it evidently did not depend upon any thing
in a man himself, but proceeded upon a different law. And
when we are let into the real meaning of this position, the
same conclusion is still more clear. For when this position
comes to be explained, as it is further on in the argument, it
turns out to be only another form of the position that nobody
can prepare himself, either in whole or in part, for grace, i. e.
have any original share in this work. The preparation of the
human heart for the reception of grace was a Divine work,
in which God was the mover, and the human will the thing
moved.

The distinction indeed of operating and co-operating grace,
gratia operans et cooperans, appears at first sight to imply
an original act of the will, with which Divine grace co-ope-
rates, and which is co-ordinate with that grace. But as
explained, it carries no such meaning with it, and issues in a
verbal subtlety. Two acts are attributed to the will, one in-
terior, the other exterior, the one being the substance of the
act, the other its manifestation ; the one the real moral act
itself, the other that act as expressed in outward form. Of
these two acts then, the former is attributed to Divine grace
alone, — gratia operans, the human will not co-operating with
it, but being simply moved by it. The latter is allowed to
co-operate with Divine grace. But this is no independent
but a wholly moved and dictated co-operation. The will
having being wholly moved to action by grace, that action
is then called a co-operation with grace.1

1 " In illo effectu in quo mens nostra
et movet et movetur, operatic non solum
attribuitur Deo sed etiam animae; et
secundum hoc dicitur gratia cooperans.
Est autem in nobis duplex actus ; primus
quidem interior voluntatis ; et quantum
ad istum actum voluntas se habct ut
mota ; Deus autem ut movens ; et prae-
sertim cum voluntas incipit bonum

velle, qua? prius malum volebat ; et ideo
secundum quod Deus movet humanavn
mentem ad hunc actum, dicitur gratia
operans. Alius autem est actus exterior,
qui cum a voluntate imperetur, consequens
est quod ad hunc actum operatlo attri-
buatur voluntati. Et . . . respectu hu-
jusmodi actus dicitur gratia cooperans."
— lm» 2d« Q. iii. A. 2.

CHAP. X.]

OF PREDESTINATION.

289

The bestowal of justifying grace, then, does not, in the
system of Aquinas, depend in the first instance upon any
act of man's will; nor does its continuance depend on it
either. The continuance of this grace depends on the gift
of perseverance, which is a gratuitous gift of God, given to
whom, and withheld from whom He will l ; and to which no
life and conduct of man can afford any claim. Suppose a
person in a good present state of mind, leading a good life,
and therefore, for the time being, in a state of acceptance ;
the question is, upon what law does this state of things last ?
Does its permanence depend on the individual's own original
will, which performing its part in the guard and maintenance
of this state, God performs His, and supplies the complement?
Not, according to Aquinas. The continuance of this state
of things is, from moment to moment, a gratuitous act of
God's sustaining power, who keeps up this moral and spiri-
tual fabric, as He does that of the material world, so long as
it suits His sovereign pleasure, and no longer. The creature
cannot conditionate this Will Supreme, or impose any obliga-
tion in justice upon it, in this matter. Thus, guarded at both
ends from dependence on the human will, given as the free gift
of God in the first instance, and sustained by His absolute
power afterwards, justifying grace — gratia gratum faciem,
was effective or irresistible grace.

So far, however, the Thomist doctrine of grace was only
the Augustinian doctrine, which was a perfectly simple one,

1 " Homo etiam in gratia constitutus
indiget ut ei perseverantia a Deo detur.
. . . Postquam aliquis est justificatus
per gratiam, necesse habet a Deopetere
perse verantiae donum ; ut scilicet cus-
todiatur a malo usque ad finem vitae.
Multis enim datur gratia quibus non
datur perse verare in gratia." — lmft 2d»e
Q. 110. A. 10.

"Omne quod quis meretur a Deo con-
sequitur, nisi impediatur per peccatum.
Sed multi habent opera meritoria, qui
non consequuntur perseverantiam j nee

potest dici quod hoc fiat propter impedi-
mentum peccati, quia hoc ipsura quod
est peccare, opponitur perseverantiae ;
ita quod si aliquis perseverantiam me-
reretur, Deus non permitteret ilium
cadere in peccatum. Non igitur per-
severantia cadit sub merito. . . . Per-
severantia vise non cadit sub merito,
quia dependet solum ex motione divina,
quae est principium omnis meriti. Sed
Deus gratis perseverantice bonum lar-
gitur cuicunque illud largitur." — lm*
2'3»e Q. 114. A. 9.

U

290

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE

[CHAP. X.

regarding the operation of grace as the action on each suc-
cessive occasion of Divine power; upon which action the
effect of goodness in the soul followed, and upon its cessation
or interruption ceased. But the schoolmen added to this
doctrine a distinction, which, though founded in reason and
nature, ended, in their hands, in greatly burdening and per-
plexing it. Aristotle had laid down the very natural position,
that what constituted a man good, was not the good act on
the particular occasion, but a habit of mind : this habit was
productive, indeed, of acts, and defined as such ; but still it
was from having this source of acts in his mind, that a man
was good, rather than from the acts considered in themselves.
As grace was concerned, then, with the production of
goodness, the schoolmen, incorporating the Aristotelian doc-
trine of habits with the doctrine of grace, maintained that
God imparted goodness in the shape of habit ; and the result
was, the distinction between habitual and actual grace —
gratia habitualis et actualis1 ; — a distinction which, in their
mode of carrying it out, produced such a labyrinth of com-
partments and network of verbal subtleties, that it requires
some patience in a reader to extricate any meaning at all
from such confusion, or arrive at the substance and kernel
of the system, amidst such obstructions.

Aquinas then commences with laying down, in general
terms, the doctrine of infused habits, — a doctrine which, as I
have explained in a preceding chapter, is in itself a natural

1 " Homo ad recte vivendum duplici-
tur auxilio Dei indiget : uno quidern
modo quantum ad aliquod habituale do-
num, per quod natura humana corrupta
sanetur, et etiam sanata elevetur ad
operanda opera meritoria vitsc aeternas,
quae excedunt proportionem naturae :
alio modo indiget homo auxilio gratiae,
ut a Deo moveatur ad agendum . . . et
hoc propter duo ; primo quidem ra-
tione generali, propter hoc quod nulla
res creata potest in quemcunque actum
prodire, nisi virtute motionis divinae :

secundo ratione speciali propter condi-
tionem status humanae naturae ; quae
quidem licet per gratiam sanetur quan-
tum ad mentem, remanet tamen in eo
corruptio et infectio quantum ad car-
nem . . . et ideo necesse est nobis ut
a Deo dirigamur et protegamur, quia
omnia movet et omnia potest. . . . Do-
num habitualis gratia non ad hoc datur
nobis ut per ipsum non indige.amus
ulterius divino auxilio." — lma 2d*e Q.
110. A. 9.

CHAP. X.]

OF PREDESTINATION.

291

one, and agreeable to our experience. He asserts in the
first place, that there are such things as natural habits l} or
dispositions, moral and intellectual, which are born with
men ; though he artificially limits the former to such as are
evidently connected with the bodily temperament, such as
temperance. And upon this foundation of natural truth, he
proceeds to erect another, and a more important class of in-
fused habits, connected with grace.

Besides habits infused by nature, then, there were habits
" infused by God ; " which differed from the natural virtues
in this, that they were designed for the spiritual good of man,
as the former were for his temporal and worldly. These
were certain imparted holy dispositions, or spiritual virtues,
produced in the soul without any efforts of its own — quas
Deus in nobis sine nobis operatur.2 First in order, came the
Theological virtues, — Faith, Hope, and Charity. Then came
the gifts — Dona ; which were seven in number, — Wisdom,
Understanding, Knowledge, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, and
Fear. But, besides these, were also infused moral virtues —
virtutes morales infusce ; which were the same in matter with
natural or acquired virtues, but differed in the end or motive,
which was a spiritual one, while thd!t of the former was na-
tural. The acquired, and the infused, virtue of temperance,
for example, were both expressed by the same acts ;

1 " Sunt in hominibus aliqui habitus
naturales, ... In appetitivis autem
potentiis non est aliquis habitus natu-
ralis secundum inchoationetn ex parte
ipsius animae. . . . Sed ex parte cor-
poris . . . sunt enim quidam dispositi
ex propria corporis complexione ad cas-
titatem vel mansuetudinem, vel ad
aliquid hujusmodi." — lmft 2d»e Q. 51.
A. 1.

2 " Habitus homini a Deo infundun-
tur. . . . Ratio cst quia aliqui habitus
sunt quibus homo bene disponitur ad
finem excedentem facultatem humanae
naturae, . . . et quia habitus oportet
esse proportionatos ei ad quod homo
disponitur secundum ipsos, ideo necesse

est quod etiam habitus ad hujusmodi
finem disponentes, excedant facultatem
humanas natura?. Unde tales habitus
nunquam possunt homini inesse, nisi ex
infusione divina." — Though God is also
able to infuse common habits, such as
are'ordinarily acquired by acts. — " Deus
potest producere effectus causarum se-
cundarum absque ipsis causis secundis.
. . . Sicut igitur quandoque ad osten-
sionem sua? virtutis producit sanitatem
absque causa natnrali ; quse tamen per
naturam posset causari ; ita etiam quan-
doque infundit homini illos habitus qui
naturali virtute possunt causari." — lm»
2dae Q. 52. A, 4.

U 2

292 SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE [CHAP. X.

but the one aimed at bodily health, or an undisturbed exer-
tion of the intellectual faculties, the other at spiritual
discipline.

Now, so far as the schoolman in this scheme simply asserts
that God can, and often does, implant holy dispositions and
habits in human souls, without previous discipline and
training on their part ; or maintains the principle of infused
habits, as distinguished from habits acquired by acts, his
position is a natural one, and agrees with our experience, as
well as with the doctrine of the early Church. We mean by
a habit, a certain bias or proneness to act in a particular di-
rection ; and this bias or proneness is obtained in one way
by successive acts. But it would be untrue, and contrary to
the plainest facts of nature, to suppose that this is the only way
in which such a bias of the mind is ever obtained. God evi-
dently imparts it to men, at birth, in different moral directions ;
for we see them born with particular dispositions and charac
ters. And as He imparts it at birth, He appears also sometimes
to impart it on subsequent occasions, by powerful impulses,
communicated to the souls of man, either internally, or by the
machinery of his outward providence; by sudden junctures,
emergencies, in private or public life. We see great changes
produced in men's characters by these exciting causes, and
their minds put, by the force of events, into particular states
and tempers, which they retain afterwards. That is to say,
habits are sometimes imparted to men at once, and from
without, in distinction to being the result of successive acts.
The doctrine of Conversion, is the application of this truth to
the department of religion : what this doctrine asserts being,
that God, by particular impulses, either wholly internal or
connected with outward events, imparts at once a religious
disposition or habit to the mind ; so that, from being careless
and indifferent, it immediately becomes serious ; which is un-
doubtedly sometimes the case. So far, then, as the schoolman
simply maintains in this scheme the position of infused
habits, or that habits need not necessarily be obtained by acts,
he maintains a true and natural doctrine. And this was an

CHAP. X.] OF PREDESTINATION. 293

important modification of the Aristotelian doctrine, which
rested too exclusively upon acts as the cause of habits. So
acute an observer, indeed, of facts, as that great philo-
sopher was, could not but see himself that this cause did
not apply in all cases ; — and the observation extracted
from him a partial modification of his own system, in
the shape of the admission of natural virtue — fyvaiia) dpsr?).
But the addition of infusion, as a formal and regular cause,
in the case of habits, was a substantial modification of the
Aristotelian doctrine. It was, however, a modification, which
naturally followed from Christianity. The idea of the Divine
power, which was not fully embraced by the Pagan philoso-
pher, was brought out by the true religion, and applied to the
moral, as well as to the physical world, to the department of
will, as well as that of matter. In other words, it taught a
doctrine, which the pagan philosopher did not hold, that of
Divine Grace ; which immediately became a fresh element in
the argument, and supplied a new cause for the formation of
the habit.

But, while the scheme thus rested upon a basis of nature
and truth, two great causes of confusion were at work in it.
One was an unreal or artificial distinction in the subject
matter of acquired and infused habits. It will be evident
to any one, on reflection, that the distinction between these
two kinds of habits, is a distinction simply in the mode in
which they are formed, and not at all in the nature or matter
of the habits themselves ; the same state and disposition of
mind being formed in the one case by time, custom, successive
acts, and in the other by Divine power producing it, without
the aid of these previous steps. All habits, as such, then, what-
ever be their subject matter, or rank, come alike under both
these modes of formation : an ordinary moral habit, such as
honesty or temperance, is as much a subject of infusion as a
spiritual one, such as faith or charity ; and a spiritual habit,
such as faith or charity, is as much a subject of acquisition,
as a common moral one of temperance or honesty. Infusion

u 3

294

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE

[CHAP. X.

and acquisition apply alike to both. A habit of faith is
acquired by acts of faith, and a habit of love by acts of love ;
and the natural or Aristotelian law of the formation of
habits, is as true of spiritual as of common moral habits.
Again, the commonest moral dispositions are as capable, as
spiritual ones, of being imparted in the other way, i. e. with-
out previous acts; and we see them so imparted often at
birth. But Aquinas artificially appropriates infusion to
spiritual virtues, acquisition to moral ones 1 ; as if the former
were never acquired by acts, and the latter never but by
them. It depends on the dispensation under which a person
is individually placed, in what way he obtains either spiritual
or moral habits ; whether both are the simple growth of
time and acts in him, or whether he obtains both in the
more immediate way: though we must not so divide the
two modes of formation of character, as to forget that both
may go on together in the same person, and that mankind
are all more or less under both systems.

Another cause of confusion was the technical and quaint
division of these habits, followed by the artificial subordi-
nation of one division to another, the attempt being to con-
struct them into one harmonious machinery for the building
up of the human soul, — one set, at the point where its power
failed, being taken up, and its action carried on by another.
The theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, were
infused habits. But though, their infusion into a particular
soul being supposed, these were true habits or dispositions
of that soul; they were passive and inert, not producing
acts until they were moved from another quarter to do so.
They were habits indeed, but elementary ones, imperfectly
possessed, and rather of the nature of principles or faculties
— principia super natur alia ^ corresponding to the natural
faculties of man — principia naturalia.2 While the natural

1 He admits natural moral virtue in
limited way, p. 291.

2 Et quia hujusmodi beatitude pro-

portionem humanae naturae excedit,
principia naturalia hominis non suffi-
ciunt ad ordinandum hominem in bea-

CHAP. X.]

OF PREDESTINATION.

295

will of man, then, could put the natural principles into
action, because these were possessed perfectly, it could not,
of itself, put into action the supernatural principles. To put
these into action another spiritual force was necessary.1 To
the theological virtues, therefore, succeeded the Dona. Now
it is true that a habit does not move itself to action, but
requires to be put in motion by a particular act of freewill,
on one theory, by a particular act of grace, on another.
But the Dona were themselves only imparted habits. Here,
then, was one set of habits, which was necessary to put in
motion another. And as the Dona succeeded the theological
virtues, the " infused moral virtues " succeeded the Dona ;
being those final and settled spiritual habits to which the
supernatural principles in man, i. e. the theological virtues,
tended ; as the acquired habits were the completion of his
natural principles.2 Yet this accumulation of habits, rising
one above another in formal scale, this whole complex ma-
chinery, did not complete the moral being, who seemed always
approaching the terminus of action, and never attaining it.

For, secondly, habitual grace, with all this multiplicity
of internal construction, could still not put itself in action.
It was still no more than a habit of the mind, imparted by

tudinem praedictam ; unde oportet quod
superaddantur homini divinitus aliqua
principia, per quae ita ordinetur ad
beatitudinem supernaturalem, sicut per
principia naturalia ordinatur ad finem
connaturalem : et hujusmodi principia
dicuntur virtutes theologicce ; turn quia
habent Deum pro objecto, turn quia a
solo Deo nobis infunduntur. — lma 2dae
Q. 62. A. 1.

1 Manifestum est quod virtutes hu-
manae proficiunt hominem, secundum
quod homo natus est moveri per ra-
tionem. Oportet igitur inesse homini
altiores perfectiones, secundum quas
sit dispositus ad hoc quod divinitus
moveatur ; et istce perfectiones vocantur
dona.—l™ 2d»8 Q. 68. A. 1. The
Theological virtues are imperfect agents
and cannot move without the Dona. —

Prima (naturalis) virtus habetur ab
homine quasi plena possessio : secunda
autem (theologica) habetur quasi im-
perfecta. Sed id quod imperfecte habet
naturam aliquam non habet per se ope-
rari, nisi ab altero moveatur. ... Ad
finem ultimum naturalem ad quam ratio
movet, secundum quod est imperfecte
formata per theologicas virtutes, non
sufficit ipsa motio rationis, nisi desuper
adsit instinctus Spiritus Sancti — A. 2.
2 Loco naturalium principiorum con-
feruntur nobis a Deo virtutes theolo-
gicae. . . . Unde oportet quod his etiam
virtutibus theologicis proportionaliter
respondeant alii habitus divinitus-.causati
in nobis, qui sic se habent ad virtutes
theologicas, sicut se habent virtutes
morales ad principia naturalia virtutum.
— lma 2dae Q. 63. A. 3.

u 4

296

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE

[CHAP. X.

God : and no habit, as has been just said, can put itself in
action ; for a man does not necessarily do a thing, in fact,
because he has a certain disposition to do it. It became
then a vital question, what it was which put habitual grace
into action. Was it the freewill of man ? If it was, then
the human will had an original and independent act assigned
to it ; a position which was contrary to this whole scholastic
doctrine of grace. It was not freewill, then, but another
and a further grace, which set in motion habitual, viz.
grace actual — gratia actualis.1 This was the completion
of the system, the key-stone of the arch. Habitual grace
could be admitted without any serious drawback from the
power of the natural will ; for God might impart a certain
disposition, or continuous impulse ; while it depended wholly
on the independent motion of the will, whether the man
acted upon it or not. The turning and distinctive assertion
in the system, then, was the assertion of actual grace, as
that which moved habitual : and to this cardinal position
the Thomists, and their successors the Jansenists, directed
their most zealous and anxious attention, repelling all
interference with it as a subversion of the whole Gospel
doctrine of grace. The admission of habitual grace set
aside as one which the Semi-Pelagian or even the Pelagian
could make, without danger in principle to his theory ;
grace actual was defended as the central fort of Christian
truth in this department.2

1 See p. 290.

2 Non est habitus qui faelt facere,
says Jansen. No habit, he urges,
is the cause of action, but liberum ar-
bitrium at the time. — De Gratia Christi,
pp. 186. 996. Nee est lux vel habitus
quae velle vel non velle, videre vel non
videre faciunt, sed tantummodo sine
guibus actus volendi vel videndi non
fit. — p. '935. And this motion of

liberum arbitrium at the time, is pro-
duced by grace at the time — gratia
specialis, actualis — adjutorium gratise

actualis quod tune datur, quando actu
volumus et operamur. . . . inspirans
etiam habitualiter justis velle et operari.
— pp. 151. 153. He adds: Tota dis-
putatio cum Pelagio de justorum, hoc
est, habitualem gratiam jam habentium
fervuit. . . Non ita deliravit Pelagius,
ut existimaret justitiam habitualem, ad
opera justa suo modo non adjuvare. —
p. 1 53. " Actualis gratia " thus gives
the. " completum posse," which is " per
liberum arbitrium remotior, per fidem
propinquior, per charitatem multo pro-

CHAP. X.]

OF PREDESTINATION.

297

As then in the simpler and Augustinian, so in the com-
plex and Aristotelian statement of the doctrine of grace,
in which the distinction of habitual and actual is intro-
duced, Aquinas maintains, we see, an irresistible or effective
grace. Habitual grace is guarded carefully at both ends
from dependence on the human will. It was alike imparted
and applied by an act of Divine Power. Had the spiritual
habit been either obtained in the first instance by an act
of the will, or, when imparted as a free gift, depended for
its use on the will, a place for freewill would have been
allowed. But if freewill comes in neither at the beginning
nor at the end, neither as obtaining the habit in the first
instance nor as using it in the next, or causing it to ter-
minate in act, one operation of an irresistible Divine influ-
ence is maintained throughout.

The Summa Theologica thus lays down a doctrine of
absolute predestination, with its complemental doctrine of
irresistible grace — that the whole world, being by original
sin one mass of perdition, it pleased God of His sovereign
mercy to rescue some and to leave others where they were ;
to raise some to glory, giving them such grace as necessarily
qualified them for it, and abandon the rest, from whom
He withheld such grace, to eternal punishment. But this
formal scheme laid down, the attentive reader of Aquinas
will next observe a certain general leaning and bias towards
a modifying interpretation of it. Having constructed a

pinquior, per actualem gratiam," really
had. — p. 338. This position is main-
tained as the only one which cuts off
the ground of merit from man. Did
he use habitual grace by his own power
of choice, he would have the merit of
his own use of this grace (p. 186.);
but if this grace is put in action by
another grace, no ground of merit in
the man himself remains. And a dis-
tinction is drawn in this respect be-
tween fallen man and the angels. —
llinc nascebatur ut neque volitioncs

neque actiones angelorum essent spe-
cialia Dei dona, hoc est, non eis Deus
special! donatione seu gratia largiretur.
Tantummodo enim donabat ea in
radice, quatenuseis adjutoriumquoddam
gratia; tribuebat, sine quo . . . non
poterant : sed ipsum velle, agere, et
perseverare, non eis dabat adjutorium
gratise, sed propria voluntas . . . Tune
igitur velle et agere bonum non erat
speciale Dei donum, sed tantum gene-
rale. — pp. 935, 936.

298

SCHOLASTIC DOCTIilNE

[CHAP. X.

system on the strict Augustinian basis, the mind of the
great schoolman appears to have shrunk from the extreme
results which it involved ; and without committing himself
to any substantial difference from his master, he yet uses
modes of speaking suggestive of another view of the question
than that which he had borrowed from him ; and a phrase-
ology, which is not casual, but set and constant, insinuates
a relaxation of the Augustinian doctrine.

And first I will make the preliminary remark, that a
difference is to be observed in the general tone of these
two great theological minds, tending more or less to affect
their respective views on this subject. Aquinas is more pf
a philosopher than his master, and has greater sympathies
with the human mind as such, with the natural intellect,
reason, and moral ideas of mankind. His vast acquaintance
with heathen philosophy opens his mind to the valuable gifts
even of unenlightened man, his deep reflections upon him-
self, his knowledge of God, — true as far as it goes, — and his
advancement in virtue, under the guidance of reason and
conscience. Nor is the deference which he shows to heathen
authority, in philosophical and moral questions, altogether
consistent with the position which his formal theology, as an
Augustinian, assigned to unconverted human nature, which
it represented as in the depths of sin, and unable to do or to
think anything good. The perplexity, again, with respect to
the existence of evil, appears in a deeper and more sensitive
form in the mind of Aquinas than it does in that of his
master. Augustine sees as a theologian an inexplicable
mystery ; but Aquinas shows more of that human sentiment,
with respect to the great fact of evil in the world l, which

1 Bradwardine has less scruple

Ecce triplex bonum ex reprobis : utilitas
electorum, bonum naturae, seculique
ornatus. Ponatur quoque secundum
pium zelum multorum, licet non se-
cundum scientiam, quod totus infernus

cum omnibus suis domesticis reprobatis
tollereturde medio, essetque coelumtan-
tummodo cum civibus suis sanctis : tune
seculum esset multum perfectum, et si
Deus sic fecisset multum bene fecisset.
Nunc autem tanto perfectius et tanto

CHAP. X.I

OF PREDESTINATION.

299

has rested upon so many of the deep and philosophical minds
of different ages, and especially of modern times, disquieting
some, and sobering and subduing others. His perception
not dulled by the commonness and constancy of the fact,
as inferior ones are, but ever retaining something of a first
surprise, acknowledges, as the eye of a naturalist would
some remarkable law in his department, the prevalence
of moral evil in this lower world — bonum videtur esse ut
in paudoribus ; — a fact which, as he cannot explain, he
endeavours to outweigh, conjecturing some compensation for
it in other parts of the universe, and isolating this sublunary
world as one exception to a universal law. This sphere of
natural evil, of generation and corruption, was small in com-
parison with the world of heavenly bodies, whose existence
was eternal and fixed. This sphere of moral evil in the
majority was small, again, in comparison with the angelic
world, where a different law was in operation ; and the angels
who stood were much more in number than those who fell,
and, perhaps, even than the whole number of the condemned,
both men and demons — et forte etiam multo plures quam
omnes damnandi dcemones et homines.1 Such a line of thought
had a bearing upon the present question, and tended to affect
his view upon it ; because an attempt to reduce the amount
of evil in the universe at large disposed to reducing, as far
as might be, the alarming estimate of it in this world.

The distinction, then, involved in Augustinian predesti-
nation and reprobation, being a distinction between positive
good and positive evil, goodness and wickedness, and their

melius fecit Deus, quantum perfectionis
et bonitatis continent in se illce nobiles
creatures damnatee, quantum etiam
resplendentiae et apparentise purioris
ilia •comparatio veluti contrarietatis
extremae confert justis, tanquam scin-
tillas fulgentibus, et ut stellae. Quis
enim vel cujus ratio prohibuisset Do-
minum ab initio, si fuisset placitum
coram eo, creasse codum plenum electis

in gloria, et infernum plenum reprobis
in pcena, ut hoc illi comparate apparu-
isset gloriosius et fuisset? Non de-
erunt tamen qui hos humano misere-
rentur afFectu, et pia compassione
contenderent sic facere non debere. —
p. 355.

1 In Lomb. 1. 1. Dist. 39. Q. 2. A.
2.

300

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE

[CHAP. X

consequences, eternal happiness and eternal misery, to two
portions of the world respectively ; there is a tendency in
the language of Aquinas to reduce this distinction to a dis-
tinction between higher and lower good. Two kinds of
happiness are laid down in his system, " one of which is pro-
portioned to human nature, and to which a man can arrive
by this principle of his own nature ; the other exceeding
human nature, and to which a man can arrive only by Divine
virtue and by a participation of the Divinity, according to
the text in S. Peter, that we are by Christ made partakers of
the Divine Nature." l Here, then, are two kinds of happi-
ness, and two kinds of virtues, which respectively qualify for
them. There is one class of virtues, which fits a man for his
place in the order of nature, and makes him a worthy member
of the world of God's natural providence — secundum guas homo
se bene habet in or dine ad res humanas ; another class, which
fits a man for a place in a supernatural order of things and a
heavenly citizenship — ad hoc quod sint cives sanctorum et domes-
tici Dei? Expressed with scholastic formality, here is a very
obvious distinction, and one which we cannot avoid observing
in the world around us, — one which is recognised in the
common language and writings of Christians. We see as a
plain fact, that there is a kind of goodness, which, as dis-
tinguished from another kind, must be pronounced to belong
to this world, — that men may be honest, conscientious, and
high principled in their worldly callings, still having their
view confined to this world. It is a virtuous mould and
character of mind, — that of a man who recognises the world
as a true sphere of moral action, desires to be on the right
side, and cultivates with that view various moral qualities ;

1 Est autem duplex hominis beati-
tude ; una quidem proportionata
humanae naturae, ad quam scilicet homo
pervenire potest per principia suae na-
turae. Alia autem beatitude naturam
hominis excedens, ad quam homo sola
divina virtute pervenire potest secun-

dum quandam Divinitatis participa-
tionem ; secundum quod dicitur
(2 Pet. i.) quod per Christum facti
sum us consortes divines natures. — lm*
2dM Q. 62. A. 1.

2 lm» 2d»e Q. 63< A, 4.

CHAP. X.]

OF PREDESTINATION.

301

who, therefore, so far as the spiritual principle is involved
in any bond fide and honest distinction of good and evil,
acknowledges a spiritual law in his own nature and the con-
stitution of things, to which he defers, and on which he
frames his life and conduct ; but who lowers this law by his
narrow and confined application of it to present things and
visible relations. This, then, is what Christian moralists call
the virtue of the natural man; and its defect is in the
principle of faith, which, by opening another world for them,
and so enlarging their scope and field, would have given a
spring and impulse to these moral perceptions, quickening and
strengthening them ; whereas they are now kept down to a
particular level. On the other hand, it is an essential part
of Christian doctrine, that there is a temper of mind so far in
advance of this natural morality, as to seem to differ from it
in kind ; in the sense in which everything seems at its per-
fection and final point, to be a different thing from what it
was before, as a lens burns at its centre only. This is the
supernatural temper of charity.1

From morals the distinction of natural and supernatural
is then extended by Aquinas to religion. It was obvious
that the natural man had not only moral virtue of some
kind, but religion as well. For, independent of the religious
men which Paganism had produced, what is the obedience
which the natural man, in his moral course of life, pays
to his own conscience, but an obedience to God, whom he
virtually recognises as speaking to him by that internal

1 La distance infinie des corps aux
esprits figure la distance infiniment plus
infinie des esprits a la charite ; car elle
est surnaturelle.

Tous les corps, le firmament, les
etoiles, la terre et les royaumes ne
valent pas le moindre des esprits ; car
il connait tout cela, et soi-meme ; et
le corps, rien. Et tous les corps, et
tons les esprits ensemble, et toutes leurs
productions, ne valent pas le moindre

mouvement de charite ; car elle est
d'un ordre infiniment plus eleve'.

De tous les corps ensemble on ne
saurait tirer la moindre pensee: cela
est impossible, et d'un autre ordre.
Tous les corps et les esprits ensemble
ne sauraient produire un mouvement
de vraie charite : cela est impossible,
et d'un autre ordre tout surnaturel. —
Pascal.

302 SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE [CHAP. X.

voice ? And as he will obey that conscience, even at the
cost of his worldly interests, suffering the greatest incon-
veniences rather than offend against probity and honesty,
it is plain that in some sense he prefers the Divine* appro-
bation to everything else. It was accordingly laid down
that the natural man was able to love God above all things
— homo potest diligere Deum super omnia ex solis naturalibus
sine gratia. But the distinction was then applied that he
loved God naturally, not supernaturally, " as the source
and end of natural good ; whereas charity loved Him as
the centre of spiritual good or happiness. Charity had,
moreover, a positive communion with God, which nature had
not ; of which communion a certain promptitude and delight
were the results, which did not belong to the natural love of
God."1

These two kinds of goodness, then, natural and super-
natural, had their respective sources assigned to them,
and the cause or motive power was pronounced, by an
abbreviation, in the one case to be reason, in the other God
— Ratio et Deus 2 : the Divine Power, however, operating
alike in both cases as true and original Cause. The Divine
Power, acting simply as the First or Universal Cause in
nature, moved the freewill of man to natural virtue ; acting
in a special way or by grace, it moved the same freewill
to supernatural virtue.3 ff All things," says Aquinas, " are
subject to Providence, and it pertains to Providence to
ordain all things to their end. But the end to which created
things are ordained by God is twofold. One is the end
which exceeds the proportion and faculty of created nature ;

1 " Charitas diligit Deum super om-
nia eminentius quam natura. Natura
enim diligit Deum super omnia, prout
est principium et finis naturalis boni ;
charitas autem, secundum quod est
objectum beatitudinis, et secundum
quod homo habet quandam societatem

spiritualem cum Deo. Addit etiam
charitas super naturalem* dilectionsm
Dei, promptitudinem quandam et delec-
tationem."— lma 2daa Q. 109. A. 3.

2 lmft 2<3ac Q. 68. A. 1.

3 lma 2d»e Q. 1Q. A. 6.

CHAP. X.]

OF PKEDESTINATION.

303

that is say, the life eternal, which consists in the Divine
vision, — which vision is above the nature of every creature.
Another is the end proportioned to created nature, and
which that nature can attain by the virtue of that nature.
Now, that which cannot arrive at a point by its own virtue
must be transmitted thither by another, as an arrow is sent
by an archer at a mark. Wherefore, properly speaking, the
rational creature, which is capable of life eternal, is con-
ducted up to it, or transmitted to it by God. Of which
transmission the reason pre-exists in the mind of God, even
as there exists generally the reason of the ordination of all
things whatever to the end. But the reason of anything being
done is a certain pre-existence in the mind of the doer of
the thing itself to be done ; whence the reason of the trans-
mission of the rational creature to life eternal is called
predestination — nam destinare est mittere? l While the
cause, then, of natural virtue is the Divine Power acting
in its ordinary function, as predetermining universally the
created wills of men, the cause of supernatural virtue in man is
the Divine Power acting in predestination, or in the execu-
tion of a certain special decree. " The virtue which qualifies
man for good as defined by the Divine Law, in distinction
to reason, cannot be caused by human acts of which the
principle is reason, but is caused in us by the Divine opera-
tion alone." ' And this Divine operation is carried on by
means of that machinery of infused supernatural virtues

1 " Ad illud autem, ad quod noil po-
test aliquid virtute suae naturae perve-
nire, oportet quod ab alio transmittatur,
sicut sagitta a sagittante mittitur ad
signum. Unde proprie loquendo, ra-
tionalis creatura, quae est capax vitae
aeternae perducitur in ipsam quasi a Deo
transtnissa. Cu,]us quidem transmissionis
ratio in Deo praeexistir, sicut et in eo
est ratio ordinis omnium in finem.
Ratio autem alicujus fiendi existens est
queedam praeexistentia rei fiendae in eo.

Unde ratio prsedicta transmissionis crea-
turae rationalis in finem vitae aeternae
pradestinatio nominatur ; nam desti-
nare est mittere." — lma Q. 23. A. 1.

2 " Virtus vero ordinans hominem ad
bonum secundum quod modificatur per
legem divinam, et non per rationem
humanam, non potest causari per actus
humanos quorum principium est ratio;
sed causatur solum in nobis per ope-
rationem divinam." — Im* 2dae Q. 63.
A. 2.

304 SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE [CHAP. X.

above described. For "as God provides for His natural
creatures in such wise, that He not only moves them to
natural acts, but even endows them with certain forms
and virtues to act as principles of action and to be in
themselves dispositions to such action ; so into those whom
He moves to attain eternal and supernatural good He in-
fuses certain supernatural forms or qualities, by which they
are sweetly and promptly disposed to attain that good." l
Supernatural virtue is thus an extraordinary, natural an
ordinary, gift ; the one an inspiration, the other a provi-
dential endowment.

But while these two kinds of virtue, and the ends to which
they respectively tend, diifer in the quality of good which
belongs to them, both have, according to this language, some ;
and the difference between these two states is one of higher
and lower good, and not one of good and evil. As a disci-
ple of S. Augustine, indeed, Aquinas is obliged formally to
preserve the distinction between the natural and spiritual
man as one of positive good and positive evil, and to use the
terms predestination and reprobation as involving this
difference ; to represent inclusion within the Divine decree as
salvation, exclusion from it as damnation. The pure Augus-
tinian doctrine admitted of no medium between these two
results ; which it defends on the ground of an original guilt
in the human race, which meets with its due punishment in one
of these, with a gratuitous pardon in the other. Aquinas,
then, formally adopts the Augustinian scheme, with the esta-
blished defences. But a careful observation of his language
will detect a contest between two different rationales in his
mind ; the Clementine view of human nature struggling with

1 " Creaturis autem naturalibus sic
providet ut non solum moveat eas ad
actus naturales, sed etiam largitur eis
formas et virtutes quasdam quae sunt
principia actuum. . . Multo igitur
magis illos quos movet ad consequen-

dum bonum supernaturale aeternum in-
fundit aliquas formas, seu qualitates sn~
pernaturales, secundum quas suaviter et
prompte ab ipso moveantur ad bonum
aeternum consequendum." — lma 2dae Q.
110. A, 2.

CHAP. X.J OF PREDESTINATION. 305

the Augustinian. Reprobation, maintained on one side in full
severity, is softened down on another, and identified with a
lower step in the scale of being ; and the rigid Augustinian
line of defence for the doctrine mixes with another, which
implies a reduced doctrine to be defended. We are referred,
together with an original guilt in human nature, to a prin-
ciple of variety in the constitution of things, which requires
that there should be higher and lower places in the universe,
down even to some lowest place of all, which must be occu-
pied. (( As created things," he says, " cannot attain to the
Divine simplicity, it is necessary that the Divine goodness,
which is in itself one and simple, should be represented
multiformly in them ; and the completeness of the universe
requires a difference of grades, some high and others low in it.
And on this account God permits evils to take place, lest
good should be obstructed by its own abundance, and to pre-
serve this multiformity of grades in the universe. And He
deals with the human race as He does with the universe,—
He represents His goodness with that variety which is ne-
cessary to such representation, in the shape of mercy to those
whom He spares, of punishment to those whom He reprobates.
. . . . e God willing to show His wrath, and to make His
power known, endured (z. e. permitted) with much long-
suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, that He
might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of
mercy, which He had afore prepared for glory ; ' and « in a
great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but
also of wood and earth, and some to honour and some to dis-
honour.' But why He has elected these, and reprobated
those, there is no reason but the Divine Will, as Augustine
saith, ' Why He draws this man, and not that, do not to in-
quire, if thou wouldest not err.' Just as in natural things, a
reason can be assigned, why out of uniform elemental matter
one part is put under the form of fire, and another under the
form of earth, and so on ; but why this or that part of matter is
chosen for this or that form none can be, except the arbitrary

x

306

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE

[CHAP. X.

will of the Creator : and as in the case of a building there is a
reason why some stones or other should be put in particular
places, but why these or those stones are selected to be put
in the places, none — except the arbitrary will of the builder."1
Two interpretations evidently divide this explanation and de-
fence of reprobation, one a severer, the other a milder one. It
is spoken of as positive evil, punishment on sin — vindictajus-
titice; and it is spoken of as lower good, for it is represented
as a lower grade in the scale of being — infimus locus in uni-
verso. But, according to Aquinas, evil is no part of the
universe, of which, however varied and graduated that good
may be, the whole is good ; so that a lower, or the lowest
place in it is a place of good and not of evil. And according
as reprobation is regarded in one light or the other, the
appeal in defence of it is made either to original sin or the
principle of variety in nature.

The religious philosophy of Aquinas, then, of which these
are the hints, tends simply to two different moral creations,
a higher and a lower one. The natural man is created and
has the advantages of his creation; the spiritual man is
created and has the advantages of his : and predestination
marks for a special glory, and a higher place in the universe ;
but exclusion from it does not involve positive evil or misery.
But it is remarkable that, while he systematically hints at
such a conclusion as this, in one peculiar remote and isolated
case alone does he apply it — a case outside of the general
mass of moral beings which it so deeply affects, and to which
the substantial interest of any application of it attaches — the
case of infants dying unbaptized or in original sin. Yet the
elaborate and minute care with which he examines this par-

1 " Sicut in rebus naturalibus potest
assignari ratio, cum prima materia tota
sit in se uniformis, quare una pars ejus
est sub forma ignis, et alia sub forma
terrae a Deo in principio condita, ut sic
sit divcrsitas specierum in rebus natu-
ralibus ; sed quare hsec pars materite

est sub ista forma, et ilia sub alia, de-
pendet ex simplici divina voluntate ;
sicut ex simplici voluntate artificis de-
pendet quod ille lapis est in ista parte
parietis, et ille in alia, quamvis ratio
artis habeat quod aliqui sint in liac, et
aliqui sint in ilia." — lm» Q. 23. A. 5.

CHAP. X.J OF PREDESTINATION. 307

ticular case, with a view to relieving it of the pressure which
the Augustinian doctrine, in its natural meaning, left upon
it, is deserving of attention ; as showing the strength and
firmness of the basis, which, however little built upon, was
formed in the mind of the writer for a general decision on
this subject.

Infants dying, then, in original sin. necessarily came, ac-
cording to the pure Augustinian doctrine, under the Divine
wrath which was due to that sin. Being by nature repro-
bates, and not being included within the remedial decree of
predestination, they were, in common with all the rest of
mankind who were born under this curse and were not re-
lieved by this decree, subject to the sentence of eternal
punishment ; which sentence was executed upon them. How-
ever repugnant, then, to natural reason and natural feeling,
the Augustinian schoolman could not expressly contradict
this position ; but what he could not contradict he could
explain. Augustine had laid down that the punishment of
such children was the mildest of all punishments in hell — om-
nium esse mitissimam. Taking this as the authorised definition
of the punishment of unbaptized infants, he proceeded to raise
a structure of explanation upon it. First, was the punishment
of such infants sensible punishment — sensibilis pce?ia? No;
because then it would not be mitissima, the mildest of all.
Moreover, sensible pain is a personal thing — personcsproprium,
and therefore inappropriate to a kind of sin which is not per-
sonal. Nor could any argument be drawn from the fact, that
children suffered pain in this world ; because this world was not
under the strict law of justice, as the next was. Nor did this
immunity from pain imply in their case any invasion of the
special privilege of the saints ; for they enjoyed no internal
impassibility, but only a freedom from external causes of
suffering. Did the punishment of such infants, again, involve
affliction of soul — animce afflictionem spiritualem? No;
for such affliction must arise either on account of their sin,
or of their punishment — de culpa or de pcena. But if it

x 2

308

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE

[CHAP. X,

arose on account of their sin, it would involve despair and
the worm of conscience; in which case their punishment
would not be the mildest one, and would therefore be op-
posed to the original supposition. If it arose on account of
their punishment, it would involve an opposition in their
will to the will of God; in which case, their will would
actually be deformed — actualiter deformis ; which would imply
actual sin, and so be contrary to the original supposition.

The punishment of such children, then, not being pain
either of body or mind, what is it? Aquinas answers, it is
the want of the Divine Vision, or exclusion from the sight
of God — carentia Divince visionis, qua est propria et sola
pcena originalis peccati post mortem ; which he proves by the
following argument.

Original sin, he says, is not the corruption of natural good,
but the subtraction of supernatural ; its final punishment
therefore must correspond, and be the exclusion, not from
that end to which the natural, but from that end only
to which the supernatural faculties tend. But the end of
the supernatural faculties is the Divine Vision. It is the
want, then, of this vision which is the punishment of original
sin ; not the want of any good which properly belongs to
nature. " In the other perfections and goods to which nature
tends upon her own principles, those condemned for original
sin will sustain no detriment." *

The want of the Divine Vision, however, being thus laid
clown as the punishment of unbaptized infants, an argumen-
tal obstacle arose from the quarter of the original definition.
For, according to Chrysostom, the exclusion from the sight of
God is the severest part of the punishment of the damned ;
at any rate the want of that which we wish to have cannot
be without affliction, and unbaptized infants wish to have
the sight of God — pueri vellent Divinam visionem habere ;

1 "In aliis autem perfectionibus et
bonitatibus quac naturam humanam
consequuntur ex suis principiis, nullum

detrimentum sustinebunt pro peccato
original! damnati." — In Lonib. 1. 2,
Dist. 33. Q. 2. A. 1.

CHAP. X.] OF PREDESTINATION. 309

otherwise their wills would be actually perverse. It would
therefore appear, that this want or loss would be affliction to
them; and therefore, that, if this were their punishment,
their punishment would not be the mildest of all — mitis-
sima. Nor, adds Aquinas, is it any answer to this ob-
jection to say, that this exclusion does not arise from their
own personal fault ; for immunity from blame does not
diminish, but increase the pain of punishment : or, again,
correct to say, that they are happy because they do not know
what they have lost ; for the soul freed from the burden of
the body must know whatever reason can discover — et
etiam multo plura.

The general solution, then, of this difficulty, is, that it is
no pain to any one of well-ordered mind not to have that to
which his nature is in no way proportioned, provided the
want is not owing to any personal fault of his own. A nian
regrets the disappointment of some natural want, even
though he is not to blame for it ; and the exclusion from a
good exceeding nature, if he is. But the combination of
blanielessness in himself and excess in the good protects him.
Such a case comes under the rule of Seneca, that perturbation
does not fall on the wise man for that which is unavoidable;
and children dying under original sin alone are wise — sed
in pueris recta est ratio nullo actuali peccato obliquata. They
will therefore feel no more pain under the want which
attaches to their condition, than a reasonable man does
because he cannot fly like a bird, or because he is not a king
or an emperor. Rather they will rejoice in their share of
the Divine bounty, and in the natural perfections they will
have attained.1

1 Sicut nullus sapiens homo affligitur
de hoc quod non potest volare sicut
avis, vel quia non est rex vel imperator;
cum sibi non sit debitum. . . . Si ab
hoc deficiant (qui liberum arbitrium
habent), maximus crit dolor eis quia
amittunt illud quod suum esse possibile

fuit. Pueri autem nunquam fuerunt
proportionati ad hoc, quod vitam aeter-
nam haberent, quae nee eis debebatur ex
principiis naturae, nee actus proprios
habere potuerunt : et ideo nihil omnino
dolebunt de carentia divine visionis:
immo magis gaudebunt de hoc quod

x 3

310

SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE

[CHAP. X.

It will be seen that the whole of this elaborate position
rests upon a particular interpretation of original sin ; viz.,
as a privation or loss of perfection, and not a positive evil.
Having constructed his system on the strict Augustinian
sense of original sin, Aquinas falls back on the Clementine
when he comes to an individual case ; and avails himself of
the milder theology of the early fathers. Such a position,
however, when once laid down in the case of infants dying
under original sin, evidently cannot stop short of a much
wider application. Man is the same, as regards his nature,
whether he dies as an infant or grows up to maturity ; and
therefore the whole condition of the natural man, whether
heathen or professedly Christian, is involved in this conclusion,
and may demand admission to the benefit of that explanation
which the particular case of infants has evoked. The life
which is conducted upon principles of honesty, justice, and
reason, though it be not upon that of Christian faith, — the
morality of the conscientious man of the world, — in a word,
the well ordered natural life, though below the spiritual,
may claim not to be condemned. And while the formal
theology of the Augustinian allows no interval between
the child of God and the child of the devil, the faithful
and the unbelieving, the spiritual and the carnal man, and
their respective ends, eternal happiness and eternal misery ;
a modification of the meaning of a term, in one par-
ticular case, undermines in principle this whole division;
punishment reduced from its positive to a merely negative

participabunt multum de divina boni-
tate, et perfectionibus naturalibus. —
In Lomb. A. 2.

The question came up in the disputes
at the Council of Trent, in which the
majority appear to have favoured the
position of Aquinas ; but not without
distinctions ; " For the Dominicans
said that the children dead without
baptism before the use of reason
remain after the resurrection in a limbo

and darkness under the earth, but
without fire; the Franciscans say they
are to remain upon the earth, and in
light. Some affirmed also, .that they
should be philosophers, busying them-
selves in natural things, not without
that greatest pleasure which happeneth
when curiosity is satisfied by invention."
— Paul's History of the Council of
Trent.

CHAP. X.] OF PREDESTINATION. 311

and privative sense, becomes another word for a lower
reward, and admits to a valuable and a substantial, though
not the highest, happiness, both in this life and the next,
that not inconsiderable portion of mankind who are moral
without being spiritual, well disposed without faith, and
reasonable without illumination.

It may be added, that the difficulty involved in these
considerations is one which meets us on either theory, that of
necessity or of freewill. The necessitarianism indeed of Aqui-
nas marks the natural and the spiritual life alike as creations
of God ; but however we may account for them, the natural
life and the spiritual life, in the sense in which they have
been spoken of, exist as facts in the world ; and we see these
two moral classes and types around us. Scripture speaks
indeed, speaks only of a way which leadeth to life, and a
way which leadeth to salvation ; and separates the few who
attain to eternal glory from a wicked world. But it must
be confessed that, when we look at the world around us, the
application of the truth of Scripture is not free from diffi-
culty, and that it depends much on the frame of mind which
we assume, and the point of view which we adopt, whether
society at large most aptly confirms the scriptural position,
or apparently contradicts it. In one aspect all is mixture
and balance in the world of moral life around us, — a nicely
graduated scale of human character, division gliding into
division, and shade deepening or softening into shade.
Men are such combinations of good and evil, that we hardly
know where to place them ; and a large portion of the world
seems to occupy a middle place, in opposition to the twofold
destination of mankind in Scripture to glory on the one
hand, and misery on the other. The idea of a middle state
luis thus always recommended itself more or less as a con-
jecture to human thought; and a tendency to this doctrine,
even where not formally expressed, is observable in all
ages of the Church ; nor, so long as the facts of the world
around us remain the same, will it be otherwise. In another

x 4

312 SCHOLASTIC DOCTRINE [CHAP. X.

aspect the world presents itself to our minds in harmony
with the scriptural division, as consisting of the good few
and the wicked and depraved mass ; vice, selfishness, and
corruption appearing tike general rule, to which the disin-
terestedness or genuine goodness of a select number is the
exception. The wickedness of the world is thus a recognised
maxim in the world itself; and is one of the deepest
sentiments of the human mind, whose universal judgment
one wise man of even heathen times expressed in the great
proverb.

In this state of the case it is needless to add, that the
plain statements of Scripture on this subject are to be im-
plicitly received, as containing certain and important truth.
One great division of mankind is seen there, that of good and
bad; one great distinction of eternal lot, that of heaven
and hell. It remains that those who have received this re-
velation should act accordingly, and, instead of forming con-
jectures about a middle state, live as for the highest. Those
who accept a revelation generally are bound in consistency
to accept its plain assertions in particulars; nor does this
obligation cease because difficulties may follow. Those who
accept a revelation accept in doing so a limitation to the
rights of human reason. There are great and important dif-
ferences in the Christian world as to the point at which such
limitation comes in ; but whether traditional interpretation
of Scripture, or a present infallible one, or the letter of the
Bible itself is the check, a check to private judgment is implied
in the very fact of a revelation, and is the common admission
of all who accept that revelation; who so far — and a very
important and vital measure of agreement it is — agree with
each other. But when men have accepted the check in general,
they must submit to it in the particular case. There is
no obligation indeed on any one to think any individual
either better or worse than his observation or knowledge
of his character warrants ; rather he is bound not to do so :
nor, because general statements are made in Scripture

CHAP. X.] OP PREDESTINATION. 313

are we bound to apply them, and bring particular persons
under one head or another. An impenetrable veil hides
the heart of one man from another, and we see the mani-
festation, but not the substance, of^the moral creature. In
the application, then, of the scriptural assertion all is mystery
and uncertainty; but the statement itself is clear and distinct ;
and while that dispensation of ignorance under which we
are placed, in mercy as well as discipline, relieves us from
the difficulties of the individual case, the general truth is
calculated to produce the most salutary effect upon us.

314

CHAP. XL

CONCLUSION.

IT were to be wished that that active penetration and close
and acute attention which mankind have applied to so many
subjects of knowledge, and so successfully, had been applied,
in somewhat greater proportion than it has been, to the due
apprehension of that very important article of knowledge, their
own ignorance. Not that all men have not acknowledged,
and in some sense perceived, this truth. How, indeed, could
they avoid doing so ? But over and above this general and
vague confession of ignorance, it might have been expected,
perhaps, that more would have attained, than appear to have
done, to something like an accurate or philosophical per-
ception of it; such as arises from the mind's contemplation
and examination of itself, and its own perceptions ; a
scrutiny into its own insight into truth, and a com-
parison of the different modes in which it perceives and
entertains truth ; which modes or kinds of perception widely
differ, and being with respect to some truths, distinct,
complete, and absolute, are with respect to others dim,
confused, and imperfect. To judge from the way in which
people in general express themselves on this subject of human
ignorance, they have no very accurate perception of it;
seldom going out of certain commonplace phrases and forms
of speech, — forms of speech, indeed, which mean much when
used by those who see their true meaning, but mean much
less, though still perhaps something, when used vaguely
and without attention, and because the whole thing is taken
for granted immediately, and then dismissed from the mind.
This general admission and confession of the fact, is all that
the mass of men appear to attain to on this important

CHAP. XI.] CONCLUSION. 315

question; and doubtless it is, as far as it goes, a useful and
serviceable conclusion of the mind — especially in the case of
devout persons, whose piety compensates for the want of
clearness in their ideas, and sustains in them a perpetual
practical perception of this truth, together with its natural
fruits of humility, sobriety, and resignation.

But though it is undoubtedly a matter of regret that more
should not have attained, than appear to have done, to some-
thing like an accurate and philosophical perception of their
own ignorance ; the explanation of this fact is contained in
the very statement of it, as just given. For this deeper per-
ception cannot be gained, but by those minds that have gone
through something of that process of thought, which has been
just referred to. Men must have reflected upon themselves,
and examined to a certain extent the constitution of their own
minds, their perceptions, or modes of entertaining truth, in
order to have gained it. But this internal department is not
one in which any large proportion of men take much interest ;
and a taste for this kind of inspection is perhaps rarer than
any other, — I mean as a taste seriously and regularly adopted,
and made a work of. Many indeed start with something like
a general taste or a fancy for metaphysics, which they indulge
so long as it gives them little trouble, and merely ministers to
pleasing vague sensations of depth, and love of the unknown
and indefinite ; affording a domain for dreamy and vaporous
evolutions of thought, cloudy connections, and fictitious ascents
of the intellect, — reasonings somewhat akin to what people
carry on in sleep, and pursued as a mere diversion and vent
to, rather than an exercise of, the mind. But the taste is
given up as soon as they have to examine facts, to fasten
their ideas upon real things, — real truths within the actual
mind, — for the purpose of apprehension and knowledge.
This internal field of examination, I say, is not to the taste
of any large proportion of minds; because it requires a
more patient sort of attention, a more enduring and passive
attitude of the whole mind, than is ordinarily congenial to

316 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XT

the human temper. The act necessary here is an act of
simple internal observation, which, while it is a very difficult
one in this particular department, owing to the obscurity
and subtlety of its subject matter, is at the same time a
quiet one; for quiet is essential to secure correctness of
observation in metaphysics as in nature. But this com-
bination is a distasteful one to. most minds. In life, prac-
tical or intellectual, the general compensation for difficulty
is the pleasure of action; for passiveness, that of repose.
The energetic man delights in obstacles which summon
forth all his powers and put them into active operation ;
the labour is forgotten in the satisfaction of exertion, and
the legitimate play and excitement of the whole system
carry off the task, and convert it into a pleasure. The
natural activity of the human mind, again, so opposed to the
passive attitude ordinarily, puts up with it at certain intervals,
for the sake of rest, and enjoys it. But difficulty with pas-
siveness, is uncongenial. We want always, when we are at
work, to feel ourselves in progress, in action, advancing step
after step ; and the attitude of standing still in thought, though
it be for an important result, though it be consciously only
a waiting in readiness to catch some idea when it may turn
up, is, for the time that it is such a waiting, and previous to
its reward, a painful void and hollowness of the mind. But
such is the attitude which is required for true analytical
thought, or the mind's examination of itself. For the
ideas which are the contents of that inward world, wandering
in and out of darkness, emerging for an instant and then lost
again, and carried about to and fro in the vast obscure, are
too subtle and elusive to be subject matter of regular and
active pursuit ; but must be waited and watched for, with
strength suspended and sustained in readiness to catch and
fasten on them when they come within reach ; but the exer-
tion being that of suspended and sustained, rather than of
active and employed, strength. And if this line of thought
in general is opposed to the tastes of the mass, so that even

CHAP. XI.] CONCLUSION. 317

a moderate degree of application to it is too much for
them, and even that lower insight into this department of
truth, which minds of average ability may gain, is a part of
knowledge into which they are not admitted, — by what a
wide and immeasurable interval are they separated from the
great analytical minds which have appeared in the world,
who, with unwearied patience and keen exertion of the intel-
lectual eye, have caught sharp glimpses of the great ideas and
processes of the human reason, — quick and momentary sights,
which, impressed by their vividness upon the memory, and
thence transferred to paper, have enabled them in a certain
sense to bring the human mind to light, to mark its main
outlines, and distinguish its different perceptions or ideas ; by
which genuine and authentic originals they have then tested
current popular and second-hand truths.

This, then, is the reason why more have not attained than
have to an accurate perception of their own ignorance as
human creatures. For this correcter and truer perception
of ignorance is the correlative of a correcter and truer
knowledge. Of the human mind there is a luminous and
there is a dark side. The luminous side is that on which
it clearly perceives and apprehends truths, either by simple
apprehension, or by demonstrative reasoning : the dark side
is that on which it does not perceive in either of these two
ways ; but either does not see at all, and has a blank before
it, or has only an incipient and indistinct sight, not amount-
ing to perception or apprehension.1 In proportion, then,
to the acuteness with which the mind perceives truth, either
by apprehension or by demonstration, on its luminous side,
in that proportion it sees the defect of perception on its
dark side. The clearness of knowledge, where it is had,
reveals and exposes by the contrast its absence, where it
is not had ; and the transition from light heightens the

See Chapter II.

318 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XT.

obscurity. Each successive step of demonstrative reasoning,
by which a problem in mathematics is proved, from the
first up to the conclusion, is accomplished by means of a
certain light contained within it — an overpowering light,
to which the mind succumbs, unable to resist its penetrating
force, but pierced through by it, as by lightning. Even
that elementary and primary piece of demonstrative rea-
soning which is called an axiom, — that first inference or
extraction of one truth from another, which, in the depart-
ment of demonstration, we are called upon to make, — is
accomplished by means of such a vivid and penetrating light
contained within it ; so that the perception of the simplest
axiom, where such perception is a true and not a formal
one, is, by reason of this perfection of light in it, an illumina-
tion for the time of the whole intellect, and may be regarded
as a kind of natural inspiration, answering to passion or
emotion in moral life. In proportion, then, to the keenness
with which this process goes on, is the reaction from it ;
after the clearness of sight the change is all the greater
to its dimness and indistinctness ; and the reason turning,
while full of penetrating light from one side, upon the
darkness of the other, receives, as it were, a shock, by the
violence of the contrast. The difference between seeing
truth and not seeing it, between knowledge and ignorance,
is felt in a degree and manner in which those who have
not attained such sight or knowledge, cannot feel it.
The analytical class of intellects that, not satisfied with
the vague first- sight impressions and notions of things,
follow them up to that ultimate point at which they are
plainly seen to be either true or false,— that draw the
contents of the mind from their obscurity to the test of
an actual examination, — that see clearly the truth they
do see, whether as simply apprehended, or as extracted from
other truth; — these minds, in proportion to the keenness
with which they are conscious of perceiving truth, when
they do perceive it, know that they have got hold of it, and

CHAP. XI.] CONCLUSION. 319

that no power can wrest it from them, — in proportion, i.e. to
the measure in which, in the department of knowledge,
they are filled with the light of clear apprehension or
demonstrative reasoning, — see the distinction between this
mode of perception and that which awaits them when
they leave the scientific ground, and turn from the truths
of knowledge to those of faith and of religion. They see,
in consequence of their appreciation of final truth, so much
the more clearly the defect of that which is not final ;
and that which has come to a point contrasts the more
strongly, with that which comes to none, but which
vanishes and is gone before it reaches a conclusion; ever
beginning, ever tending to some goal, but never attaining
it ; stopping short, as it does, at its very starting, and,
in the very act of progress, absorbed in the atmosphere
of obscurity, which limits our mental view. Then, under
the influence of such a contrast, it is, that, the reason pauses,
stops to consider, to reflect, and then says to itself — this is
ignorance.

And these considerations, while they serve to explain
why more have not attained to an accurate knowledge of
their own ignorance, as human creatures, than appear to
have done, serve, also, to temper our regret at such a
deficiency ; for it must be seen, on the bare description of
such a deep and peculiar perception of ignorance as I am
now referring to, that it is a state of mind not unattended by
danger. No perception of ignorance, indeed, however strong,
can be charged with an} legitimate tendency to produce
unbelief; for it does not follow that, because we see some
truths clearly and others obscurely, some finally and others in-
completely and but in commencement, that therefore we may
not hold these latter truths so far, however little way that
may be, as we do perceive them, and accept and use them in
that sense and manner in which we find our minds able to
entertain them. And thus the truths of natural and revealed
religion, incomprehensible as they are, are proper subject

320 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XI.

matter of belief. Our minds are constituted in such a way,
as that we can entertain this class of truths, which are not
subject matter of knowledge, and yet fall under some indis-
tinct sort of perception, which we feel properly to belong to
us. To reject them, then, because they are seen imperfectly
and obscurely, and because we have the light of clear ap-
prehension and demonstration in one department, to claim
it, and be content with nothing else in another, would be
simply unreasonable. The deeper sense of ignorance, then,
has no legitimate tendency to lessen belief in the truths
of natural and revealed religion: more than this, it has
legitimately even a direct tendency to strengthen it ; because
the sense of ignorance tends properly to produce humility,
to subdue, chasten, and temper the mind. The natural
result of seeing how poor and imperfect creatures we are,
and how small and limited our capacities, is to lower our
idea of ourselves, and so to put us into a frame, in which we
are the more ready to accept and use whatever measure and
kind of truth we may possess in this department. But it
must also, on the other side, be admitted, that there is a
natural tendency, in such a strong contrast as that which has
been described, to overwhelm that class of truths which has
the disadvantage in it ; and that minds which turn, full of
the clear light of apprehension and reasoning, upon the
obscurity of the truths of faith, will be apt to suppose that
they see nothing because they do not see clearly, and that
they have a simple blank before them. And the natural
impatience of the human temper will much aid such a con-
clusion ; for men are apt to see everything in extremes, and
when they have less than what they want, are instantly
inclined to think that they have nothing. In this temper,
then, men set down the ideas belonging to religion, as not
only indistinct, but as no ideas at all, but mere void ; and
urge that persons are under a mistake in supposing that they
have anything really in their minds when they profess to
entertain these truths, — not having, as it is asserted, any

CHAP. XL] CONCLUSION. 321

idea of them. In this way, then, the deeper perception of
ignorance tends to lessen belief in the truths of religion;
inclining persons to set them aside altogether as truths from
which our understandings are entirely separated by an im-
passable barrier, and with which, therefore, as lying wholly
outside of us, we have no concern.1

Such being, then, the two arguments from human ignorance,
the two modes of using and applying the fact, the question
is, supposing the mass of men had that distinct and clear
perception of their ignorance which analytical minds acquire,
how would they use it ? would they use it for the purpose
of deepening their humility, chastising their curiosity, sub-
duing their impatience ? would they frame themselves upon
a pattern of intellectual submission and be grateful for such
a measure of insight into religious truths as God had given
them ? or would they use and apply it in the other way, and,
struck simply by the force of the contrast between their
knowledge in one department and their ignorance in another,
draw from it the impatient inference, that because they did
not see these truths clearly, they did not see them at all,
and were rationally disconnected with them ? It is to
be feared that the natural impatience of the human mind
would, in the majority of instances, lean to the latter infer-
ence. It is indeed true, and it is a cheering and consolatory
fact, that we see a broad division among the great analytical
minds on this head ; and that while some have drawn the
argument for unbelief from the fact of human ignorance,
others have drawn from it the argument for faith ; that to
Hume and Hobbes on the one side we may oppose Butler and
Pascal on the other. But could we expect that the gene-
rality of men would exert that intellectual self-discipline
which these devout and reverential minds did? Would
not natural impatience rather prevail, and the more imme-

1 This appears to have been Hume's state of mind with respect to religious
truths.

322 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XT.

diate and obvious effect of a contrast be yielded to ? And
if so, are not the generality of men spared a severe trial,
with probably an unfavourable issue, in not having in the
first instance this deeper sense of ignorance at all ? Is not
their ignorance veiled in mercy from them by a kind Pro-
vidence ; so that, with respect to these truths, they go on for
their whole lives, thinking they know a great deal more than
they do? Nor does this apply to the uninstructed and
uncultivated part of mankind only, but perhaps even more
strongly to the learned and controversial class. For, cer-
tainly, to hear the way in which some of this class argue,
and draw inferences from the incomprehensible truths of
revelation, carrying them, as they say, into their consequences
and logical results, upon which, however remote and far-
fetched, they yet insist, as if they were of the very substance
of the primary truth itself; — to judge, I say, from the long
and fine trains of inferences drawn by some theologians from
mysterious doctrines, — endless distinctions spun one out of
the other in succession, and issuing in subtleties which baffle
all comprehension, and are, in short, mere words and nothing
more, but for which, so long as at each successive step there
has been an inference (or something which to the contro-
versially wound-up intellect or fancy at the time appeared
such), — these persons claim the most absolute deference; as
if some subtlest conception of the argumentative brain, some
needle's point so inconceivably minute, that not one man in
ten thousand could even see it once if he tried for his whole
life, were of the very foundation of the faith ; — : to judge, I say,
from such a mode of arguing from religious truths, one
cannot avoid two reflections ; one, that such persons do not
know their own ignorance; the other, that it is probably
a mercy to them that they do not. They do not know their
own ignorance with respect to these truths ; for if they
did, they would see that such incomprehensible truths were
not known premisses, and could not be argued upon as such,
or made foundation of unlimited inference : and that they do

CHAP. XI.] CONCLUSION. 323

not know it is probably a mercy to them ; for the very same
hasty and audacious temper of the intellect which leads them
to build so much upon assumptions, the nature of which they
have never examined, would, had they examined it, and so ar-
rived at a real perception of their unknown nature, have in-
clined them to reject such truths. Thus, in compassion to
the infirmity of man, a merciful Providence hides his igno-
rance from him ; and by a kind deceit, such as parents use to
their children, allows him to suppose that he knows what
he does not know. He is thus saved from unbelief, and only
falls into a well-meaning, though foolish and presumptuous,
dogmatism.

And now, to bring these remarks to bear on the subject
of this treatise, the question of Divine grace is a question
of Divine Power. Grace is power. That power whereby
God works in nature is called power. That power whereby
He works in the wills of His reasonable creatures is called

With respect, then, to the attribute of the Divine Power,
S. Augustine and his school took up, in the first instance, a
hasty and ill-considered position, which, once adopted, com-
mitted them to extreme and repulsive results. And the
reason of their adopting such a position was, that they were
insufficiently acquainted with the limits of human reason.
For it must be evident to any person of reflection, that a
want of discernment on this subject is not only an error in
itself, but can hardly fail to be the source of other errors ;
because persons who entertain a certain idea with respect to
their knowledge, naturally proceed to act upon it and to
make assertions ; and it must be a chance whether assertions
made under such circumstances are correct. I would not be
understood, however, to cast any blame upon these writers.
The limits of human reason are not easy to discern. It is
not easy, as I have said, to judge our own pretensions, and
distinguish between one part and another of that whole body
of ideas and assumptions which we find within our minds.

Y 2

324 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XT.

Some philosophers have settled the question summarily, by
saying that we know nothing; others have extended the
range of human knowledge indefinitely, and given it a right
to decide upon the possibilities of things, and to judge the
scheme of Providence. To draw the mean between these two
extremes is the work of an acute and original judgment, and
requires a peculiar constitution of mind. The tendency of
even deep and able minds generally is so immediately to fas-
ten on any assumption, especially any one relating to divine
things, which appears at first sight a natural one to them,
that their very power becomes a snare, and before they have
reflected upon an idea they are committed to it ; so that to
return to the preliminary question of its truth would be in
the highest degree difficult to them, as being so offensive to
an already formed bias. Indeed, some minds of great pre-
tensions appear to labour under a moral inability in this
respect; their intellect, strong in pursuing an idea, is so
utterly unable to stop itself for the purpose of judgment,
that in reference to that particular function it may be said
to have almost the imperfection of a mere instinct, rather
than to operate as the true faculty of reason* This mixture
of singular weakness with singular power it is which makes
the task of estimating authorities so difficult; opinions of
the greatest value on details and collateral points being
sometimes of the very least on fundamental questions, or
those concerned with the soundness or unsoundness of original
assumptions. Yet assumptions and particular dicta, laid down
in the first instance by minds of this latter class, have had
great weight and a long reign in the world ; one writer taking
them up after another ; till some person of original powers
of judgment has risen up who, on comparing an assertion
carefully with his own knowledge, has discovered a want of
connection between the two. He has not seen such truth
included within that field of apprehended truth, set out and
divided from that of conjecture, in his mind; and this
negative discovery once made, has, like other discoveries,
approved itself to the world, people seeing it when it was

CHAP. XI.] CONCLUSION. 325

pointed out to them. Such a judgment passed upon any
important set of assumptions is a discovery in philosophy ;
and in this respect modern philosophy has improved much
upon the ancient. It has given us an acquaintance with the
limits of human reason which we had not before, and has
enabled us to distinguish more accurately what we know
from what we do not know, what we can say from what we
cannot, on some important questions ; it has tested the
correctness of many important assumptions : but it does not
follow that those are particularly to blame who wrote before
such improvement in the acquaintance with the limits of
human reason took place.

On this definite basis, then, and with the great disadvantage
of a less accurate knowledge of the limits of human reason
than has been attained in more recent times, S. Augustine
and his school proceeded to the general question of the Divine
Omnipotence. And they commenced with an assumption,
which no modern philosopher would allow, that the Divine
Power must be an absolutely unlimited thing. That the
Divine Power is not liable to any foreign control is a
principle which every one must admit who believes properly
in a Deity ; but that there is no intrinsic limit to it in the
possibilities of things would not be admitted, in the present
state of philosophy, in which this whole subject is properly
understood to be out of the range of human reason. The
Divine Omnipotence must be admitted practically and in
every sense which can be wanted for the purpose of religion ;
but we have not faculties for speculation upon its real nature.
These writers, however, insisted on an unlimited omnipotence,
arguing logically upon the simple word or abstract idea, that
if omnipotence was limited, it was not omnipotence. And
upon this assumption they went on to assert that God could,
had He pleased, have created a better universe than He has ;
a universe without evil and without sin ; and that, sin
existing in the world, He could by His simple power have
removed it, and have changed the wills of all wicked men

Y 3

326 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XI.

from evil to good. Upon such an idea of the Divine Power,
these writers were indeed somewhat perplexed for an
answer to the objection which naturally arose to the Divine
Goodness. A limit supposed to the possibilities of things
is indeed an impregnable defence to the theologian on this
question ; for no one can be blamed for not doing that which
is impossible. But if this limit is not allowed, and if God
could have created a universe with all the advantages of the
present one and none of its evils, and if, when moral evil
had begun, He could have removed it ; it is certainly very
difficult to answer the question why He did not ; for we
necessarily attribute consummate benevolence to the Deity.
The explanation of such a difficulty on the principle of variety,
that evil and good together, with their respective reward and
punishment, redound to the glory of God more than good
alone of itself would do, is futile and puerile. Variety is
cceteris paribus an advantage ; and we praise God's natural
creation, not only because it is good, but because that good
is various. Nor would it be reasonable to object to different
degrees of good in the created universe ; to complain because
the earth was not as beautiful all over as it is at its most
beautiful part, or because all the birds of the air have not the
colours of the tropical birds; or even, in moral life, because
all have not the same moral capabilities or power of attaining
the same goodness. But when it comes to a comparison,
not of like good with varied, or of higher good with lower,
but of good with evil, the case is very different.

Upon this abstract idea, then, of the Divine Power, as an
unlimited power, rose up the Augustinian doctrine of Pre-
destination and grace ; while upon the abstract idea of free-
will, as an unlimited faculty, rose up the Pelagian theory.
Had men perceived, indeed, more clearly and really than they
have done, their ignorance as human creatures, and the rela-
tion in which the human reason stands to the great truths
involved in this question, they might have saved themselves
the trouble of this whole controversy. They would have

CHAP. XI.] CONCLUSION. 327

seen that this question cannot be determined absolutely, one
way or another ; that it lies between two great contradictory
truths, neither of which can be set aside, or made to give
way to the other ; two opposing tendencies of thought, inherent
in the human mind, which go on side by side, and are able
to be held and maintained together, although thus opposite to
each other, because they are only incipient, and not final and
complete truths ; — the great truths, I mean, of the Divine
Power on the one side, and man's freewill, or his originality
as an agent, on the other. And this is, in fact, the mode in
which this question is settled by the practical common sense
of mankind. For what do the common phrases employed in
ordinary conversation and writing upon this question — the
popular and received modes of deciding it, whenever it in-
cidentally turns up — amount to but this solution ? Such
phrases, I mean, as that we must hold man's freewill together
with God's foreknowledge and predestination, although we do
not see how they agree; and other like formulas ? Such forms of
language for deciding the question evidently proceed upon the
acknowledgment of two contradictory truths on this subject,
which can not be reconciled, but must be held together in in-
consistency. They imply that the doctrine of predestination
and the doctrine of freewill are both true, and that one who
would hold the truth must hold both. The plain natural reason
of mankind is thus always large and comprehensive; not afraid
of inconsistency, but admitting all truth which presents itself
to its notice. It is only when minds begin to philosophise
that they grow narrow, — that there begins to be felt the
appeal to consistency, and with it the temptation to exclude
truths. Then begins the pride of argument, the ingenuity
of construction, the " carrying out " of ideas and principles
into successive consequences ; which, as they become more
and more remote, and leave the original truth at a distance,
also carry the mind of the reasoner himself away from the
first and natural aspect of that truth, as imperfect and partial,
to an artificial aspect of it as whole and exclusive. While the

Y 4

328 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XI.

judgment, however, of man's plain and natural reason on this
question is a comprehensive one, men have, on this as on
other subjects, left the ground of plain and simple reason for
argument and philosophy ; and in this stage of things they
have adopted man's freewill or the Divine Power as favourite
and exclusive truths, and have erected systems upon them.
The Pelagian and Augustinian systems are thus both at
fault, as arising upon narrow, partial, and exclusive bases.
But while both systems are at fault, they are at fault in very
different degrees and manners ; and while the Augustinian
is only guilty of an excess in carrying out certain religious
ideas, the Pelagian offends against the first principles of re-
ligion, and places itself outside of the great religious ideas
and instincts of the human race.

I. The predestinarian is at fault in assuming either the
Divine Power, or original sin, as singly and of itself a legiti-
mate basis of a system, — in not allowing side by side with these
premisses a counter premiss of freewill and original power
of choice. While he properly regards the created will as
an effect, he is wrong in not also regarding it as a first
cause in nature. But while this is a decided error, and an
error which has dangerous moral tendencies when adopted
by undisciplined minds, it is not in itself an offence against
morals or piety. The predestinarian, while he insists on
the will's determination from without, still allows a will ;
he does not regard man as an inanimate machine, but as a
living, willing, and choosing creature. And as he admits a
will, he assigns in every respect the same moral nature to
man that his opponent does ; he imposes the same moral
obligations, the same duty to God and our neighbours ; he
inculcates the same affections, he maintains exactly the
same standard in morals and religion that his opponent
maintains. It is true his theory, as taken up by the careless
unthinking mass, tends to immorality ; for the mass will
not see distinctions, and confound the predestination of the

CHAP. XI.] CONCLUSION. 329

individual, as holy and virtuous, with the predestination of
the individual as such, to eternal life ; and because the end
is assured, suppose it to be assured without the necessary
means and qualifications for it. And such a practical ten-
dency in the doctrine, however justly it may be charged to
a misapprehension and mistake in some who adopt it, is
still a reflexion upon the doctrine itself; showing how truth
cannot be tampered with without bad practical effects ; and
that exclusive and one-sided theories are a stumbling block
to ordinary minds, tending to confuse their reason and
moral perceptions. Still, regarding the error of the predes-
tinarian apart from those consequences which it tends
practically to produce in the minds of the vulgar, but which
are not legitimately deducible from it, it cannot perhaps be
called much more than a metaphysical mistake, — an over-
looking of a truth in human nature ; a truth indistinctly
perceived indeed, but still perceived in that sense and mode
in which many other recognised truths are perceived. The
predestinarian passes over the incomplete perception we
have of our originality as agents, because his mind is preoc-
cupied with a rival truth. But this cannot in itself be called
an offence against piety : rather it is occasioned by a well-
intended though excessive regard to a great maxim of piety.
He is unreasonably jealous for the Divine Attribute, and
afraid that any original power assigned to man will endanger
the Divine. He thus allows the will of man no original
part in good action, but throws all goodness back upon the
Deity, as the sole Source and Creator of it, forming and
fashioning the human soul as the potter moulds the clay. It
may be said, indeed, that his doctrine, in attributing injustice
to the Deity, is inconsistent with piety : but he does not at-
tribute injustice to the Deity ; but only a mode of acting,
which, as conceived and understood by us, is unjust ; or which
we cannot explain in consistency with justice.

II. Pelagianism, on the other hand, offends against the

330 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XI.

first principles of piety, and opposes the great religious
instincts and ideas of mankind. It first tampers with the
sense of sin. The sense of sin as actually entertained by
the human mind ; that sense of it which we perceive, observe,
and are conscious of, as a great religious fact — a part of
our moral nature whenever sufficiently enlightened — is
not a simple, but a mysterious and a complex sense ; not
confined to positive action, as the occasion of it, but going
further back and attaching itself to desire; nor attaching
itself to desire only as the effect of free choice, but to
desire as in some sense necessary in us, belonging to our
present condition as human beings, and such as we cannot
imagine ourselves, in our present state, in some degree or other
not having. Mankind know and feel that sin is necessary
in this world, and cannot be avoided ; yet simultaneously
with this sense of its necessity they mourn over it, and
feel themselves blameworthy. A sense of such a peculiar
kind as this, of moral evil, is indeed mysterious and in-
comprehensible, but it is a fact ; it is a part of a whole nature
which cannot be explained, made up as it is of apparent
inconsistencies and contradictions. But the Pelagian would
only allow so much of this whole sense of sin in human
nature as he could rationally and intelligibly account for:
he could understand voluntary but not necessary sin, how
man's acts, but not how his nature should humble him. He
therefore rejected the doctrine of original sin. And as he tam-
pered with the sense of moral evil, so he rejected the sense of
moral weakness. He could not understand that discord and
opposition in the will which the Apostle expresses in the text,
" To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is
good I know not ; for the good that I would I do not, but the
evil which I would not that I do;" and he therefore thrust it
aside for a mere abstract conception of freewill, pronounced
man to have a power of doing anything to which there
was no physical hindrance, and placed an absolute origin
and source of good in human nature. The principle of

CHAP. XI.] CONCLUSION. 331

humility in human nature which leads it to eject the
source of good from itself, and place it wholly in God,
was thus disowned ; and with it the earnest craving of
human nature for an atonement for sin : for if mankind
had the power to avoid sin, and if some, as he maintained,
had actually lived without it, mankind did not in their
corporate capacity want a Saviour; and the sense of this
vital need did not belong to human nature.

And in disowning these doctrines the Pelagian at the
same time opposed himself to facts. The doctrine of the
Fall, the doctrine of Grace, and the doctrine of the Atone-
ment are grounded in the instincts of mankind. It is true
we receive these truths by revelation, and should not other-
wise have possessed them in anything like the fulness in
which we do. But when revealed they are seen to lie deep
in the human conscience. The doctrine of original sin
lies deep in the human heart, which has never truly and
earnestly perceived its guilt at all, without coupling with it
the idea of a mysterious alloy and taint antecedent to action,
and coeval with its own life. And in like manner man has
in all ages craved an atonement for sin; he has always
ejected the source of good from himself, and referred it
to God. These are religious feelings and instincts belonging
to human nature, and which can never be eradicated so long
as that nature remains itself. The Pelagian, then, in rejecting
these doctrines, opposed himself to facts ; he separated him-
self from that whole actual body of sentiment, instinct, and
feeling which constitutes the religious life of mankind, and
placed himself outside of human nature. • A true system of
religion must represent these facts; these large, these deep,
these powerful, these penetrating, and marvellous instincts:
and it is the glory of Catholic Christianity that it does this,
that it expounds faithfully the creed of the human heart, that
nothing in human nature is left unrepresented in it; but
that in its vast and intricate fabric of doctrine is reflected,
as in a mirror, every vague perception of our nature, every

332 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XI.

inexplicable fear and desire, grief and joy; every internal
discord, unfinished thought, beginning of unknown truth ; all
that in the religious conscience, will, and affections can or can-
not be understood. But the Pelagian discarded the religion
of human nature and of fact, for an idea of his own mind ;
because his own idea was simple and intelligible, and the
religion of human nature was mysterious and complex ; as
if, when facts were mysterious, it were anything in favour
of the truth of a religion that it was not. Rather as if
such an absence of mystery did not prove that the system
was a fiction and a fancy ; the artificial production of human
thought, instead of a true revelation from the Author of
nature, who makes all things double one of another, and
who adapts His revelations to that human nature which
He has made. Nature and revelation, as having the same
source, are both expressions of the same truth, and must
correspond with each other. If a religion is true, then,
it must harmonise with that whole complex and intricate
body of feelings and ideas, of which human nature is really
and actually composed. The Pelagian, then, or — to take
the stronger instance — the Socinian, may appeal to the
simplicity and plainness of his system, that it contains no ob-
scure and incomplete, no discordant and irreconcilable ideas ;
but if he does, he boasts of a religion which is self-convicted
of falsehood and delusion, and is proved on its own showing
to be a dream. Such a religion may satisfy a mind that
has thought out a belief for itself, and has allowed a parti-
cular line of thought to lead it out of the great circle of
human feelings and instincts, but it cannot satisfy the
natural wants of the human heart ; it may please and amuse
in comfort and tranquillity, but it will not support in
distress; it may be argued for, but it cannot be loved;
and it may be the creed of a philosopher, but it is not the
religion of man.

In this state of the case the Church has made a wise

CHAP. XL] CONCLUSION. 333

and just distinction, in its treatment of the respective
errors of the Pelagian and the predestinarian ; and while it
has cast Pelagianism out of its communion, as a system
fundamentally opposed to Christian belief, it has tole-
rated predestinarianism ; regarding it as a system which
only carries some religious ideas to an excess, and does not
err in principle, or offend against piety or morals. The
seventeenth article of our Church has accordingly allowed a
place for a predestinarian school among ourselves ; and such
a school has long existed, and still exists among us. This
article indeed admits of two interpretations, and may be held
and subscribed to in two ways, one suiting the believer in
freewill, the other the predestinarian. It may be held as
containing one side of the whole truth respecting grace
and freewill — the side, viz. of grace or the Divine Power ;
but not at all as interfering with any one's belief in a counter
truth of man's freewill and originality as an agent. And in
this sense it only excludes a Pelagian, and not such as are
content to hold a mystery on this subject, and maintain the
Divine Power in conjunction with man's freewill. Or, again,
this article may be held as containing a complete and whole
truth; i. e. in a definitely predestinarian sense. But as it
would be unfair in the predestinarian to prohibit the qua-
lified, so it would be unfair in the advocate of freewill not
to allow the extreme mode of holding this article, or to
disallow it as permitting and giving room for a pure pre-
destinarian school within our Church. This wise and just
liberty has indeed at times offended those whom the excesses
of this school have roused to hostility, or whom insufficient
reflection and the philosophical bias of the day have made
too exclusive and dogmatic in their opinions concerning
freewill ; and at the close of the last century a proposal was
made by a Divine who became afterwards a distinguished
prelate of our Church, to ecclesiastical authority, that
the terms of the seventeenth article should be altered and

334

CONCLUSION.

[CHAP. XI.

so framed as to give no further licence to predestinarianism.1
But a wise caution, if not a profound theology, in the rulers
of the Church at that time rejected it. And this liberty
still remains a great advantage to the Church, and a signal
proof at once of judgment and discretion, and of a correct
and enlarged theology. It would indeed have been a fatal
mistake to have excluded from our pale an aspect of Christian
truth, which simply erred in a pardonable obliquity, such as
is incident to minds of the highest order, to the strongest
intellect, to the deepest devotion. Such an exclusion would
have shown also great ignorance of antiquity and the his-
tory of Christian doctrine ; for, without attaching^ more than
undue importance to a single name, it will be allowed perhaps
that what S.Augustine held is at any rate a tolerable opinion,
and no sufficient ground for separation either from the commu-
nion or the ministry of the Church. He is, however, only the
first of a succession of authorities that from his own age to the
present have maintained and taught predestinarianism within
the Church. Such a proposal with respect to the seventeenth
article, from the person who made it, only shows how apt

1 About this time a circumstance
occurred, which then excited con-
siderable interest, and in which the
part that Dr. Porteous took has been
much misinterpreted and misunder-
stood. The following statement in
his own words will place the fact in its
true point of view : " At the close of
the year 1772, and the beginning of
the next, an attempt was made by
myself, and a few other clergymen,
among whom were Mr. Francis Wol-
laston, Dr. Percy, now Bishop of Dro-
more, and Dr. Torke, now Bishop of
Ely, to induce the bishops to promote
a review of the Liturgy and Articles ;
in order to amend in both, but parti-
cularly in the latter, those parts which
all reasonable persons agreed stood in need
of amendment. This plan was meant
to strengthen and confirm the eccle-
siastical establishment ; to repel the
attacks which were at that time con-
tinually made upon it by its avowed
enemies ; to render the 1 7th Article

on Predestination and Election more
clear and perspicuous, and less liable
to be wrested by our adversaries to
a Calvinistic sense, which has been

so unjustly affixed to it On

these grounds we applied in a private
and respectful manner to Archbishop
Cornwallis, requesting him to signify our
wishes (which we conceived to be the
wishes of a very large proportion, both
of the clergy and laity) to the rest of
the bishops, that everything might be
done which could be prudently and
safely done, to promote these important
and salutary purposes."

" The answer given by the Arch-
bishop, February 11. 1773, was in these
words : ' I have consulted severally my
brethren the bishops, and it is the
opinion of the Bench in general, that
nothing can in prudence be done in
the matter which has been submitted
to our consideration.' " — Works of Bishop
Porteous, vol. i. p. 38.

CHAP. XL] CONCLUSION. 335

minds are to be confined to the prevailing notions of their day,
and to suppose that there is no room for any other truth than
what happens to have been familiar to themselves. And it
should operate as a warning against similar attempts, showing,
as it does, what great mistakes may be made when we trust
too confidently one apparent truth ; forgetting how much it
might be modified, were we in possession of the whole system
to which it belongs ; and how easily we may be ignorant and
uninformed upon those further points upon which this modi-
fication would follow.

The formularies of our own Church, following Catholic
precedent, accordingly allow predestinarianism ; and this is
the decision of common sense and common reason on this
subject. For, so long as a man thinks nothing which is in-
consistent with piety, what great difference can it make,
provided his actions are good, on what particular rationale
of causation he supposes them to be done? whether v he
thinks them done wholly by Divine grace, or partly by
an original motion of his own will coinciding with grace ?
The latter is the more large and reasonable view; but
whichever of the two opinions he adopts, if he only does his
duty, that is the great thing. The object for which this
present life is given us, is not philosophy and reasoning,
and the arrival at speculative truth respecting even our
own wills, and how they are moved ; but it is self-discipline
and moral action, growth in piety and virtue. So long as
this practical object is attained, mistakes of mere speculation
may well be passed over. Those who give these mistakes
a practical direction, indeed, and from thinking erroneously
proceed to act viciously, are responsible for such an appli-
cation of a speculative tenet; but those who do not so
apply it, are not so responsible. Numbers of pious and
earnest Christians who have laboured for the welfare and
salvation of their brethren, enduring thankfully fatigue and
pain, and despising the riches and honours of the world,
have thought that they did all this by an irresistible Divine

336 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XT.

influence in consequence of which they could not act other-
wise than they did. And what if they did think so ? They
took a one-sided view ; but if we wait till men are per-
fectly fair, clear, and large in their judgment before we ac-
knowledge them as brethren, in the case of the great
majority of mankind we may wait for ever.

Such is the imperfection even of the human mind,
that, under Providence, a certain narrowness of judgment
often works for good, and seems to favour practical energy
and zeal. How universal is that disposition in men of
religious ardour, enthusiasm, and activity, to over-value
some one or two particular tenets, which are either true,
or which they suppose to be true ; appearing to think
almost more about them than they do about the whole of
the rest of their religious creed, containing all the broad
and fundamental truths of the religion they profess I How
do they cherish and foster this tendency in their minds, as
if it were the most sacred and highest characteristic of their
religious life! How do they idolise these special tenets,
as if to part with them were to bid farewell altogether to
piety and religion I And doubtless in their particular case
this even might be the result. For if minds have accustomed
themselves to cling with this exclusive force to particular
points, and identify religion as a whole with them, who
can tell the effect of the revulsion which would take place,
could they be brought to doubt the truth of these ? For
men go from one extreme to another, and from reposing
the most absolute faith upon articles resting on small
evidence, rush into disbelief of those which rest upon the
strongest. And if so, who would in all cases wish to try
the experiment of a change ? Who but a philosopher with-
out knowledge of mankind would, for the chance of a possible
advantage, endeavour in all cases to disturb even a cherished
error of the minor and pardonable class ? As if minor
errors were not sometimes even a safeguard against greater
ones ; and as if an obstinate propensity of the human mind,

CHAP. XL] CONCLUSION. 337

checked in one direction, would not run out in another ; like
a stream which, if you dam it up in one part, breaks its
bank elsewhere, and perhaps floods a whole district. Nor
is this propensity to over-estimate particular truths or sup-
posed truths confined to any one communion : the Roman
Catholic and the Protestant shows it alike ; most sects and
divisions of the Christian world have their favourite tenets,
which individuals identify with religion as a whole, and
associate intimately and fundamentally with their whole
Christian prospects, as if their spiritual life and sanctification
were essentially bound up with them. They seem to see
in such special tenets the source of all their strength, their
stay, encouragement, and consolation.

The history of the human mind, I say, shows this great
imperfection in it, that it is so much more able to appreciate
smaller and particular truths, real or supposed, than larger
and fundamental ones. There is in the first place an ad-
vantage in this respect, belonging to the former, in the very
circumstance that they are smaller; they are more easily
grasped, and the whole heart embraces them, and winds itself
about them more completely. There is in the next place the
stimulus of rivalry and contradiction, which surrounds a pecu-
liar and distinctive, and as such, an opposed tenet, with a halo
of its own, and invests it with an interest which does not attach
to undisputed truths. The broad doctrines of revelation are
defective in this appeal to our interest, because they are so
broad ; and truths which all hold are thought little of com-
paratively, because all hold them. What merit is there in
believing what everybody else believes ? We are thrown in
the case of such truths upon the intrinsic gravity and import-
ance of the truths themselves, to the exclusion of that ad-
ventitious interest which accrues from the really irrelevant
and impertinent consideration of who hold them, — that we
maintain and accept them in distinction to others who do
not. Men thus glory in a privilege while they pass over
coldly and slightingly a common benefit. In the case of the

338 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XI.

distinctive tenet they feel themselves champions; the be-
frienders of truth, and not its disciples only; its patrons,
rather than its sons. Stripped of this foreign, and thrown
back on its own intrinsic interest, truth is apt to be a some-
what cold and insipid thing to the majority of men — at least
in their average state of mind ; though sickness or adversity
will sometimes reveal to them this, true, this solid, this really
sublime and native interest belonging to it. Ordinarily,
they are too apt to be little interested in it, unless supported
by some external aid of this kind. There is again another
and a better reason than either of those which have been
given for the disproportionate estimate of particular tenets ;
viz. that they really suit, assist, and support particular men-
tal, as strong medicines do particular bodily, constitutions.
But whatever be the reasons for this disposition, all sects
and communions more or less exhibit it; and men, and
serious and earnest men, come forward and tell us, that they
could not conduct their spiritual progress without the aid of
one or other special tenet, which they assert, and really
imagine to be, the spring of their energies, and the main-
stay of their hopes. And among the rest, the predestinarian
comes forward and says this. He says that he could not, as
a spiritual being, go on without this doctrine ; that he finds
it essential to him ; that without it the universe would be a
chaos, and the Divine dispensations a delusion; that he
reposes in it as the only true mode of asserting the Divine
Love and Power ; and, therefore, his only support in this life,
his only security for a better life to come. He says all
this; he says it from his heart; he feels it; he believes it.
Then what are we to say ? What, but that, however such a
result may be owing to an imperfection in his mind, this
doctrine is certainly to him, under this imperfection, a
strength and a consolation ; and that an error and an
obliquity is overruled by Providence for good ? l

1 " As the workings of the heart of I general the same in all who are the
man, and of the Spirit of God, are in I subjects of grace, I hope most of these

CHAP. XI.]

CONCLUSION.

339

Whether the time, indeed, will ever come when men in
general will see that on this and some other questions truth
is twofold, and is not confined to either side singly, — that our
perceptions are indistinct and contradictory, and therefore,
do not justify any one definite position, — remains to be seen.
Philosophers have from time to time prophesied a day, when
a better understanding would commence of man with himself,
and of man with man. They have risen up from the survey
of the past with the idea that it is impossible that mankind
can go on for ever repeating the same mistakes ; that they
must one day see the limits of human reason, distinguish
what they know from what they do not know, and draw the
necessary conclusion, that on some questions they cannot
insist on any one absolute truth, and condemn each other
accordingly. But the vision does not approach at present
any very clear fulfilment. The limits of human reason are
perhaps better understood in the world now than they ever
were before ; and such a knowledge has evidently an effect
upon controversy, to a certain extent modifying and chasten-
ing it. Those who remind men of their ignorance use an
argument which, however it may fall short of striking with

hymns, being the fruit and expression
of my own experience, will coincide
with the views of real Christians of
all denominations. But I cannot ex-
pect that every sentiment I have ad-
vanced will be universally approved.
However, I am not conscious of having
written a single line with an inten-
tion either to flatter or offend any
party or person upon earth. I have
simply declared my own views and
feelings. . . . I am a friend of peace ;
and being deeply convinced that no
one can profitably understand the great
truths and doctrines of the Gospel any
further than he is taught by God, I
have not a wish to obtrude my own
tenets upon others in a way of con-
troversy ; yet I do not think myself
bound to conceal them. Many gracious
persons (for many such I am persuaded
there are) who differ from me more or

less in those points which are called
Calvinistic, appear desirous that the
Calvinists should for their sakes, studi-
ously avoid every expression which they
cannot approve. Yet few of them, I
believe, impose a like restraint upon
themselves, but think the importance of
what they deem to be truth justifies them
in speaking their sentiments plainly and
strongly. May I not plead for an equal
liberty ? The views I have received of
the doctrines of grace are essential to
my peace : I could not live comfortably
a day or an hour without them. I
likewise believe, yea, as far as my poor
attainments warrant me to speak, I
know them to be friendly to holiness,
and to have a direct influence in pro-
ducing and maintaining a Gospel con-
versation ; and therefore I must not
be ashamed of them." — Newton's Pre-
face to the Olney Hymns.

Z 2

340 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XI.

its full philosophical strength, and producing its due effect,
appeals to an undeniable truth, before which all human souls
must bow. And the most ardent minds, in the very heat of
controversy, have an indistinct suspicion that a strong ground
has been established in this quarter. On the other hand, this
knowledge of the limits of human reason is not, and perhaps
never will be, for reasons which I- have given, very acute or
accurate in the minds of the mass ; while the tendency to
one-sided views and to hasty assumption is strong, and is
aided by passion and self-love, as well as by better feeling mis-
applied. On the whole, therefore, while improved philosophy
has perhaps entirely destroyed some great false assumptions
which have reigned in the world, so that these will never rise
up again, it cannot subdue the temper and spirit which makes
such assumptions. It is able occasionally to check and qualify,
but it cannot be expected that it will ever habitually regulate,
theological thought and controversy. It will from time to
time step in as a monitor, and take advantage of a pause and
quiet interval to impress its lesson upon mankind, to bring
them back to reflection when they have been carried too far,
and convert for the time a sense of error into a more cautious
view of truth ; but it will never perhaps do more than this.
Unable to balance and settle, it will give a useful oscillation
to the human mind, an alternation of enthusiasm and judg-
ment, of excitement and repose.

In the meantime it only remains that those who differ from
each other on points which can never be settled absolutely, in
the present state of our .capacities, should remember that they
may differ, not in holding truth and error, but only in holding
different sides of the same truth. And with this reflection
I will conclude the present treatise. After long considera-
tion of the subject, I must profess myself unable to see on
what strictly argumentative ground the two great parties in
the English Church can, on the question which has occupied
this treatise — viz. the operation of Divine grace, and on other
questions connected with it — imagine themselves to be so

CHAP. XI.] CONCLUSION. 341

fundamentally opposed to each other. All differences of
opinion, indeed, even those which are obviously of a
secondary and not a fundamental kind, tend to create division
and separation ; for all difference in its degree is apt to be a
sign of some general difference of mental mould and religious
temper, and men naturally consort together according to their
general sympathies and turn of mind : and for men to consort
with some as distinct from others, is in itself a sort of division
in the body ; a division, too, which, when once begun, is apt
to deepen. Such an existence of preference is suggestive of
positive controversy ; and men once brought together upon
such an understanding, and formed into groups by special
sympathies, are liable to become by this very position anta-
gonistic parties, schools, and sides. Yet the differences of
opinion in our Church, on the question of grace, and on
some further questions connected with it, do not appear to
be sufficient to justify either party in supposing that if dif-
fers from the other fundamentally, or so as to interfere with
Christian fellowship. If the question of grace is one which,
depending on irreconcilable but equally true tendencies of
thought in man, cannot be settled absolutely either way, it
seems to follow that a difference upon it should not occasion
a distance or separation. And this remark will apply to such
further and more particular questions as are connected with
this general question, and are necessarily affected by the view
we take upon, and the mode in which we decide the general
question. Such, for example, is the doctrine of baptismal
regeneration. A slight consideration will be enough to show
how intimately this doctrine is connected with the general
doctrine of grace ; and that one who holds an extreme, and
one who holds a modified doctrine of grace in general,
cannot hold the doctrine of baptismal regeneration in the
same sense. If a latitude of opinion, then, may be allowed
on the general question, it seems to follow that an equal lati-
tude may be allowed on this further and more particular one ;
and that if an extreme predestinarian, and a maintainer of

z 3

342 CONCLUSION. [CHAP. XI.

freewill can maintain and teach their respective doctrines
within the same communion, they need not exclude each
other when they come to give to their respective doctrines
their necessary and legitimate application in a particular case.
I cannot, therefore, but think, that further reflection will, on
this and other questions, modify the opposition of the two
parties in our Church to each other, and show that their dis-
agreement is not so great as in the heat of controversy they
supposed it to be. Differences of opinion there will always be
in every religious communion, so long as the human mind is
as variously constituted as it is, and so long as proper liberty
is allowed it to express and unfold this variety. But it depends
on the discretion and temper of religious men to what
extent they wJll allow these differences to carry them ;
whether they will retain them upon a common basis of
Christian communion and fellowship, or raise them into an
occasion of separation and mutual exclusion.

NOTES.

NOTE I. p. 4.

TOPLADY says, " If God had not willed the fall, He could
and no doubt would have prevented it ; but He did not pre-
vent it, ergo He willed it ; and if He willed it, He certainly
decreed it." — Vol. v. p. 242. This is a philosophical argu-
ment proceeding upon the attribute of the Divine Power ;
as is the following appeal to our intellectual consistency as
believers in a God : " He alone is entitled to the name of
true God who governs all things, and without whose will
(either efficient or permissive) nothing is or can be done.
And such is the God of the Scriptures, against whose will
not a sparrow can die, nor a hair fall from our heads. Now,
what is predestination but the determining will of God ? I
defy the subtlest Semi-Pelagian in the world to form or
convey a just and worthy notion of the Supreme Being
without admitting Him to be the Great Cause of all causes ;
also Himself dependent on none ; who willed from eternity
how He should act in time, and settled a regular, determinate
scheme of what He would do and permit to be done, from
the beginning to the consummation of the world. A con-
trary view of the Deity is as inconsistent with reason itself,
and with the very religion of nature, as it is with the de-
cisions of revelation Without predestination to plan,

and without Providence to put that plan in execution, what
becomes of God's omnipotence ? It vanishes into air ; it
becomes a mere nonentity. For what sort of Omnipotence
is that which is baffled or defeated by the very creatures it
has made." — Toplady, vol. v. p. 293.

z 4

344 NOTE It.

NOTE II. p. 8.

JACKSON quotes a predestinarian statement, " That God's
irresistible decree for the absolute election of some, and the
absolute reprobation of others, is immediately terminated to
the individual natures, substances, or entities of men, with-
out any logical respect or reference to their qualifications ; "
a position to which he attaches the following consequences :
" This principle being once granted, what breach of God's
moral law is there whereon men will not boldly adventure,
either through desperation or presumption, either openly or
secretly? For seeing God's will, which in their divinity
is the only cause why the one sort are designated to death,
the other to life, is most immutable and most irresistible, —
and seeing the individual entities or natures of men, unto
which this irresistible decree is respectively terminated, are
immutable, — let the one sort do what they can, pray for
themselves, and beseech others to pray for them, they shall
be damned because their entities or individual substances are
unalterable : let the other sort live as they list, they shall
be saved, because no corruption of manners, no change of
morality finds any mutability or change in their individual
natures or entities, unto which God's immutable decree is
immediately terminated. Whatsoever becomes of good life
or good manners, so the individual nature or entity fail not,
or be not annihilated, salvation is tied unto it by a necessity
more indissoluble than any chains of adamant." — Vol. ix.
p. 370.

This is perhaps a misinterpretation of the predestinarian
statement quoted. The Divine decree, it is true, is, ac-
cording to that statement, w terminated to the entities of men,"
and has (s no respect to their qualifications," as the cause or
reason of such decree ; but it may still have respect to such
qualifications as the effects of such decree. But, whatever
may be said of this particular statement, such an interpreta-
tion of it, if meant for a representation of the doctrine of
predestination, is very incorrect.

NOTE III. 345

NOTE III. p. 10.

AQUINAS argues for the righteousness of Adam before the
fall as supernatural, or the effect of grace, on this ground :
" Manifestum est quod ilia subjectio corporis ad animam, et
inferiorum virium ad ration em, non erat naturalis ; alioquin
post peccatum mansisset, cum etiam in daemonibus data
naturalia post peccatum permanserint." — Sum. Theol lma
Q. 95. Art. 1.

This necessity of grace, however, before the fall is
explained by Aquinas with various distinctions, the substance
of which is, that grace is wanted for supernatural virtue only
by man in his upright state, but for natural as well in his
corrupt ; while the assistance of God as Prime Mover, which
he distinguishes from grace, is necessary for all acts in Iboth
states. "Homo in statu naturae integrae potest operari virtute
suae naturae bonum quod est sibi connaturale absque super-
additione gratuiti doni, licet non absque auxilio Dei moventis."
— lma 2dae Q. 109. Art. 3.

" Secundum utrumque statum (corruptum et integrum)
natura humana indiget Divino auxilio ad faciendum vel
volendum quodcunque bonum, sicut primo movente. Sed in
statu naturae integrae poterat homo per sua naturalia velle et
operari bonum suae naturae proportionatum, quale est bonum
virtutis acquisitae ; non autem bonum superexcedens, quale est
bonum virtutis infusae. Sed in statu naturae corruptae etiam
deficit homo ab hoc quod secundum suarn naturam potest, ut
non possit totum hujusmodi bonum implere per sua naturalia.
Quia tamen natura humana per peccatum non est totaliter
corruptum, potest quidem etiam in statu naturae corruptae
per virtutem suae naturae aliquod bonum particulare agere,
sicut aedificare domos," &c.

" Virtute gratuita superaddita virtuti naturae indiget homo
in statu naturae integrae quantum ad unum, scilicet ad operan-
dum et volendum bonum supernaturale ; sed in statu naturae

346 NOTE IV.

corrupts quantum ad duo soil, ut sanetur, et ulterius ut
bonum supernaturale virtutis operetur." — lma 2dae Q. 109.
Art. 2.

NOTE IV. p. 23.

LOCKE'S theory that facts, of sense or reflexion, are the sole
source of our ideas, places him in a difficulty with respect to
this indistinct class of ideas. He is committed to the necessity
of deriving them from this source, and tries in a roundabout
way to extract them from it. " They are ultimately grounded
on and derived from ideas which come in by sensation or
reflexion, and so may be said to come in by sensation or
reflexion.". — First Letter to Bishop of Worcester. But
though he is in a difficulty as to their origin, and cannot
combine them with his theory, he acknowledges as a fact this
class of indistinct ideas. Thus the idea of substance C( is the
obscure and indistinct vague idea of something which has the
relation of support or substratum to modes or accidents." —
Ibid. " The idea of substance is but a supposed I know not
what to support those ideas we call accidents. We talk like
children who, being questioned what such a thing is which
they know not, readily give this satisfactory answer, that it is
something." — Essay, b. ii. c. 23. " The being of substance
would not be at all shaken by my saying we had but an ob-
scure imperfect idea of it ; or indeed if I should say we had
no idea of substance at all. For a great many things may
be, and are granted to have being, and to be in nature, of
which we have no ideas. For example, it cannot be doubted
but there are distinct species of separate spirits of which yet
we have no distinct ideas at all." And as he acknowledges
an idea of substance which is yet no true or adequate idea, so
he does of infinity. " The addition of finite things suggests
the idea of infinite by a power we find of still increasing the
same. But in endeavouring to make it infinite, it being
always enlarging, always advancing, the idea is still imperfect
and incomplete." — Essay, b. ii. c. 17.

Though Stillingfleet then presses him hard upon the origin

NOTE IT. 347

of such ideas, it is evident that with respect to the nature of
the ideas themselves Locke has greatly the advantage in the
argument ; that his opponent claims a distinctness for them
which mental analysis rejects, and in his alarm, as if the
foundations of truth were shaken when these great ideas were
discovered to be incomplete and obscure, shows a radical
misapprehension as to the nature of the fundamental truths,
on which much of philosophy and the whole of religion rests.
No error can be greater than that of supposing that, when
ideas are obscure, they are not rational ones, and then to add,
as Stillingfleet does, " if we cannot come at the rational idea "
of a thing, " we can have no principle of certainty to go upon."
Religion rests upon a set of truths which exactly miss the
condition of rational truth here laid down. To disprove
this condition, then, to lay down the consistency of a rational
character with an obscure and indistinct one in ideas, is not
to overthrow religion, but support it on the most essential head.
So surely do we find that no discoveries in philosophy, meta-
physical or natural, really turns out to the injury of the faith.
Hume, as Locke, acknowledges virtually this class of in-
distinct ideas, though not definitely and as a class. Thus,
while showing with such extreme acuteness that we have no
idea of a cause, he allows the thing ; asserting strongly the
necessity of attributing the existence of the world to a cause.
" When our contemplation is so far enlarged as to contem-
plate the first rise of this visible system, we must adopt with
the strongest conviction the idea of some intelligent cause."
— Natural History of Religion, sect. xv. But we could not
lay it down that a cause was necessary unless we had some
idea of one. What is this then but to say, that we have some
idea, but not a true one, of a cause, — an obscure, incipient idea.
The very acuteness with which the philosopher has proved
that we have " no idea " of a cause thus turns to the establish-
ing of this kind of truth that I am speaking of, obscure, in-
cipient, or mysterious truth. Hume acknowledges too the ex-
istence of " a vulgar, inaccurate idea of power." — Enquiry
concerning the Human Understanding, sect. vii. But what
is this vulgar, inaccurate idea, but an idea which all man-
kind have, an instinct, or indistinct perception ?

348 NOTE V.

NOTE V. p. 27.

MR. MILL'S argument in favour of the doctrine of necessity
consists of two parts : one the proof of the doctrine ; the
other an answer to an objection to it.

His proof of the doctrine is an inductive one. What do
we mean by necessity, he asks, but causation ; that, the an-
tecedents supposed, a certain consequent will follow ? Now,
we observe, he says, this law of causation in every other de-
partment : we must therefore suppose it to exist in the de-
partment of the human will. For the proof of the existence
of this law in other departments he refers us to facts, and
simply appeals to observation. " Between the phenomena
which exist at any instant, and the phenomena which exist
at the succeeding instant, there is an invariable order of
succession ... To certain facts certain facts always do, and,
as we believe, will continue to, succeed. The invariable
antecedent is termed the cause; the invariable consequent
the effect. And the universality of the law consists in this,
that every consequent is connected in this manner with some
particular antecedent or set of antecedents. Let the fact be
what it may, if it has begun to exist it was preceded by some
fact or facts with which it is invariably connected. For every
event there exists some combination of object or events, some
given concurrence of circumstances, positive and negative,
the occurrence of which is always followed by the pheno-
menon. We may not have found out what this concurrence
of circumstances may be ; but we never doubt that there is
such a one, and that it never occurs without having the phe-
nomenon in question as its effect or consequence. On the
universality of this truth depends the possibility of reducing
the inductive process to rules." — Vol. i. p. 338.

Here is an appeal to our observation for a proof of the law
of causation. Mr. Mill does not go to any a priori ground
on this question, or avail himself of the maxim that every
event must have a cause. He does not appeal to any in-
stinct of reason antecedently demanding a cause for every

NOTE V. 349

event ; nor does he attach to the term cause any sense of
necessary and inherent efficiency and productiveness in re-
lation to its effect — ( ' any such mysterious compulsion now
supposed, by the best philosophical authorities, to be exer-
cised by the cause over its effect." — Vol. ii. p. 407. By
cause and effect he simply means antecedent and consequent ;
and he appeals to our simple observation for the proof of the
existence of this order and succession in things around us.

Now, it would be obviously begging the question to assert
that we observe this uniform order and succession in the events
in which the human will takes part ; this would be asserting
to begin with what has to be proved — viz. that this law of
causation exists in the department of the human will; be-
sides, that it would be asserting our observation of something
which we evidently do not observe. For whatever uni-
formity we may observe in the conduct of mankind as a mass,
however like one generation of men may be to another, and
a preceding age of the world to a succeeding one, in general
moral features and the principles on which the race is go-
verned and acts, we evidently do not observe this uniformity
in the case of individuals. And it is the case of the indi-
vidual which tries the theory of necessity or causation as
applying to the human will. Upon the ordinary doctrine of
chances there will be much the same amount of virtue and
vice in one generation that there is in others, and the same
general exhibition of character will take place. The doc-
trine of necessity requires that the individual will act in the
same way under the same circumstances. And this latter
fact we certainly do not observe. Mr Mill, then, in appeal-
ing to our observation for a proof of the law of causation,
must mean to exclude from the events in which this is ob-
served those in which the human will takes part ; i. e. to
appeal to our observation of material nature only. And
therefore his argument, when he comes to assert this law as
prevailing in the department of will, is one of induction, —
the common argument from the known to the unknown.
We know, he says, that this is the law upon which one
large class of events takes place ; we must therefore suppose
it to be the law upon which another class of events, with re-

350 NOTE V.

spect to which we have not this knowledge, takes place ; we
observe this law in the physical world, we must therefore
presume that it prevails in the moral as well.

Of such an argument as this, then, it will, perhaps, be
enough to remark, that it appears to be nothing more than a
presumption at the best. One class of events takes place
according to a certain law ; therefore another does. Is this
a proof to satisfy any reasonable m'ind ? Such an induction
is, on the first showing, in the highest degree weak and con-
jectural. But when we compare matter and will, and dis-
tinguish the entirely different impressions which we have
with respect to our actions, and events in nature, the in-
duction breaks down still more. Why should we suppose
that events so totally different in all their characteristics, as
those which take place in matter and will, should take place on
the same law; and presume that, because causation or necessity
rules in the physical world, it therefore does in the moral ?

But while I interpret Mr. Mill's argument as an inductive
one — which indeed appears to be the only kind of argument
which observation enables him to use, — I must at the same
time allow that Mr. Mill in other passages does not appear al-
together to interpret his own argument in this way ; and that
he seems to imagine that he has more than an inductive, i. e.
presumptive, argument — viz. one of actual consciousness and
experience in his favour, on this question. " Correctly con-
ceived," he says, " the doctrine called Philosophical Necessity
is simply this : that, given the motives which are present to
an individual mind, and given likewise the character and
disposition of the individual, the manner in which he will act
may be unerringly inferred; that if we know the person
thoroughly, and know all the inducements which are acting
upon him, we could foretell his conduct with as much cer-
tainty as we can predict any physical event. This proposi-
tion I take to be a mere interpretation of universal experience)
a statement in words of what every one is internally convinced
of. No one who believed that he knew thoroughly the cir-
cumstances of any case, and the characters of the different
persons concerned, would hesitate to foretell how all of them
would act. Whatever degree of doubt he may feel arises

NOTE V. 351

from the uncertainty whether he really knows the circum-
stances or the character of some one or other of the persons
with the degree of accuracy required; but by no means
from thinking, that if he did know these things, there would
be any uncertainty what the conduct would be. Nor does
this full assurance conflict in the smallest degree with what
is called our feeling of freedom." — Vol. ii. p. 406.

I quote this passage not for the statement it contains of
the doctrine of necessity so much as to call attention to the
ground of that statement, — the nature of the argument or
evidence on which the writer appears to suppose that doctrine
of necessity rests. " This proposition," he says, " I take to
be a mere interpretation of universal experience, a statement
in words of what every one is internally convinced of; " the
proposition, viz. that the inducements internal and external
to action supposed, the action of an individual may be pre-
dicted with as much certainty as we can predict any physical
event. Mr. Mill then appeals to actual experience, and to
internal conviction or consciousness, as the evidence of the
doctrine of necessity. Now, if Mr. Mill were content to
mean by this experience and internal conviction of necessity
to which he appeals, such an indistinct or half-perception of
a truth in this direction as is consistent with the same kind
of perception of the contrary truth of our originality as agents,
I would agree with him ; and I have in this chapter accepted
the necessitarian maxim, that every event must have a cause,
as supplying one side of the truth on this question. But
it is evident that Mr. Mill means something more than
this ; his argument, as an advocate of necessity against
originality, requires a full and distinct experience and con-
viction on the side of necessity, not a divided one. More-
over, the ground on which he has placed the whole doctrine
of necessity or causation is a ground of observation — that we
see things, as a matter of fact, taking place in a certain order
and succession. When he appeals, then, to an internal expe-
rience and conviction on the side of necessity, his argument
requires him to appeal to such a full internal conviction as is
grounded on observation. But can Mr. Mill really mean to
assert that we observe a law of causation in operation in our

352 NOTE V.

actions, as we do in the events of the physical world? Such an
assertion would be plainly untrue, and he himself would be the
first to disown it ; for he explains how it is that we cannot
observe such a law in the case of human actions, as we do in
nature ; viz. that we have not the full antecedents before us
in the former case as we have in the latter ; that we do not
know all the inducements, internal and external, operating in
a man, and, therefore, cannot predict with accuracy what his
action will be. But then what becomes of that experience
and internal conviction to which he appeals on this question ?
If we are not able to make the observation that we act by a
law of causation, how can we have the experience and the in-
ternal conviction that we do ? What sort of conviction, on his
own showing, must that be, which has positively no observa-
tion to rest upon ?

The state of the case, then, appears to be this : Mr. Mill be-
gins with an inductive or presumptive argument on this ques-
tion, which, as he proceeds and advances in his explanation of
it, becomes insensibly from an inductive argument, an appeal
to " internal conviction," or consciousness. And instead of
saying, the law of causation exists in the case of physical
events, therefore we may presume it does in the case of moral
ones or actions, — he says at once we see, we know, we are in-
ternally convinced, we have actual experience, that our actions
take place upon this law.

Having established, however, whether by induction or ex-
perience or internal conviction, necessity or the law of causa-
tion, as the law upon which the acts of the human will proceed,
Mr. Mill has to meet an objection to such a position which
naturally and immediately arises from our consciousness of
freedom as agents. " To the universality which mankind are
agreed in ascribing to the law of causation there is one claim
of exception, one disputed case, that of the human will ; the
determinations of which a large class of metaphysicians are
not willing to regard as following the causes called motives,
according to as strict laws as those which they suppose to
exist in the world of mere matter. This controverted point
will undergo a special examination when we come to treat
particularly of the logic of the moral sciences. In the mean-

NOTE V. 353

time I may remark that metaphysicians, who, it must be
observed, ground the main part of their objection on the
supposed repugnance of the doctrine in question to our
consciousness, seem to me to mistake the fact which con-
sciousness testifies against. What is really in contradiction
to consciousness, they would, I think, on strict self-examina-
tion, find to be the application to human actions and voli-
tions of the ideas involved in the common use of the term
necessity, which I agree with them in objecting to. But if
they would consider that by saying that a person's actions
necessarily follow from his character, all that is really meant
(for no more is meant in any case whatever of causation) is
that he invariably does act in conformity to his character,
and that any one who thoroughly knew his character could
certainly predict how he would act in any supposable case,
they probably would not find this doctrine either contrary
to their experience or revolting to their feelings." — Vol. i.
p. 358.

I will stop, in the first place, to ask, what is meant by the
word " character," in the assertion that " a person's actions
necessarily follow from his ( character ?' ; If the term
character here includes a man's whole conduct and action,
this assertion amounts to nothing. If the term means simply
a certain general disposition and bias of mind, then the
assertion is without proof; the assertion, I mean, that from
this general disposition a particular act will follow. The
main object of this passage, however, is to meet the ob-
jection to the doctrine of necessity proceeding from our
consciousness of freedom as agents ; an objection which
Mr. Mill meets with a distinction between necessity in the
sense of causation, and necessity in the "common use of
the term," viz. as coaction or force ; necessity in the former
sense not being opposed to our consciousness. The same
answer is contained in the following passage : f( The meta-
physical theory of freewill as held by philosophers (for
the practical feeling of it, common in a greater or less
degree to all mankind, is in no way inconsistent with the
contrary theory) was invented because the supposed alter-
native of admitting human actions to be necessary was

A A

354 NOTE V.

deemed inconsistent with every one's instinctive conscious-
ness, as well as humiliating to the pride and degrading to the
moral nature of man. Nor do I deny that the doctrine, as
sometimes held, is open to these imputations ; for the mis-
apprehension in which I shall be able to show that they
originate, unfortunately is not confined to the opponents of
the doctrine, but participated in by many, perhaps we might
say by most, of its supporters." — Vol. ii. p. 405.

Now, it must be admitted that the doctrine of necessity is
not opposed to any express and distinct consciousness on our
part, for all that we are distinctly anxious of is our willing
itself; we have no positive apprehension or perception of any
thing beyond that fact, i. e. of the source of such willing,
whether this is in ourselves, or beyond and outside of us.
But though we have no distinct apprehension of our own ori-
ginality as agents, is there not an instinctive perception in
that direction 9 Does not the whole manner in which we find
ourselves, willing and choosing, debating between conflicting
lines of action, and then deciding on one or other of them,
lead us towards an idea of our own originality as agents, and
produce that impression upon us ? Would not any person,
holding to his natural impression on this head, be disappointed
by any explanation of these characteristics of human action,
which accounted for them on any rationale short of originality ?
Would he not feel that there was something passed over, not
duly acknowledged, and recognised, in any rationale which
stopped short of this ? You might explain to him that his
will being caused from without did not imply any force or
coaction, but that he might have all the sensations of voluntary
agency while he was still really acting from causes ultimately
beyond his own control ; but such an explanation would not
satisfy him. The feeling he has that he can decide either
way in the case of any proposed action, and the regret or
pleasure that he feels afterwards, according to the use which
he has made of this apparent power, will make him think
himself an original agent, and he will be dissatisfied with any
rationale of his action which stops short of this.

Mr. Mill is indeed sufficiently aware of the strength of this
natural conviction of originality in the human mind, to be in-

NOTE V. 355

duced to meet and satisfy its demands as far as he can in con-
sistency with his theory ; but he cannot, because his theory
prevents him, really satisfy them. He admits, however, for
the purpose of satisfying this claim, that a man can in a certain
sense form his own character, and is an agent acting upon
himself, and he draws a distinction on this head between the
necessarian and the fatalist ; the former of whom, according
to him, allows, in keeping with true philosophy, this agency
upon self, which the latter, carried away by the fallacy that
the certainty of the end supersedes the necessity of the means
or subordinate agencies, denies it. " A fatalist believes, or
half believes (for nobody is a consistent fatalist), not only that
whatever is about to happen will be an infallible result of the
causes which produce it (which is the true necessarian doctrine),
but, moreover, that there is no use struggling against it; that
it will happen however we may strive to prevent it. Now,
a necessarian believing that our actions follow from our cha-
racters, and that our characters follow from our organisation,
our education, and our circumstances, is apt to be, with more
or less of consciousness on his part, a fatalist as to his actions,
and to believe that his nature is such, or that his education
and circumstances have so moulded his character, that nothing
can now prevent him from feeling and acting in a particular
way, or at least that no effort of his own can hinder it. In
the words of the sect (Owenite) which in our own day has
most perniciously inculcated and most perversely misunder-
stood this great doctrine, his character is formed for him,
and not by him ; therefore his wishing that it had been formed
differently is of no use, he has no power to alter it. But
this is a grand error. He has to a certain extent a power to
alter his character. Its being in the ultimate resort formed for
him is not inconsistent with its being in part formed by him as
one of the intermediate agents. His character is formed by his
circumstances (including among these his particular organisa-
tion); but his own desire to mould it in a particular way is one
of those circumstances, and by no means one of the least in-
fluential. We cannot, indeed, directly will to be different
from what we are ; but neither did those who are supposed
to have formed our characters directly will that we should

A A 2

356 NOTE V.

be what we are. . . . We are exactly as capable of making our
own character, if we will, as others are of making it for us." —
Vol. ii. p. 410.

Here is an attempt, then, to represent the necessarian system
in such an aspect, as to reconcile it with all those sensations
of power over ourselves and over our conduct, which are part
of our internal experience. But the attempt fails, because
it will not go the proper length of acknowledging such power
as an original one. A man " has, to a certain extent, a power
to alter his own character." To what extent, or in what
sense ? While it is " in the ultimate resort formed for him,
it is formed by him as one of the intermediate agents" But
does this concession of an intermediate agency satisfy the
demands of natural feeling and instinct on this head ? Would
any person naturally regard that power of choice, of which
he is conscious, as a power which he exerts in obedience and
subordination to some deeper cause working underneath it,
and obliging it to be exerted in a particular way ? Would
not a certain instinctive view he takes of this agency in him
be contradicted by this view of it as intermediate agency,
only apparently original, and really produced by a cause be-
yond itself? Would not his internal sensations appear upon
such a view to him a spurious outside, a kind of semblance
and sham, pretending something which was not really true,
and deluding him into thinking that he was an original agent
when he really was not ?

While, then, I fully admit, in addition to these ideas and
sensations of originality and free agency, other ideas counter
to them — another side of the human mind to which philoso-
phy and theology have alike legitimately appealed, and with-
out which neither necessarianism nor the doctrine of original
sin would have arisen, — I cannot think that Mr. Mill does
justice to these ideas — these true perceptions, it appears to
me, as far as they go — of our originality as agents.

Hume's argument on Liberty and Necessity is a very
summary one. He does not, as Mr. Mill, in the first instance,
appears to do, from the observed fact of causation or necessity
in the physical world, presume the same thing in the moral ;
he boldly appeals at once to what he considers to be an ob-

NOTE V. 357

vious and plain fact of observation. He considers necessity,
or the law of antecedent and consequent, to be as plain and
obvious in the case of human actions as it is in the events of
material nature. " Our idea," he says, " of necessity or cau-
sation arises entirely from the uniformity observable in the
operations of nature. Where similar objects are constantly
conjoined together, and the mind is determined by custom to
infer the one from the appearance of the other, these two
circumstances form the whole of that necessity which we
ascribe to matter. Beyond the constant conjunction of similar
objects, and the consequent inference from one to the other,
we have no idea of any necessity of connexion. If it appear,
therefore, that all mankind have ever allowed, without any
doubt or hesitation, that these two circumstances take place
in the voluntary actions of men, and in the operations of mind,
it must follow that all mankind have ever agreed in the
doctrine of necessity, and that they have hitherto disputed
merely for not understanding one another."

" As to the first circumstance, the constant and regular
conjunction of similar events, we may perfectly satisfy our-
selves by the following considerations. It is universally ac-
knowledged that there is a great uniformity among the ac-
tions of men, in all nations and ages, and that human nature
remains still the same in its principles and operations. The
same motives always produce the same actions ; the same
events follow the same causes. Ambition, avarice, self-love,
vanity, friendship, generosity, public spirit ; these passions,
mixed in various degrees, and distributed throughout society,
have been from the beginning of the world, and still are, the
sources of all the actions and enterprises which have ever
been observed among mankind. Would you know the senti-
ments, inclinations, and course of life of the Greeks and
Romans, study well the temper and actions of the French
and English. You cannot be much mistaken in transferring
to the former most of the observations you have made with
regard to the latter. Mankind are so much the same, in all
times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or
strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover
the constant and universal principles of human nature, by

A A 3

358 NOTE V.

showing man in all varieties of circumstances and situations,
and furnishing us with materials from which we may form
our observations, and become acquainted with the regular
springs of human action and behaviour. These records of
war, intrigues, factions, and revolutions are so many collec-
tions of experiments by which the politician or moral philoso-
pher fixes the principles of his science, in the same manner as
the physician or natural philosopher becomes acquainted with
the nature of plants, minerals, and other external objects by
the experiments which he forms concerning them. Nor are
the earth, water, and other elements examined by Aristotle
and Hippocrates more like to those which at present lie under
our observation, than the men described by Polybius or
Tacitus are to those who now govern the world." — Section
viii. On Liberty and Necessity, v. iv. p. 98.

No argument on the side of necessity in human actions can
be simpler than this ; and if there is any weight in it, the
question is decided beyond controversy ; for it is simply an
appeal to our observation that such is the case, an assertion
that necessity is as visible in human actions as it is in the
events of nature. But any reader of common intelligence
must see at once a fundamental error underlying this whole
argument, which entirely deprives it of force. The uni-
formity which the writer observes in human life and conduct
applies to mankind as a whole ; while the principle of ne-
cessity can only be properly tested by the conduct of men as
individuals. On the common doctrine of chances, mankind
as a whole will be much the same in one generation and age
of the world that it is in another ; i. e. there will be the same
proportion of good to bad men, the same relative amount of
selfish and disinterested, generous and mean, courageous and
cowardly, independent and servile characters. But the doc-
trine of necessity is concerned with the individual cases which
compose this general average of human character; and the
question upon which that doctrine turns is, whether indivi-
duals with the same antecedents — i. e. the same inducements,
external and internal, to particular conduct — have uniformly
acted in the same way. The sum total may be the same, but
the question of necessity is concerned with the units which

NOTE VI. 359

compose that sum. Have the individuals who have been bad
and good, selfish and disinterested, been so in conjunction
with different respective sets of antecedents ; i. e. different cir-
cumstances, education and natural temperament ? Or, have
not persons under apparently the same circumstances, edu-
cation, and natural temperament, turned out very differently ?
The latter is certainly the more natural observation of the
two. But if we are forbidden to make it, and reminded that
we do not know all the antecedents, circumstances, and mo-
tives, internal and external, to conduct, in the case of indivi-
duals ; then at any rate nobody can pretend to have made
the contrary observation, or profess to have noted a uniform
conjunction of antecedents and consequents in the case of
human action. And with the absence of this observation the
whole of this argument falls to the ground.

NOTE VI. p. 35.

FUIT Adam et in illo fuimus omnes. — Ambrose, Lib. 7. in
Luc.c. 15, 24. n. 234. In lumbis Adam fuimus. — Aug. Op.
Imp. 1. 1. c. 48. Unusquisque homo cum primo nascitur.

— De Gen. Contr. Man. 1. 1. c. 23. Sic autem aliena sunt
originalia peccata propter nullum in eis nosto voluntatis arbi-
trium, ut tamen propter originis contagium esse inveniantur
ut nostra. — Op. Imp. 1. 1. c. 57.

Inobedientia quidem unius hominis non absurde utique
delictum dicitur alienum, quia nondum nati nondum egeramus
aliquid proprium, sive bonum sive malum : sed quia in illo qui
hoc fecit, quando id agit, omnes eramus . . . hoc delictum
alienum obnoxia successione fit nostrum. — Op. Imp. 1. 2.
c. 163.

Ipsos quoque hoc in parente fecisse, quoniam quando ipse
fecit, in illo fuerunt, ac sic ipsi atque ille adhuc unus fuerunt.

— Op. Imp. 1. 2. c. 177.

Disce, si potes, quemadmodum peccata originalia, et
aliena intelligantur et nostra ; non eadem causa aliena qua
nostra : aliena enim, quia non ea in sua vita quisque coin-

A A 4

360 NOTE VI.

misit, nostra vero quia fecit Adam, etin illo fuimus omnes. —
Op. Imp. 1. 3. c. 25.

Malum est de peccato veniens originis vitium, cum quo
nascitur homo . . . cujus mail reatus non innocentibus, ut
dicis, sed reis imputatur. . . . Sic enim fuerunt ornnes ratione
seminis in lumbis Adam, quando damnatus est, et ideo sine
illis damnatus non est ; quemadmodum fuerunt Israelite in
lumbis Abraha3 quando decimatus est, et ideo sine illis
decimatus non est — Op. Imp. 1. 5. c. 12.

Per unius illius voluntatem malam omnes in eo peccaverunt,
quando omnes ille unus fuerunt. — De Nupt. et Cone. 1. 2.n. 15.

S. Anselm regards that corruption of nature which is in
the infant at its birth as sin then and at the time in the in-
fant— cum debito satisfaciendi ; so that it is his own sin and
not another's for which he is responsible in his responsibility
for original sin (De Pec. Orig. c, 2.) ; a position to which he
proceeds to give further, and very strong and exact expres-
sion: (t Originale peccatum esse injustitiam dubitari non
debet. Nam si omne peccatum injustitia, et originale pec-
catum utique est et injustitia. Sed si dicit aliquis : non
est omne peccatum injustitia, dicat posse simul in aliquo
et esse peccatum, et nullam esse injustitiam : quod videtur
incredibile. Si vero dicitur originale peccatum non esse
absolute dicendum peccatum, sed cum additamento, originale
peccatum, sicut pictus homo non vere homo est, sed vere est
pictus homo, profecto sequitur quia infans qui nullum habet
peccatum nisi originale mundus est a peccato. . . . Qtiare
omne peccatum est injustitia, et originale peccatum est abso-
lute peccatum." — C. 3.

Aquinas is against the imputation of another's act for the
purpose of guilt, though he allows it for that of satisfaction :
u Dicendum quod si loquamur de pcena satisfactoria, quae
voluntarie assumitur, contingit quod cum unus portet poenam
alterius, in quantum sunt quodammodo unum. Si autem
loquimur de poena pro peccato inflicta, in quantum habet
rationem poenae, sic solum unusquisque pro peccato suo
punitur, quia actus peccati aliquid personale est." — Sum.
Theol lma 2dae Q. 87. Art. 8.

The disputes at the Council of Trent on the subject of
original sin touched more on the extent of the effects of it

NOTE VII. 361

than on the rationale of its transmission. But the view of
imputation was maintained by Catarinus against the Domi-
nicans, who followed the Augustinian idea of original sin as
real sin in the individual. " He oppugned the transmission
of sin by means of the seed and generation ; saying that, as,
if Adam had not sinned, righteousness would have been
infused not by virtue of the generation, but only by the
will of God, so it is fit to find another means to transfuse
sin . . . The action of Adam is actual sin in him, arid imputed
to others is original; because when he sinned all men did
(i. e. by imputation) sin with him. Catarinus grounded
himself principally, for that a true and proper sin must be a
voluntary act, and no other thing can be voluntary but the
transgression of Adam imputed unto all .... The opinion of
Catarinus was expressed by a political conceit of a bargain
made by one for his posterity, which, being transgressed,
they are all undoubtedly bound." — PauTs History of Council
of Trent (Brent), pp. 165. 168.

NOTE VII. p. 36.

JEREMY TAYLOR'S argument on original sin is directed
throughout against the received and Catholic interpretation
of that sin, as involving desert of eternal punishment, which
he rejects as being opposed to our natural idea of justice.
" Was it just in God to damn all mankind to the eternal
pains of hell for Adam's sin committed before they had any
being, or could consent to it or know of it ? If it could be
just, then anything in the world can be just ; and it is no
matter who is innocent, or who is criminal, directly or by
choice, since they may turn devils in their mother's bellies ;
and it matters not whether there be any laws or no, since
it is all one that there be no laws, and that we do not know
whether there be or no ; and it matters not whether there be
any judicial proofs, for we may as well be damned without
judgment, as be guilty without action." — Vol. ix. p. 332.
" And truly, my Lord, to say that for Adam's sin it is just
in God to condemn infants to the eternal flames of hell, and

362 NOTE VII.

to say that concupiscence or natural inclinations before they
pass into any act would bring eternal condemnation from
God's presence into the eternal portion of devils, are two
such horrid propositions, that if any church in the world
should expressly affirm them, I, for my part, should think it
unlawful to communicate with her in the defence or profes-
sion of either, and to think it would be the greatest tempta-
tion in the world to make men not to love God, of whom men
so easily speak such horrid things." — p. 373. "Is hell so easy
a pain, or are the souls of children of so cheap, so contempti-
ble a price, that God should so easily throw them into hell ?
God's goodness, which pardons many sins that we could avoid,
will not so easily throw them into hell for what they could
not avoid." — p. 14. "To condemn infants to hell for the
fault of another, is to deal worse with them than God did to
the very devils, who did not perish but by an act of their own
most perfect choice. This, besides the formality of injustice
or cruelty, does add and suppose a circumstance of a strange,
ungentle contrivance. For, because it cannot be supposed
that God should damn infants or innocents without cause, it
finds out this way, that God, to bring His purposes to pass,
should create a guilt for them, or bring them into an inevita-
ble condition of being guilty by a way of His own inventing.
For, if He did not make such an agreement with Adam, He
beforehand knew that Adam would forfeit all, and therefore
that unavoidably all his posterity would be surprised. This
is to make pretences, and to invent justifications and reasons
of His proceedings, which are indeed all one as if they were
not." — p. 16. "Abraham was confident with God, 'Wilt
Thou slay the righteous with the wicked ? shall not the Judge
of all the earth do right ? ' And if it be unrighteous to slay
the righteous with the wicked, it is also unjust to slay the
righteous for the wicked. ' Ferretne ulla dvitas laborem
istiusmodi legis, ut condemnetur JiUus aut nepos, si pater aut
avus deliquissent ; — It were an intolerable law, and no com-
munity would be governed by it, that the father or grand-
father should sin, and the son or nephew should be pu-
nished.'"—p. 39.

No one can, of course, deny the force of these arguments,

NOTE VII. 363

resting, as they do, upon the simple maxim of common sense
and common justice, that no man is responsible for another's
sins. The mistake in Jeremy Taylor's mind lies in his con-
ception of the doctrine which he is attacking. He supposes
the doctrine of original sin to assert mankind's desert of eternal
punishment for Adam's sin, in an ordinary and matter-of-fact
sense; and he treats all the consequences of this doctrine — the
Divine anger with infants and the like — as if they took place
in the literal sense in which they would take place, supposing
a present visible execution of this sentence, in this present
and visible state of things. But the doctrine of original sin
professes to be concerned with a mystery, not with a matter
of fact, and to be an incomprehensible, and not an intelligible
truth. For all this vivid picture, then, of injustice, and
monstrous cruelty which Jeremy Taylor raises as a represen-
tation of this doctrine, there is no warrant ; because the
doctrine does not profess to assert anything whatever that
we can understand. He argues as if human analogies gave
us a sufficient and true idea of the truth asserted in this
doctrine, whereas the doctrine takes us out of all human
analogies. His whole argument thus beats the air, and he
refutes what no sound-minded and reasonable person asserts.

His argument against the assertion of the impotence and
slavery of the will, involved in the doctrine of original sin, is
open to the same remark ; i. e. that he takes it as an absolute
assertion, whereas it is only maintained in this doctrine as one
side of a whole truth on this subject, which is beyond our
knowledge. " To deny to the will of man powers of choice
and election, or the use of it in the actions of our life, de-
stroys the immortality of the soul. Human nature is in danger
to be lost if it diverts to that which is against nature ! For
if it be immortal it can never die in its noblest faculty. But
if the will be destroyed, that is, disabled from choosing (which
is all the work the will hath to do), then it is dead. For to
live and to be able to operate in philosophy are all one. If
the will, therefore, cannot operate, how is it immortal? And
we may as well suppose an understanding that can never
understand, and passions that can never desire or refuse, and
a memory that can never remember, as a will that cannot

364 NOTE VII.

choose." — Vol. ix. p. 47. " When it is affirmed in the writings
of some doctors that the will of man is depraved, men
presently suppose that depravation is a natural or physical
effect, and means a diminution of power, whereas it signifies
nothing but a being in love with, or having chosen an evil
object, and not an impossibility or weakness to the contrary,
but only because it will not ; for the power of the will cannot
be lessened by any act of the same faculty, for the act is not
contrary to the faculty, and therefore can do nothing towards
its destruction. As a consequent of this I infer that there
is no natural necessity of sinning, — that there is no sinful
action to which naturally we are determined; but it is our
own choice that we sin." — p. 88.

This is the Pelagian argument for freewill which we meet
with in S. Augustine ; and it has the one-sidedness of that
argument. Nobody, of course, can deny what is asserted
here, if considered as one side of the truth ; it is true that the
will must have the power of choosing ; that we are conscious
of this power; that there is " no natural necessity for sinning ; "
that "there is no sinful action to which we are naturally de-
termined." All this enters into our meaning of the term
will, and our consciousness of its operations. But there is
another side of the whole truth respecting the will to which
S. Augustine appeals : " To will is present with me, but
how to perform that which is good I know not. For the
good that I would I do not, but the evil that I would not
that I do." Jeremy Taylor appeals, as the Pelagians did,
to a certain sense of bare ability to do right which we retain
under all circumstances and states of mind, as if it were the
whole truth on this subject ; he relies absolutely upon it. He
goes even to the length to which the Pelagians went, of
saying " that the power of the will cannot be lessened by
any act of the same faculty," so that however long a man
may continue in a course of sin, and however inveterate the
habit he may contract, he has still as much freewill as ever,
and on the very next occasion of acting is as able to act
aright as ever. But this is evidently, and on principles of
common sense, untrue. Jeremy Taylor sees only that side
of the human will which favours his own argument ; he sees

NOTE VII. 365

in it a simple unity, a pure undivided faculty, a power of
doing anything to which there is no physical hindrance ; but
the will is a mixed and complex thing, exhibiting oppositions
and incongruities. He proceeds upon an abstract idea of free-
will — "there cannot be a will that cannot choose;" but the
question is, what is the actual and real will of which we find
ourselves possessed ?

Taylor sees in the doctrine of original sin, according to the
received strict interpretation of it, a basis of the doctrine of
predestination (p. 319.), and argues against them as virtually
one and the same doctrine ; in doing which he is right. But if
the ground is only true in a mysterious sense, that which is
raised upon it is only true in the same sense, and is so deprived
of its definiteness, and consequently of its harshness ; for a
doctrine to be harsh must positively state something. As a
mystery it disowns such a charge.

The received interpretation of original sin being thus re-
jected, Jeremy Taylor substitutes for it the more lenient in-
terpretation put forward by the early fathers of this sin, as
a deprivation, viz. of certain higher and supernatural gifts
conferred upon man at his creation ; an absence of perfec-
tion, as distinguished from a positive state of sin. " This sin
brought upon Adam all that God threatened — but no more.
A certainty of dying, together with the proper effects and
affections of mortality, were inflicted on him, and he was re-
duced to the condition of his own nature, and then begat sons
and daughters in his own likeness, that is, in the proper
temper and constitution of mortal men. For as God was not
bound to give what He never promised — viz., an immortal
duration and abode in this life, — so neither does it appear, in
that angry intercourse that God had with Adam, that he took
from him or us any of our natural perfections, but his graces
only. Man being left in this state of pure naturals, could not
by his own strength arrive to a supernatural end, which was
typified in his being cast out of Paradise, and the guarding
of it with the flaming sword of a cherub. For eternal life
being an end above our natural proportions, cannot be acquired
by any natural means." — Vol. ix. p. 1. "God gives his gifts
as He pleases, and is unjust to no man by giving or not giving

366 NOTE VII.

any certain proportion of good things ; and supposing this
loss was brought first upon Adam, and so descended upon us,
yet we have no cause to complain, for we lost nothing that
was ours." — p. 56.

When he comes, however, to reconcile this modification of
the doctrine of original sin with Scripture, and to prove " that
in Scripture there is no signification of any corruption or de-
pravation of our souls by Adam's sin," he has to explain
away texts. The text Rom. v. 18. "By the offence of one
judgment came upon all men to condemnation," asserts the
condemnation, Ka-raKpi^a^ of all mankind as the consequence
of the sin of Adam. Taylor explains (( damnation " first as
pos?ia damni, a loss of a higher state ; and, secondly, of
temporal death — which was {i the iv/wle event, for it names no
other, — according to that saying of S. Paul, * In Adam we all
die.' " But this is an artificial explanation of Scripture. It
is true, as he observes, that " the KaraKpipa passed upon all
men, E(J> &> TTCLVTSS rj/maprov " (p. 380.) ; but this can only show
that the natural truth is maintained in Scripture together
with the mysterious one, not that the mysterious one is not
maintained. So of the text ft Death passed upon all men ; for
that all have sinned," he says, " all men, that is, the gene-
rality of mankind, all that lived till they could sin ; the others
that died before, died in their nature, not in their sin." —
p. 381. He owns, however, at last, that the language of
Scripture is against him, by falling back upon the ground of
justice as overruling the natural meaning of such language.
"How can it be just that the 'condemnation' should pass
upon us for Adam's sin? " — p. 380.

So upon the text " Behold I was shapen in wickedness,
and in sin hath my mother conceived me," he says, " I
answer, that the words are a Hebraism, and signify nothing
but an aggrandation of his sinfulness, and are intended for a
high expression, meaning that e I am wholly and entirely
wicked.' For the verification of which exposition there are
divers parallel places in the Holy Scriptures : ' Thou wast
my hope, when I hanged yet upon my mother's breast ; ' and
( The ungodly as soon as they be born, they go astray and
speak lies,' which, because it cannot be true in the letter,

NOTE VII. 367

must be an idiotism or propriety of phrase, apt to explicate
the other, and signify only a ready, a prompt, a great, and
universal wickedness. The like to this is that saying of the
Pharisees, ( Thou wert altogether born in sin, and dost thou
teach us?'; which phrase and manner of speaking being
plainly a reproach of the poor blind man and a disparage-
ment of him, did mean only to call him a very wicked
person, not that he had derived his sin originally and from
his birth." — p. 27. But even were the text <( In sin hath
my mother conceived me," only a phrase to express the depth
and strength of sin in the character of the person using it,
why should that depth and strength of sin be expressed in
that form ? Why does David, on the first deep perception
of his own guilt, and the hold wrhich sin has had over him,
go back to his birth? Is it not because he cannot see how
he can stop short of it ? The more he considers the sinful-
ness of his character the more rooted it seems, and the
further it appears to go back, till at last he cannot but «ay,
that it is actually coeval with his existence. The phrase,
then, though it may not be a dogmatic assertion of original
sin, is an assertion of a certain depth and radical position of
sin in the human soul ; upon which, when realised, the doc-
trine of original sin naturally arises. Such phrases as this,
and the others in Scripture referred to by Taylor, show that
there was a truth felt respecting sin, which was expressed in
this form as the most appropriate one for it, and that when-
ever men perceived the strength of the hold which sin had
had upon them, they went to the idea of its originality, as
an idea nothing short of which would do justice to that truth
which they felt respecting sin, and which the fuller consci-
ousness of their own sins had revealed to them.

So on the text " By nature we were children of wrath,"
Taylor remarks: "True, we were so when we were dead
in sins, and before we were quickened by the Spirit of life
and grace. We were so ; now we are not. We were so by
our own unworthiness and filthy conversation ; now we being
regenerated by the Spirit of holiness, we are heirs unto
God, and no longer heirs of wrath. This, therefore, as
appears by the discourse of S. Paul, relates not to our ori-

368 NOTE VII.

ginal sin, but to the actual ; and of this sense of the word
( nature,' in the matter of sinning, we have Justin Martyr,
or whoever is the author of the questions and answers Ad
Orthodoxos, to be witness. For answering those words of
Scripture, 6 There is not any one clean who is born of a
woman/ and there is none begotten who hath not committed
sin ; he says, their meaning cannot extend to Christ, for He
was not c 7r£<f>vfcc0$ afjLdpTdvsw — born to sin;' but he is ' na-
tura ad peccandum natus — TTS^VKW^ a^apravsiv^ who, by the
choice of his own will, is author to himself to do what he list,
whether it be good or evil, 6 Kara rrjv av9aipsrov Trpoaipsaw
dycov savrov sis TO TrparrsiV a ftovXsrai, sirs ayaOd SITS (j>av\a"
— p. 29. One who can sin, then, is born to sin, in Taylor's
sense of the phrase ; a man being born to sin means that he
can sin, and no more. But such a meaning is inconsistent
with his own previous meaning of the similar phrase, " By
nature children of wrath," which he understands to mean
great and habitual actual sin, or a bad and corrupt course of
life ; for the power to sin and the fact of sin are not the same
thing. Either meaning, however plainly, falls short of the
Apostle's. Why should S. Paul say " by nature" if actual
sin was all that he meant ? The term evidently introduces
another idea beyond and in addition to an actual bad course
of life.

The modification which Taylor has hitherto proposed of
the doctrine of original sin has been rather concerned with
its effects than with itself. The particular view of the sin
itself which he proposes to substitute for the received one is,
that it is imputed sin, as distinguished from real sin in us.
He objects to the idea of our being parties to Adam's sin as
absurd ; but has no objection to a certain imputation of that
sin, considered to be his and his only, to us. " Indeed, my
Lord, that I may speak freely in this great question : when
one man hath sinned, his descendants and relations cannot
possibly by him, or for him, or in him be made sinners really
and properly. For in sin there are but two things imagina-
ble, the irregular action and the guilt or obligation to punish-
ment. Now, we cannot be said in any sense to have done the
action which another did, and not we ; the action is as indi-

NOTE VII. 369

vidual as the person ; and Titius may as well be Caius, and
the son be his own father, as he can be said to have done the
father's action ; and therefore we cannot possibly be guilty for
it, for guilt is an obligation to punishment for having done it ;
the action and the guilt are relatives, — one cannot be done
without the other, — something must be done inwardly or
outwardly, or there can be no guilt. But then for the evil
of punishment, that may pass further than the action. If it
passes upon the innocent it is not a punishment to them, but
an evil inflicted in right of dominion ; but yet by reason of
the relation of the afflicted to him that hath sinned, to him it
is a punishment. But if it passes upon others that are not
innocent, then it is a punishment to both ; to the first prin-
cipally ; to the descendants or relatives for the other's sake,
his sin being imputed so far." — p. 379. " There is no neces-
sity to affirm that we are sinners in Adam any more than by
imputation." — p. 378.

Taylor considers this view of imputation as a middle one
between the received and the Pelagian view of original sin.
" I do not approve of that gloss of the Pelagians that in
Adam we are made sinners by imitation, and much less of
that which affirms that we are made so properly and formally.
But made sinners signifies used like sinners, so as justified
signifies treated like just persons ; in which interpretation I
follow S. Paul, not the Pelagians."— p. 383.

But what is gained toward reconciling the doctrine of ori-
ginal sin with our natural ideas, by substituting the imputa-
tion of Adam's sin for sin in Adam ? If it is contrary to reason
that a man should be a party to sin committed before he was
born, it is contrary to justice that a sin in which he was no
partaker should be imputed to him, and that he should be
punished for it. It is true, he says, "If the evil of punish-
ment passes upon the innocent, it is not a punishment to
them, but an evil inflicted by right of dominion, and there-
fore Kabbi Simeon Barsema said well, that 'When God
visits the vices of the fathers upon the children— -jure Dominii,
non poence utitur — He uses the right of empire not of justice.' "
The result of this distinction is, that God, in cases of punish-
ment for imputed sin, inflicts no more evil than He has a right
to inflict where there is no sin in the case. But if on such a

B B

370 NOTE VII.

ground the imputation of sin is reconciled with our idea of
justice, what becomes of the idea itself of imputation f There
is evidently no real imputation of, no punishment/or, another's
sin, and therefore this whole mode of representing original
sin falls to the ground. Taylor says, " By reason of the rela-
tion of the afflicted to him that sinned, to him it is a punish-
ment." Why so? Whether a certain evil is a punishment
depends on the ground on which it is inflicted. If it is in-
flicted on the ground of guilt, actual or imputed, it is punish-
ment; if it is inflicted simply jure Dominii, on the ground of
that right which the Maker of the world has over the lives
and fortunes of His creatures, it is not punishment, but Pro-
vidence. But Taylor is still unwilling to abandon the idea
of punishment, and he suggests a, form of punishment which,
he thinks, is not liable to any charge of injustice. "In
Adam we are made sinners, that is, treated ill or afflicted,
though ourselves be innocent of that sin, which was the occa-
sion of our being used so severely for other sins, of which we
were not innocent" — p. 4. God inflicts pain upon us,
then ; which pain is punishment, because such pain is greater
than it would have been but for Adam's sin ; we are not
punished for Adam's sin, but we are, in consequence of
Adam's sin, punished worse for our own sins. But the
difficulty of punishment is not at all lessened by this
artifice of attaching the punishment to our own actual
sins in the first place, and only charging upon Adam's sin
the increase of this punishment. Increase of punishment is
fresh punishment. Taylor thus oscillates between acknow-
ledging and disowning punishment for Adam's sin. He dis-
owns it as inconsistent with justice ; he acknowledges it
because he cannot wholly deny that something very like it is
maintained in Scripture, and he shrinks from wholly giving
up the received doctrine. He thus constructs a kind of in-
direct vicarious punishment, which is inflicted for our own per-
sonal sins, but inflicted more severely on account of Adam's sin.
Jeremy Taylor falls into all these forced and inconsistent
modes of explanation, in consequence of the fundamental
misapprehension with which he starts as to the sense and
mode in which the truth of original sin is held. Had he
perceived properly that it was and professed to be a myste-

NOTE VIII. 371

rious as distinguished from an intelligible truth, he would
have seen that all these charges of injustice against the doc-
trine were erroneous, and these consequent attempts at a
modification of it superfluous and unnecessary. The profes-
sion of a mystery disarms the opposition of reason ; for what
has reason to object to in that which it does not understand?
What has reason before it in such a case ? One who holds
the doctrine in this sense can hold it in its greatest strict-
ness, without the slightest collision with reason or justice,
and is spared this vain struggle with Scripture.

NOTE VIII. p. 38.

THE doctrine of predestination in Scripture is not uncom-
monly interpreted in such a way as to represent that doctrine,
not as opposed to any counter truth of freewill, but as itself
harmonising and coinciding with it. Predestination and
election are interpreted to mean predestination and election to
privileges or means of grace, which depend on freewill for
their cultivation. But this is certainly not the natural sense
of the words in Scripture. In the text Matt. xx. 16.,
" Many are called but few chosen," or elect; "elect" evi-
dently means elect to eternal life itself, and not merely to
the opportunity of attaining it. The same may be said of
Matt. xxiv. 22.: "For the elect's sake those days shall
be shortened,'' the elect being evidently here the saints, the
good, those who will be saved, not those who have merely
been admitted into the Christian Church and the means
of obtaining salvation, many of whom being wicked men and
enemies of God, God would not "for their sakes" perform
this special act of mercy. On Acts xiii. 48., " As many as
were ordained to eternal life believed," the remark is obvious
that that to which men are said to be " ordained" (which
is the same as elect or predestinated) is expressly "eternal
life." In Eph. i. 4., " According as He hath chosen us in
Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be
holy," the election is not to the power but to the fact of holi-
ness. And the next verse sustains this obvious sense :

B B 2

372 NOTE VIII.

" Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by
Jesus Christ to Himself," adoption always implying in the
epistles sanctity. So 2 Tim. i. 9. : " Who hath saved us
and called us with an holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to His own purpose and grace which
was given us in Christ before the world began," obviously
speaks of actual holiness and actual salvation, not the mere
opportunity of them, as the effect of predestination. And
generally it is evident that the terms elect, predestinated,
adopted, justified, saints, all refer to the same state and the
same class; and that plainly the state and the class of ac-
tually holy men who will certainly be saved, as the neces-
sary consequence and reward of such holiness.

The 8th and 9th chapters, however, of the Epistle to
the Romans, furnish the most powerful, and because the
most powerful the most controverted, evidence for the mean-
ing of predestination as being predestination to eternal life
itself, and not merely certain means of grace enabling men
to obtain it. In the 8th is the passage : " We know that
all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to His purpose. For
whom He did foreknow (know before as His own with deter-
mination to be for ever merciful unto them — Hooker, Ap-
pendix to bk. v. vol. ii. p. 751.) He also predestinated to be
conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first
born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did pre-
destinate, them He also called, and whom He called, them He
also justified, and whom He justified them He also glorified."
Here it is expressly said that those who are predestinated
are predestinated, not to the opportunity of conformation to
the image of Christ, but to that conformation itself, to actual
justification, and to actual glory in the world to come.

The 9th chapter- has the passage: " For the children
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil,
that the purpose of God according to election might stand,
not of works, but of Him that calleth, it was said unto her,
the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say
then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.

NOTE VIII. 373

For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will
have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth -, but of God that sheweth mercy.
For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same
purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show My
power in thee, and that My name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath He mercy on whom
He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He yet find fault?
for who hath resisted His will ? Nay, but, O man, who art
thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say
unto him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to
make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
What if God, willing to shew His wrath, and to make His
power known, endured with much long-suffering the ves-
sels of wrath fitted to destruction. And that He might make
known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which
He had afore prepared unto glory."

Here it is expressly said that some persons are from all
eternity objects respectively of the Divine love and the Divine
wrath, which love and which wrath involve respectively
eternal "glory," and " destruction " (v. 22, 23.). All the
attempts to explain this passage as meaning only that some
persons are predestined to higher and others to lower means
of grace, appear to violate its plain and natural meaning. It
is not indeed necessary to suppose that the contrast between
Jacob and Esau, as individual men, is that of one finally
saved to another finally condemned ; but it is no less clear
that the Apostle uses them as types of these two respective
classes, and that the argument of the passage has reference to
man's eternal end, good or bad; for "glory" and "destruc-
tion" cannot mean only higher and lower spiritual advan-
tages.

Archbishop Whately indeed raises an ingenious objection
to the predestinarian interpretation of the image of the
potter and the clay, and remarks, "We are in His hands,
say these predestinaritins, as clay in the potters', ' who hath

B B a

374 NOTE VIII.

power of the same lump to make one vessel to honour and
another to dishonour/ not observing in their party eagerness
to seize an easy apparent confirmation of their system, that
this similitude, as far as it goes, rather makes against them,
since the potter never makes any vessel for the express pur-
pose of being broken and destroyed. This comparison ac-
cordingly agrees much better with the view here taken. The
potter according to his arbitrary choice makes of the same
lump one vessel to honour and another to dishonour — i. e.
some to nobler and others to meaner uses, but all to some use;
none with a design that it should be cast away and dashed
in pieces. Even so the Almighty, of His own arbitrary choice,
causes some to be born to wealth or rank, others to poverty
or obscurity, some in a heathen, and others in a Christian
country ; the advantages and privileges bestowed on each
are various." — Essay 3, On Election. But to extract thus an
argument from the general nature of an image used in Scrip-
ture is to forget that Scripture, in making use of images,
only adopts them in such respects as it uses them, such
respects as answer the particular purpose in hand ; it does
not necessarily adopt the whole image. What we have to
do with, then, is not the image itself, but the image as used
ly Scripture. Now, it is true that a potter never makes
a vessel for destruction ; but some vessels are certainly in
this passage spoken of as " fitted to destruction," others as
" prepared unto glory ; " of which destruction and glory the
cause is plainly put further back than their own personal
conduct, — viz. in a certain Divine love and wrath, before
either side had done any actual good or evil, — u The children
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, it
is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."
And were a predestination to privileges all that was meant
by the passage — that some are born to wealth or rank, others
to poverty or obscurity, some in a heathen and others in a
Christian country, what ground would there be for raising
the objection ? " Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He
yet find fault, for who hath resisted His will ?" It is evi-
dent that this is a complaint against the Divine justice, or an
objection to the Apostle's doctrine just before laid down, on
the ground that it contradicts that Divine attribute. But

NOTE VIII. 375

how could a mere inequality in the dispensing of religious
privileges provoke such a charge, except from a positive in-
fidel ? Inequality is a plain fact of God's visible providence,
and could never support a charge of injustice, except the
objector were willing to go the further step of denying a
Divine creation and providence altogether on account of this
fact. The objector here plainly means to say this : How
can it be just that a man should be the object of Divine
wrath before he has done anything to deserve it? That he
should be incapacitated for obtaining the qualifications neces-
sary for eternal life, and then blamed because he has not got
them ? " Why doth he find fault, for who hath resisted
His will ?" Why does God condemn the sinner, when Hia
own arbitrary will has incapacitated him for being anything
else but a sinner?

At the same time I am ready to admit, that there is ground
for saying that a milder sense of reprobation does come in, in
this passage, along with the stronger one; and that language
is used expressive rather of the modified rather than of the
extreme doctrine of predestination. It is at any rate doubt-
ful whether " honour " and " dishonour " do not mean
higher and inferior good rather then positive good and evil.
The use of the words in 2 Tim. ii. 20. — " In a great house
there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood
and earth, and some to honour and some to dishonour" — would
seem to attach the former meaning to them. And if so, so
far as this language goes, the Apostle expresses a modified
doctrine of predestination rather than an extreme one, or
predestination to unequal advantages, rather than to positive
good and evil. But whether this is so or not, such a sense
of predestination only obtains so far as the language which ex-
presses it goes. The stronger sense of predestination, as predes-
tination to positive good and evil, is the main and pervading
one in the passage ; and this sense must not be lost sight of
because there may be a milder sense too in which the doctrine
is asserted. It is characteristic of S. Paul to slide from
one meaning to another ; and just as a counter doctrine al-
together to that of predestination is put forth in other pas-
sages of Scripture, so the same passage may be more or less

B B 4

376 NOTE VIII.

contradictory, and contain its own balance. But if the
milder meaning of predestination is there, it must not be
thought that the stronger meaning is therefore not there too ;
or supposed that all that this passage means is a predesti-
nation to unequal privileges and advantages.

There is another mode of interpreting predestination in
Scripture, so as to make the doctrine agree with the truth
of freewill; viz. that of allowing predestination to be to
eternal salvation itself, but with the qualification that it is
caused by the Divine foresight of the future good life of the
individual. But this qualification is opposed to the plain
meaning of those passages of Scripture in which this doc-
trine is set forth. These passages obviously represent pre-
destination as a predestination of the individual to a good life,
as well as to the reward of one, to the means as well as to the
end ; thus making a good life the effect of predestination, and
not the cause or reason of it. " He hath chosen us before
the foundation of the world that we should be holy " . . . .
" predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son."
But the ninth chapter of Romans, just quoted, supplies
the most decisive answer to this qualification of the doctrine
of predestination; it being expressly said there that the
purpose of God according to election is antecedent to any dif-
ferences of life and conduct between one man and another ;
that it is formed while the children are yet unborn, and have
done neither good nor evil ; that it is not of works, but of
Him that calleth ; and that it is not of him that willeth or
of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy ; that it
is clay of the same lump of which some vessels are made to
honour, and others to dishonour.

Jackson, among other commentators, interprets the pre-
destination maintained in this passage in this way, viz. as
predestination in consequence of foreseen good works. But
in thus interpreting it he endeavours at the same time by an
argument more ingenious than substantial, to explain his
own interpretation as not being such an interpretation as
this ; and tries to show that he does not base predestination
upon foreseen good works. He says, predestination is in
consequence not of any foreseen works of the law, but the

NOTE VIII. 377

foreseen work of faith ; which work of faith being a re-
nunciation of the works of the law cannot itself be called a
work. He interprets the Apostle's assertion that election is
not in consequence of any " willing or running" of the
man himself, in this way, viz. that this expression applies to
works of the Jewish law only, and not to works of faith ; to
the self-willed and self-dependent kind of good works, which
are not really good as not proceeding from a spiritual state
of mind; not to the true spiritual temper. The work of
faith, he says, is {f an opus quo renunciamus, the formal act
by which all works must be renounced," and so not properly
a work: "jidesjustificat non qua opus sed relative — is essen-
tially included in the act of justification ; not included in the
universality of works, which are excluded from justification."
And the " fallacy " of calling such an act a work he ex-
presses thus : " If such divines as urge it most should come
into our per-vices and apply it to matters there discussed,
thus —

" Omne visibile est coloratum :
Omnis color est visibilis : ergo
Omnis color est coloratus, —

I hope a meaner artist than this nursery (God be praised !)
hath any, would quickly cut oif their progress with a dis-
tinction of visibile ut quod, et visibile ut quo, and show that
the major, though universally true of every subject or body
that may be seen, did not nor could not comprehend colour
by which they are made visible, and by whose formal act
they are denominated colorata. The fallacy of the former
objection drawn into mood and figure is the same, but more
apparent.

" Every will or work of man must be utterly renounced
from the act of justification or conversion :

" But to deny ourselves and renounce all works is a work :

" Ergo, This work must be excluded from the suit of mercy,
as no way available." — Vol. ix. p. 442.

But such a distinction as this applied to works as a ground
of the Divine election is inadmissible. The work of faith is a
work ; not in such "an ambiguous sense as that in which colour

378 NOTE VIII.

is a visible thing, but substantially and correctly. It is a
humble, self-renouncing act. It is the fundamental act of the
Christian life. If election, then, is in consequence of this fore-
seen work of faith, it is in consequence of good works, which
it is plainly said by S. Paul not to be.

Jackson borrows his explanation from Origen, who implies
the same distinction between " carnal works " and other
works, as the ground of Jacob's election. " Quod si vel
Isaac vel Jacob pro his meritis electi fuissent a Deo qua in
carne positi acquisierant, et per opera carnis justificari meru-
issent, posset utique meriti eorum gratia ad posteritatem car-
nis quoque pertinere. Nunc vero cum electio eorum non ex
operibus facta sit, sed ex proposito Dei, et ex vocantis arbi-
trio, promiSsionum gratia non in filiis carnis impletur, sed in
filiis Dei." — In Rom. ix. 1 1. vol. iv. p. 613. Thus Jackson :
" Had not this purpose of God been revealed before the
children had been born, Jacob's posterity would have boasted
that either their father Jacob or his mother Rebecca had
better observed those rites and customs wherein they placed
righteousness than Isaac or Esau had done ; and that God
upon these motives had bestowed the birthright or blessing
upon Jacob before Esau." — Vol. ix. p. 436. There is con-
siderable confusion here, and Origen seems to slide from works
not carnal to no works at all as the ground of election ;
though the former idea in the main prevails. Origen's main
view of the ground of election is foreseen good character. —
Vol. iv. p. 616.

Jackson explains the similitude of the potter and the clay
on the same principle : " That it was marred in the first
making was the fault of the clay." — Vol. ix. p. 462. But is
this said in Scripture ? On the contrary, it is said that all the
clay was of the same lump, and therefore the difference of the
Divine design did not arise from any difference in the clay.
Origen makes in the same way a difference in the clay, though
the very phrase eadem massa, which he accepts, as he is
obliged to do, from the Apostle, refutes it. " Videns Deus pu-
ritatein ejus, et potestatem habens ex eadem massa facere
aliud vas ad honorem aliud ad contumeliam, Jacob quidem
qui emundaverat seipsum fecit vas ad honorem ; Esau vero

NOTE VIII. 379

cujus animam non ita pur am nee ita simplicem videbat, ex ea-
dem massa fecit ad contumeliam." — In Eom. ix. vol. iv. p. 616.

With the explanation of foreseen goodness, however, as the
ground of election, Jackson couples the other mode of recon-
ciling the passage with freewill ; viz. that of election to means
and opportunities. " The Apostle imagineth such a potter
as the wise man did, that knows a reason why he makes one
vessel of this fashion, another of that, why he appoints this
to a base use, that to a better." — P. 462.

Hooker's explanation of the passage (given in a recently dis-
covered and edited writing, made an appendix to Ecclesiastical
Polity, bk. v.) makes, like Origen's and Jackson's, a difference
in the clay, though he will not at the same time allow that the
Divine Justice requires this reason for its own defence. " Sup-
pose (which is yet false) that there were nothing in it, but only so
God will have it, — suppose God did harden and soften, choose
and cast off, make honourable and detestable, whom Himself
will, and that without any cause moving Him one way or
other, — are we not all in His hands as clay? If thus God did
deal, what injury were it ? How much less now, when they on
whom His severity worketh are not found like the clay with-
out form, as apt to receive the best shape as any other, but
are in themselves and by their own disposition fashioned for
destruction and for wrath." — Keble's Ed. vol. ii. p. 748.
Now, of this explanation the first part undoubtedly adheres
to the natural meaning of the passage in S. Paul more
faithfully than the latter, which diverges from it ; mankind
being plainly represented by S. Paul as being like clay of
the same lump, previous to election, and any difference of
disposition in them, in this previous state, so far from being
asserted, being expressly denied. Indeed, as Jansen says, if
S. Paul meant foreseen goodness as the ground of election, he
would not have silenced the complainer by a reference to
God's inscrutable will, but would have given this simple
and intelligible answer to his objection. But non isto nititur
car dine. — De Grat. Christi, p. 347.

On the whole, that which is commonly called the Calvin-
istic sense, appears to be the natural sense of these passages
of Scripture ; and the Calvinistic use of them should be met,

380 NOTE IX.

not by denying this sense, and explaining away the natural
meaning of the language, but by opposing to them other
passages of Scripture which speak equally plainly of man's
freewill. I may add, that perhaps more has been made by
many of the text in S. James than it will exactly bear, and
that, though proving difficulty, this text does not prove so much
difficulty in those parts of S. Paul's Epistles as many would
maintain. These epistles were certainly addressed to the
whole Church, and were meant to be understood by men
of average intelligence who applied their attention properly.
Their predestinarian meaning in parts is, on the whole, clear
and decided ; and the reason why their meaning is thought
by many to be so very obscure and difficult to get at, is that
they will not acknowledge this predestinarian meaning to be
the true one. These interpreters create difficulties for them-
selves by rejecting the natural meaning of passages, and then
lay the difficulty on the passages.

NOTE IX. p. 50.

THE first work of Pelagius referred to in the controversy,
is his letter to Paulinus, which appears to have been written
about A. D. 405, during his stay at Koine. — Benedictine
Editor's Preface, c. 1. But Augustine's doctrinal bias had
clearly asserted itself some years before, in the book De
JDiversis Quastionibus ad Simplicianum, which came out
A. D. 397 ; and had evidently commenced as early as the
book De Libero Arbitrio, which he began to write A. D.
388. In his Retractations (1. 1. c. 9.) he refers to this early
treatise, with which the Pelagians taunted him as contradict-
ing his later ones on the subject of freewill, and shows that,
though not consistently brought out, the germ of his ultimate
system was to be found in parts of that treatise. He refers
particularly to the scheme of the two kinds of Divine gifts
laid down in 1. 2. cc. 18, 19. ; according to which both those
which did and those which did not admit of a bad use (vir-
tutes and potentice) were alike gifts of God. The explana-
tion which he gives in the Retractations of some of the state-

NOTE X. 381

ments favourable to freewill in the other treatise may be
far-fetched ; but such a view as this is evidently agreeable
to his later doctrine. Nor is Augustine at all a pertinacious
interpreter of his early writings in the sense of his later
ones. Consistency has less charm for him than develop-
ment as a writer and thinker ; and he dwells on the changes
he has gone through with the satisfaction of one who believes
his later notions to be a great improvement in depth and
acuteness upon his earlier ones.

To these two earlier treatises may be added the Confes-
sions, written A. D. 400. A celebrated dictum in this book—
da quodjubes, etjube quod vis — was the first apparent stimu-
lus to the speculations of Pelagius, whom it greatly irritated.
*' Pelagius ferre non potuit, et contradicens aliquanto com-
motius, pene cum illo qui ilia commemoraverat litigavit." —
De Dono Perseverantice, n. 53. Neander says : " Since Augus-
tine had completed his doctrinal system on this particular side
more than ten years before the opinions of Pelagius excited
any public controversy, it is clear that opposition to Pelagius
could not have influenced him in forming it. With more
propriety may it be said that opposition to such doctrines as
those of Augustine, or to the practical consequences which,
through misconstruction or abuse, were derived from such
doctrines, had no small share in leading Pelagius to form such
a system as he did." — Church History, vol. iv. p. 312.

NOTE X. p. 56.

SUNT alii [Pelagiani] tarn validis testimoniis non audentes
resistere ; ideoque dant Deo primitias extrinsecas gratiae et
fidei, ac bonorum similium, sed hominibus gratiam ipsam et
fidem cum caeteris bonis hujusmodi. Dicunt enim Deum
semper praevenire pulsando, et excitando ad gratiam, fidem, et
ad bona similia, et hominem subsequi aperiendo et consen-
tiendo, et hoc ex propriis viribus per seipsum, juxta illud
Apoc. 3. : " Ecce sto ad ostium, et pulso : si quis audierit
vocem meam, et aperuerit mihi januam, introibo ad ilium, et
crenabo cum illo, et ipse mecum." Hi autem faciunt Deum

332 NOTE X.

gratise publicum venditorem, hominesque emptores.
Dicunt enim eum sicut mercatorem pauperculum clamare, et
pulsare ad januas, et ad ostia singulorum ; aperient! vero
pro sua apertione gratiam suain dare, quod tamen verius
commutare, seu vendere diceretur. Faciunt quoque Deum
scriptorem pauperculum et conductitium suam operam pub-
licantem, et pro pretio parvulo, pro apertione et coena, ape-
rientium nomina in libro vitas scribentem ; sicque gratia ex
prsecedentibus operibus nostris erit. . . . Homo non potest
aperire nee consentire in talibus ex seipso, sed voluntate
Divina, quod et probant auctoritates superius allegatae. Nemo
potest venire ad me, nisi Pater meus traxerit ilium. Secun-
dum istos tamen homo licet pulsatus a deo, non habens adhuc
patrem, aperiendo pulsanti, verius traheret ad se Patrem. . . .
Et licet sic pulsat nihil dat nobis, sed nos aperientes damus
sibi consensum, contra illud Apostoli, Quis prior dedit illi, et
retribuetur ei ? Itane haec positio tribuit nobis quod melius
est et majus3 Deo vero quod deterius est et minus : quis
enim dubitaverit aperire melius et utilius nobis esse quam
pulsare, cum pulsare sine apertione, non prosit sed obsit. —
JBradicardine, De Causa Dei, 1. I.e. 38.

Sentiebant ergo Pelagiani uno omnes consensu, tantas
esse vires in naturali libertate, bonique et mali possibilitate
constitutas, ut quaecunque tandem a rebus sive extrinsecus
irruentibus, sive intrinsecus se commoventibus, vel cogita-
tiones phantasiaaque moverentur vel animi desideria motusque
cierentur, quicquid tandem sive homines, sive Angeli, sive
Da3mones, adeoque Spiritus ipse sanctus suaderet, et suggereret,
quicunque vel pietatis vel iniquitatis motus inciderent, qui-
buscunque passionum bonarum auris animus propelleretur,
vel malarum fluctibus procellisque turbaretur, nihil de suo
imperii principatu domina ilia libertas amitteret ; sed plenis-
sima discernendi potestate penes vim rationis ac voluntatis
permanente, sola fieret ad malum bonumque snasio ac provoca-
tio ; nutus vero probandi vel improbandi, utendi et repellendi,
in ilia naturalis indifferentiae libertate ac naturali possibilitate
persist eret. — Jansen, De Hcer. Pel. 1. 2. c. 3.

Nihil verius de tali possibilitate divino adjutorio munita
dici potuit, quam id quod Pelagius dixit : " Quod possumus

NOTE X. 383

omne bonum facere, dicere, cogitare, illius est qui hoc posse
donavit, qui hoc posse adjuvat : quod vero bene vel agimus vel
loquimur vel cogitamus nostrum est quia base omnia vertere
in malum possuraus." Quibus verbis adjutorium possibilitatis
explicuit. Vigilantissime quippe et perspicacissime vidit
(quod ego saepius supra modum admiratus sum Scholasticos
eruditissimos acutissimosque viros non agnoscere) quod sicut
usus cujuslibet facultatis sive oculi externoruinque sensuum,
sive facultatis progressive, sive intellectus, sive voluntatis,
noster est, hoc est, ad nostrae voluntatis indifferentem flexum
et nutum referri debet, non ad Deum, quatenus solam facul-
tatem dedit; ita quoque cujuslibet adjutorii concursus, sive
naturalis sive gratuiti, etiamsi esset tantas praestantiae adju-
torium quantam vel angelica cogitatio comminisci posset, imo
etiamsi esset vel ipsa essentia Dei per modum speciei ad sui
visionem, vel per modum gratiaD ad sui amorem concurrentis,
similiter prorsus noster sit: si videlicet sic solam possibilitatem
adjuvet, et usus ejus et non usus in libero relinquatur arbitrio.
—Jansen> De Gratia Christi, 1. 2. c. 9.

Hanc ergo mentem Pelagianorum cum prospectam
haberet Augustinus, quod quicquid motuum vel Deus vel
Diabolus in voluntate suscitaret, isti dominativae voluntatis
potestati subderent, non fuit sollicitus utrum gratiam legis
atque doctrinae, sive revelationem sapiential, sive exemplum
Christi, sive remissionem peccatorum, sive habitus bonos, sive
succensiones ac desideria voluntatis assererent ; sed generalis-
sime prophanum eorum dogma quo solum possibilitatem
adjuvari gratia censebant, ubicunque vel qualemcunque ponerent
gratiam, velut exploratum errorem Scripturisque contrarium
jugulat. . . . Quamvis enim in gratiam legis plerumque magis
propendere videretur, non satis tamen certum erat Augustino
quam gratiam tarn vario magnificorum verborum strepitu Pela-
gius tune defenderet, cum nunc legem, nunc doctrinam, nunc
sapientiae revelationem, nunc exemplum Christi, nunc peccati
remissionem, nunc voluntatum succensionem, nunc desideria a
Deo suscitata celcbraret. Fatetur hanc suam incertitudinem
passim toto libro Augustinus. . . . Itaque ut omnis erroribus
istis latebra clauderetur, sub qualibet, et qualilibet, et ubi-
cumque constituta gratia sua in eos tela dirigit. . . . Nirnirum

384 NOTE XI.

quia utrobique Augustinus quamlibet, qualemlibet, ubilibet
constitutam gratiam quisque tueatur, si solam possibilitatem
voluntatis et actionis adjuvet, eum sanae et Apostolicas et
Evangelicae doctrinae violatae reum facit. — Jansen, De Gratia
Christi, 1. 2. c. 10.

NOTE XL p. 59.

AUGUSTINE'S view on this subject is comprehended under
the following heads : —

1. No one of the human race can be without sin abso-
lutely or from the first, all being born in sin. " Qui omnino
nullum pecatum habuerit, habiturusve sit, prorsus nisi unum
Mediatorem Dei et hominum Jesum Christum, nullum vel
esse vel fuisse vel futurum esse certissimum est." — De Pecc.
Merit, et Remiss. 1. 2. n. 34. " Non legitur sine peccato esse
nisi Filius hominis." — De Perfect. Just. n. 29. See too De
Pecc. Merit, et Remiss. 1. 1. n. 56, 57.

2. Though all men are in sin to begin with, there is the
possibility of attaining to a sinless state in this life ; but this
possibility is through the Divine grace or power, and by a
miraculous exertion of that power. " Et ideo ejus perfec-
tionem etiam in hac vita esse possibilem, negare non possu-
mus, quia omnia possibilia sunt Deo, sive quae facit sola sua
voluntate, sive qua? cooperantibus creaturas suaa voluntatibus
a se fieri posse constituit. Ac per hoc quicquid eorum non
facit, sine exemplo est quidem in ejus operibus factis ; sed
apud Deum et in ejus virtute habet causam qua fieri possit,
et in ejus sapientia quare non factum sit." — De Spiritu et
Litera,n. 7. " Ecce quemadmodum sine exemplo est in homi-
nibus perfecta justitia, et tamen impossibilis non est. Fieret
enim si tanta voluntas adhiberetur quanta sufficit tantae rei.
Esset autem tanta, si et nihil eorum quas pertinent ad justi-
tiam nos lateret, et ea sic delectarent animum, ut quicquid
aliud voluptatis dolorisve impedit, delectatio ilia superaret :
quod ut non sit, non ad impossibilitatem, sed ad judicium Dei
pertinet." — Ibid. n. 63. (< Sed inveniant isti, si possunt, ali-

NOTE XI. 385

quern sub onere corruptions hujus viventem, cul jam non

habeat Deus quod ignoscat Sane quemquam talem, si

testimonia ilia divina competenter accipiant, prorsus invenire
non possunt ; nullo modo tamen dicendura, Deo deesse pos-
sibilitatem, qua voluntas sic adjuvetur humana, ut non solum
justitia ista quae ex fide est, omni ex parte modo perficiatur in
homine, verum etiam ilia secundum quam postea in aeternum
in Jpsa ejus contemplatione vivendum est. Quandoquidem,
si nunc velit in quoquam etiam hoc corruptibili induere in-
corruptionem, atque hie inter homines morituros eum jubere
vivere minime moriturum, ut tota penitus vetustate con-
sumpta nulla lex in membris ejus repugnet legi mentis,
Deumque ubique praesentem ita cognoscat, sicut sancti postea
cognituri sunt ; quis demum audeat affirmare, non posse ?
Sed quare non faciat quajrunt homines, nee qui quasrunt se
attendunt esse homines." — Ibid. n. 66.

3. While he thus admits the possibility, he denies the fact
that any man has attained to a sinless state in this life : '^Si
autem quaeratur utrum sit, esse non credo. Magis enim credo
Scripturae dicenti. Ne intres in judicium," &c. — De Pecc.
Merit, et Remiss. 1. 2. n. 8. " Hie fortasse respondeas, ista
quae commemoravi facta non esse et fieri potuisse, opera esse
divina ; ut autem sit homo sine peccato, ad opus ipsius ho-
minis pertinere, idque opus esse optimum, quo fiat plena et
pcrfecta et ex omni parte absoluta justitia : et ideo non esse
credendum, neminem vel fuisse, vel esse, vel fore in hac vita
qui hoc opus impleverit, si ab homine impleri potest. Sed
cogitare debes quamvis ad homines id agere pertineat, hoc quo-
que munus esse divinum, atque ideo non dubitare opus esse
divinum." — De Spir. et Lit. n. 2. " Si omnes illos sanctos
et sanctas, cum hie vixerunt, congregare possemus, et interro-
gare utrum essent sine peccato, quid fuisse responsuros puta-
mus? Utrum hoc quod iste dicit, an quod Joannes Apostolus.
Rogo vos, quantalibet fuerit in hoc corpore excellentia sancti*
tatis, si hoc interrogari potuissent, nonne una voce clamassent,
* Si diximus quia peccatum non habemus nos ipsos decipirnus,
et veritas in nobis non est. ' An illud humilius responderent
fortasse quam verius ? Sed huic jam placet, et recte placet,

c c

386 NOTE XI.

' laudem humilitatis in parte non ponere falsitatis.' Itaque hoc
si verum dicerent, haberent peccatum, quod, humiliter quia
faterentur veritas in eis esset : si autem hoc mentirentur,
nihilominus haberent peccatum, quia veritas in eis non
esset." — De Nat. et Grat. n. 42. He reserves, however, the
liberty to except the Virgin Mary from this general asser-
tion : " De qua, propter honorem Domini, nullam prorsus,
cum de peccatis agitur, haberi vol'o quaestionem."

4. To assert that there have been persons in this life who
have attained to the sinless state, though an error, is an
error as to a fact rather than a doctrine, and a venial one.
" Quinetiam si nemo est aut fuit, aut erit, quod magis credo,
tali puritate perfectus; et tamen esse aut fuisse aut fore de-

enditur et putatur, non multum erratur, nee perniciose cum
quadam quisque benevolentia fallitur: si tamen qui hoc
putat seipsum talem esse non putet, nisi revera ac liquido
talem se esse perspexerit." — De Spir. et Lit. n. 3. " Utrum
in hoc seculo fuerit, vel sit, vel possit esse aliquis ita juste
vivens, ut nullum habeat omnino peccatum, potest esse ali-
qua qusestio inter veros piosque Christianos, Posse tamen
esse certe post hanc vitam quisquis ambigit desipit Sed
ego nee de ista vita volo contendere. Quanquam enim mihi
non videatur aliter intelligendum quod scriptum est, ( Non
justificabitur in conspectu tuo omnis vivens,' et siqua similia :
utinam tamen possit ostendi haec testimonia melius aliter intel-
ligi." — De Nat. et Grat. n. 70.

5. Augustine thinks that the subjection of mankind to the
law of sin works mysteriously in the Divine scheme for good.
" Idcirco etiam sanctos et fideles suos in aliquibus vitiis tardius
sanat, ut in his eos minus, quam implenda3 ex omni parte justi-
tia3 sufficit, delectet bonum. . . . Nee in eo ipso vult nos damna-
biles esse sed humiles." — De Pecc. Merit, et Remiss. 1. 2. n. 33.
This very imperfection is in a sense, he thinks, as leading to
humility, part of the perfection of human virtue. " Ex hoc
factuui est, virtutem quae nunc est in homine justo, perfectam
hactenus nominari, ut ad ejus perfectionem pertineat etiam
ipsius imperfectionis et in veritate cognitio, et in humilitate
confessio. Tune enim est secundum hanc infmmtatem pro

NOTE XI I. 387

suo modulo perfecta ista parva justitia, quando etiam quid
sibi desit intelligit. Ideoque Apostolus et imperfectum et
perfectum se dicit." — Contra Duas, Ep. 1. 3. n. 19. "De-
serit aliquando Deus ut discas superbus non esse. Quidam
traduntur Satanre ut discant non blasphemare." — De Nat. et
Grat. n. 32. Pelngius ridicules the idea that peccatis peccata
curantur.

NOTE XII. p. 84.

MR. COLERIDGE, in his Aids to Reflection, p. 272., strongly
objects to the received doctrine of original sin, as involving
the injustice of punishing one man on account of the sin of
another; in the place of which, he substitutes (p. 278.) a ra-
tionale of original sin, in which he rests that doctrine, upon
the principle of cause and effect ; asserting that all evil action
implies an evil in the will as the cause of it, which anterior
evil, when pushed backward and backward indefinitely, be-
comes original evil in the will, or original sin. " Whatever
resists and, as a positive power, opposes this (the moral law)
in the will, is evil. But an evil in the will is an evil will;
and as all moral evil is of the will, this evil will must have
its source in the will. And thus we might go back from act
to act, from evil to evil, ad injinitum, without advancing a
step." This anterior evil in the will, then, regarded as mys-
terious, independent of time and intelligible succession, is, he
argues, original sin. " Let the evil be supposed such as to
imply the impossibility of an individual referring it to any
particular time at which it might be conceived to have
commenced, or to any period of his existence at which it was
not existing. Let it be supposed, in short, that the subject
stands in no relation whatever to time, can neither be called
in time or out of time, but that all relations to time are as
alien and heterogeneous in this question as the relations and
attributes of space (north or south, round or square, thick or
thin) are to our affections and moral feelings. Let the reader

c c 2

388 NOTE xi r.

suppose this,, and he will have before him the precise import
of the scriptural doctrine of original sin."

It is evident that, according to this rationale, Adam as first
created had original sin, and had a corrupt nature as truly
as any of his posterity. For the first sinful act of man is as
open as any other to this reasoning from effect to cause, from
an evil act to an evil will, and from an evil will to a source
of evil in the will or original sin : so that Adam's sin in
Paradise was the effect of original sin in him, or a corrupt
nature, only differing from other sins in being the first effect.
" The corruption of my will may very warrantably be spoken
of as a consequence of Adam's fall, even as my birth of
Adam's existence ; as a consequence, a link in the historic
chain of instances, ichereof Adam was the first. But that it
is on account of Adam, or that this evil principle was a
priori inserted or infused into my will by the will of another
— which is indeed a contradiction in terms, my will in such
a case being no will, — this is nowhere asserted in Scripture
explicitly or by implication. It belongs to the very essence
of the doctrine, that in respect of original sin every man is
the adequate representative of all men. What wonder, then,
that where no outward ground of preference existed, the
choice should be determined by outward relation, and that
the first in time should be taken as the diagram?" — p. 283.

Such being the rationale of original sin substituted by
Mr. Coleridge for the received doctrine of original sin as
the consequence of the sin of Adam, which he rejects on the
ground of its opposition to reason, my remark is this — that
I cannot think it philosophical in any writer to overthrow a
whole received language, processing to express an incompre-
hensible mystery, on such a ground. Contradictory language,
or language opposed to reason, is the only one in which mys-
teries and incomprehensible truths can be expressed ; if they
could be expressed in consistent language, they would not
be mysteries. Moreover, the writer professes that he can
only substitute other inconsistent language for that which
he rejects. Mr. Coleridge admits the absolute inconsist-
ency of an original evil in the will with the will's self-
determination ; yet, because he thinks both of these to be

NOTE XII. 389

truths, he adopts a language which contains them both, as
the only mode of expressing " an acknowledged mystery,
and one which, by the nature of the subject, must ever
remain such." — p. 277. What is the improvement, then, in
consistency, in his langunge upon the received language?
While, on the other hand, the received language, by attribut-
ing the fall to an act of freewill only, which no evil in the
will preceded, expresses an important truth that sin is not
fundamental in, but only accidental to human nature; a
truth which Mr. Coleridge's language of original evil in the
will, so far from expressing, rather contradicts.

The same remark may be made on Mr. Coleridge's objec-
tion to the received doctrine of the atonement as a satisfac-
tion for sin ; which he rejects on the same ground as he does
the received doctrine of original sin, viz., its opposition to
our natural idea of justice. "Let us suppose, with certain
divines, that the varied expressions of S. Paul are to be
literally interpreted : ex. gr. that sin is, or involves, an in-
finite debt (in the proper and law-court sense of the word
debt), — a debt owing by us to the vindictive justice of God
the Father, which can only be liquidated by the everlasting
misery of Adam and all his posterity, or by a sum of suffer-
ing equal to this. Likewise, that God the Father, by His
absolute decree, or (as some divines teach) through the ne-
cessity of His unchangeable justice, had determined to exact
the full sum, which must therefore be paid either by ourselves
or by some other in our own name and behalf. But, besides
the debt which all mankind contracted, in and through Adam,
as a homo publicus, even as a nation is bound by the acts of
its head or its plenipotentiary, every man (say these divines) is
an insolvent debtor on his own score. In this fearful predi-
cament the Son of God took compassion on mankind, and
resolved to pay the debt for us, and to satisfy the Divine
justice by a perfect equivalent

"Now, as your whole theory is grounded on a notion of
justice) I ask you, Is this justice a moral attribute ? But
morality commences with, and begins in the sacred distinction
between thing and person : on this distinction all law human
and divine is grounded ; consequently, the law of justice. If

c c 3

390 NOTE XII.

you attach any meaning to the term justice, as applied to
God, it must be the same to which you refer when you
affirm or deny it of any other personal agent — save only,
that in its attribution to God you speak of it as unmixed and
perfect. For if not, what do you mean? And why do you
call it by the same name? I may, therefore, with all right
and reason, put the case as between man and man. For
should it be found irreconcilable with the justice, which the
light of reason, made laic in the conscience, dictates to man,
how much more must it be incongruous with the all-perfect
justice of God ! . . . .

" A sum of 1000Z. is owing from James to Peter, for which
James has given a bond. He is insolvent, and the bond is
on the point of being put in suit against him, to James's
utter ruin. At this moment Matthew steps in, pays Peter
the thousand pounds and discharges the bond. In this case,
no man would hesitate to admit, that a complete satisfaction
had been made to Peter. Matthew's 1000/. is a perfect
equivalent for the sum which James was bound to have paid,
and which Peter had lent. It is the same thing: and this is
altogether a question of things. Now, instead of James's
being indebted to Peter for a sum of money, which (he hav-
ing become insolvent) Matthew pays for him, we will put the
case, that James had been guilty of the basest and most
hard-hearted ingratitude to a most worthy and affectionate
mother, who had not only performed all the duties and tender
offices of a mother, but whose whole heart was bound up in
this her only child — who had foregone all the pleasures and
amusements of life in watching over his sickly childhood, had
sacrificed her health and the far greater part of her resources
to rescue him from the consequences of his follies and ex-
cesses during his youth and early manhood, and to procure
for him the means of his present rank and affluence — all
which he had repaid by neglect, desertion, and open pro-
fligacy. Here the mother stands in the relation of the credi-
tor : and here too we will suppose the same generous friend
to interfere, and to perform with the greatest tenderness
and constancy all those duties of a grateful and affectionate
son, which James ought to have performed. Will this

NOTE XII. 391

satisfy the mother's claims on James, or entitle him to her
esteem, approbation, and blessing ? Or what if Matthew,
vicarious son, should at length address her in words to this
purpose : ' Now, I trust, you are appeased, and will be
henceforward reconciled to James. I have satisfied all your
claims on him. I have paid his debt in full : and you are
too just to require the same debt to be paid twice over.
You will therefore regard him with the same complacency,
and receive him into your presence with the same love, as if
there had been no difference between him and you. For I
have made it up.1 What other reply could the swelling heart
of the mother dictate than this ? ( 0 misery ! and is it possi-
ble that you are in league with my unnatural child to insult
me? Must not the very necessity of your abandonment of
your proper sphere form an additional evidence of his guilt ?
Must not the sense of your goodness teach me more fully to
comprehend, more vividly to feel the evil in him? Must not
the contrast of your merits magnify his demerit in * his
mother's eye, and at once recall and embitter the conviction
of the canker-worm in his soul ? '

" If indeed by the force of Matthew's example, by persuasion,
or by additional and more mysterious influences, or by an
inward co-agency, compatible with the existence of a per-
sonal will, James should be led to repent ; if through admi-
ration and love of this great goodness gradually assimilating
his mind to the mind of his benefactor, he should in his own
person become a grateful and dutiful child — then doubtless
the mother would be wholly satisfied ! But then the case is
no longer a question of things, or a matter of debt payable by
another."— Aids to Reflection, p. 322.

But is not Mr. Coleridge fighting the air, when he objects,
on these grounds, to the received doctrine of the atonement
as a satisfaction for sin ? It is quite true that such a doc-
trine is opposed to our natural idea of justice, as well as to
the truth of common reason, that one person cannot be a sub-
stitute for another in moral action. But who does not
acknowledge this contrariety ? Does not the most devout
believer profess to hold this doctrine as a mystery, and not as
a truth of reason, or an intelligible truth ? And if he holds

c c 4

392 • NOTE XIII.

it as such, how can he be charged with holding anything
unreasonable ? How can an assertion be called contrary to
reason, when we do not know what its meaning, i. e. the thing
asserted in it, is ? And how, therefore, can the maintaining of
such an unknown truth be unreasonable? The Christian
only believes that there is a truth connected with this subject,
which in the present state of his capacities he cannot un-
derstand, but which, on the principle of accommodation, is
expressed in revelation in this form, as that mode of ex-
pressing it which is practically nearest to the truth.

NOTE XIII. p. 90.

THE connexion of this present state of sin and suffering with
some great original transgression was too deeply laid down in
Scripture to offer an easy explanation to the Pelagians. One
main solution, however, of such passages was given; viz,
that they referred to a connection not of descent, but example,
that the sin of Adam was fatal as an imitated, not as a trans-
mitted sin. But such an interpretation obviously fell short of
the meaning of Scripture, nor was it improved by the details
of the application. The Pelagian comment on the great passage
in the Epistle to the Romans, that " by one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned," opposed to the received
doctrine of transmitted sin ; first, the expression "one man,"
which sufficed, it was said, for the view of example, whereas
both, the man and the woman were necessary for transmission1 ;
secondly, the distinction that "death passed upon all men,''
not sin ; and, thirdly, the ground of actual sin, as distinguished
from original, " for that all have sinned." But the first of
these objections was futile; the second was overruled by other
texts of Scripture which made death the consequence of sin ;

1 Op. Imp. 1. 2. c. 47. 64. ; 1. 3. c. 85.

NOTE XIII. 393

and the third can only at most be allowed a balancing, not a
disproving weight. The Pelagian was, indeed, the better
construer of the Greek words, which our translation with
him renders into " for that," and not with S. Augustine into
"in whom."1 But though this particular clause, thus trans-
lated, refers to a ground of actual sin, not of original, or
sin "in Adam," as S. Augustine understood it; the reference
to actual sin does not destroy the previous reference to
original, at the beginning of the verse. The previous asser-
tion is plain and decisive, that " by one man sin entered into
the world ; " though the mystery of original sin must still be
held together with the truth of nature that God only punishes
men " for that" they themselves "have sinned."

It was equally vain in a comment on the text that
" the judgment was from one offence to condemnation, but
the free gift was of many offences unto justification," to
attempt to negative the unity of the sin mentioned in the
preceding clause by the plurality in the next ; and to argue,
that if one sin had been the source of the general sinfulness of
mankind, it would have been written " from one offence," not
"from many offences unto justification."2 The unity of the
source is not inconsistent with plurality in the proceeds from
it. To interpret "many "again to mean many offences of
one and the same person was gratuitous3, though convenient
for a coveted inference, that the state out of which a man was
raised at justification was contemplated here only as a state of
personal, not of original sin.

No candid interpreter, again, of the text, " As by the
offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation ;
even so by the righteousness of One the free gift came upon
all men unto justification of life," would allow its obvious
force to be negatived by the remark that, as all mankind do
not attain to justification, the universality ascribed to the
effect of Adam's sin in the first clause is destroyed by the
necessarily limited sense of universality, as applied to justifi-

Op. Imp. 1. 2. c. 63. * " Doce parvulos multis obnoxios

Op. Imp. 1. 2. c. 105. I esse criminibus." — Op. Imp. 1. 2.c. 114.

394

NOTE XIII.

cation, in the next. l Where the weight of Scripture goes
plainly in one direction, these minute verbal criticisms on
dependent and subordinate clauses, ought not to be allowed
to interfere with it.

From the passage in the Epistle to the Romans the
Pelagian passed to that in the First Epistle to the Corinthians,
* As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive" (1 Cor. xv. 22.); and his interpretation was the
same, that whether death was understood here of natural
or of moral death, i. e. sin, Adam was only put forth as the
sample, not as the root of it; an interpretation which he
confirmed by a reference to the succeeding text, "As we
have borne the image of the earthly we shall also bear the
image of the heavenly ; " as if this explained the preceding
one in the sense of an actual imitation of Adam, not of any
transmitted guilt or penalty from him. 2

The curse, at the commencement of the book of Genesis,
received a double explanation ; first, as imposing no new
suffering on man ; and, secondly, as imposing it, if it did im-
pose it, only for the warning, and not for the punishment of
posterity.3 The Pelagian observed that sorrows were " mul-
tiplied" on the woman, as if they had existed before4; and
that Adam, again, on whom the curse imposed labour, had
laboured before in the Garden of Eden 5 ; and that as a matter
of fact labour was not the universal penalty, because it was
not the universal lot of man. The sentence of death was
even more boldly dealt with ; and when the Pelagian had in-
ferred from the text, " For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt
thou return," that this event rested upon a physical ground
anterior to man's transgression, he proceeded to observe that

1 " Si Christus salvarit universes,
Adam quoque universis nocuisse finga-
tur." — Op. Imp. 1. 2. c. 136. Augus-
tine answers, " Qui propterea omnes
liberate dictus est etiam ipse, quoniam
non liberal quenquam nisi ipse." — Ibid.

3 " Sicut omnes, i. e. -multi Adae
imitatione moriuntur, ita omnes, i. e.
multi Christi imitatione salvantur." —
Op. Imp. 1. 6. c. 31.

3 " Ut commemoratione primi peccati,
afflictio succedanea his, quos reos non
fecerat, imitationis malae indicet cau-
tionem." — Op. Imp. 1. 6. c. 27.

4 Augustine : " Multiplicabo, multas
eas esse faciam. Poterat multiplicare
quae non erant." — Op. Imp. 1. 6. c. 26.

5 " Quid ei novum accidisse credi-
mus, si sentiret sudorem." — Op Imp.
1. 6. c. 27.

NOTE XIV. 395

the announcement of it at that time was not intended as a
severe, but as a consolatory one, — a promise of relief from
the trials and pains of life. l But S. Augustine appealed to the
evident meaning of the curse as a judicial sentence, inflicting
a punishment in consequence of man's sin which did not
exist before it2; he appealed to a larger sense of labour than
the narrow one of his opponent3; and he showed to the
Pelagian the unavoidable inference from his explanation of
the sentence of death, that man was wiser after his transgres-
sion than he was before it. For if death awaited him before
his sin, as the lot of nature, the only difference which the
curse, in announcing the event to him, made was, that it gave
him the knowledge of it." 4

NOTE XIV. p. 91.

JULIAN the Pelagian interprets Adam being created good as
meaning merely that he was created with freewill, or the
power to do good ; Augustine interprets it as meaning that
Adam was created with a good disposition or formed habit,
and rejects the Pelagian meaning as a false one, for the plain
reason that to be able to be good is not the same as to be
good ; whereas, Adam was made good. He admits, indeed,
that in a certain sense, a nature which is able not to sin is a
good nature : " Bonum conditum Adam non ego tantum nee
tu, sed ambo dicimus. Ambo enim dicimus bonam esse na-
turam qua? possit non peccare." — Op. Imp. 1. 6. c. 16. But
this sense is put aside as insufficient. " Quid est ergo quod
nunc dicis ; f Bonus Deus bonum fecit hominem,' si nee bo-
nus nee mains est, habendo liberum arbitrium quod in eo Deus
fecit ? . . . . Et quomodo verum est, f Fecit Deus hominem
rectum? — Eccl. vii. 29. An rectus erat non habens volun-

\

2 u

Op. Imp. 1. 6. c. 27.

Imo, inquis et damnatus est, et
nihil ei accidit novi. Hie risum tenere
difficile est."— -L. 6. c. 27.

3 L. 2. c. 28.

4 L. 6. c. 27.

396 NOTE XIV.

totem bonctm, sed ejus possibilitatem ? Ergo et pravus erat
non habens voluntatem pravam, sed ejus possibilitatem. . . .
Ita fit, ut per tuam mirabilem sapientiam, nee Deus fecerit
rectum hominem ; sed qui rectus posset esse si vellet"- -L. 5.
c. 57.

Adam being created good, then, meant that he was created
with a positive goodness, or a good habit of mind. Such a habit
S. Augustine expresses by the term bona voluntas, voluntas
meaning an established bias or inclination, or what we call
character. " Sed, inquis, f Ideo potuit oriri voluntas mala,
ut oriri posset et bona.' Quasi non cum bona voluntate fac-
tus sit vel angelus vel homo. Factus est rectus, sicut dixit
Scriptura. — Eccl. vii. 29. Non ergo quaeritur unde in illo
potuerit oriri bona voluntas, cum qua factus est ; sed unde
mala cum qua factus non est. Et tu dicis, non attendens
quid dicas ' Ideo potuit oriri voluntas mala, ut oriri posset
et bona : ' et hoc putas ad naturam liberi arbitrii pertinere,
ut possit utrumque et peccare scilicet et non peccare ; et in
hoc existimas hominem factum ad imaginem Dei, cum Deus
ipse non possit utrumque." — L. 5. c. 38. " Quis enim ferat,
si dicatur talis factus, quales nascuntur infantes ? Ilia ita-
que perfectio naturae quam non dabant anni, sed sola manus
Dei, non potuit nisi habere voluntatem aliquam, eamque non
malam. Bona3 igitur voluntatis factus est homo . . . neque
enim nisi recta volens rectus est quisquam" — L. 5. c. 61.

Julian objects to this implanted voluntas on the freewill
ground, pronouncing it absurd that a man can be made good ;
on the ground that goodness implied, in its very nature, choice
and exertion of the will. "Estnaturahumanabonum opus Dei :
est libertas arbitrii, id est, possibilitas vel delinquendi vel recte
faciendi, bonum aeque opus Dei. Utrumque hoc homini de
necessario venit. Sed voluntas in his exoritur non de his.
Capacia voluntatis sunt quippe, non plena." — Op. Imp. 1. 5.
c. 56. " Est ergo ista possibilitas, quae nomine libertatis os-
tenditur, ita a sapient! ssimo constituta Deo, ut sine ipsa non
sit, quod per ipsarn esse non cogitur."- - c. 57. Augustine
replies : " Ut video, nee bonam voluntatem vis tribuere na-
turae, quando est homo primitus conditus : quasi non potue-
rit Deus hominem facere voluntatis bonaa." — c. 61.

NOTE XIV. 397

Augustine's lona voluntas only seems to express in a dif-
ferent form the traditional view of the Church from the first,
as contained in the writings of the earlier fathers. Bishop
Bull, in his discourse on the State of Man before the Fall,
quotes their principal statements on the subject. They all
take for their basis the scriptural truth, that Adam was made
in the image of God ; and they commonly interpret this to
mean that the soul of Adam had a certain indwelling of the
Holy Spirit in it. Tatian, the pupil of Justin Martyr, speaks
of " the familiarity and friendship " of the Spirit with Adam
in his created state : rijs avv avra> Statr^y — iov Trvsv/jLaros
rov SvvaTtoTEpov, whom he also calls 77 Aoyov ^vvajjas. — Contra
Grcecos, c. 7. Irenaeus says : (< Spiritus commixtus animae
unitur plasmati" (1. 5. c. 6.); and also speaks of the robe of
sanctity which Adam had from the Spirit : " quam habuit a
Spiritu sanctitatis stolam." — L. 3. c. 23. Tertullian speaks
of the Spirit of God which Adam received by inspiration :
" Spiritum quern tune de afflatu ejus acceperat." — De Bap-
tismo, c. 5. Clemens Alexandrinus speaks of" the characteris-
tical propriety of the Holy Spirit superadded" to the nature
of Adam : 7rpoa<yiv6fjisvov dylov Trvsvfjbaros f)(apaicTripicniKov
t'Stcoyita. — Strom. 1 6. c. 16. Athanasius speaks of God impart-
ing to our first parents the power of His own Word: /AsraSovs
avrols KOI TTJS rov I&LOV A6<yov ^vvdfjisws. — De Incar. Verb. torn,
i. c. 3. Basil speaks of the " assession of God, and conjunction
with him (Adam) by love — 17 Trpoo-sBpsta rov 6sov} /cal rj Sia rrjs
ajaTrrjs (rvvdfaia." — Howil. quod non Deus est Auctor Peccat.
Cyril speaks of " that Spirit which formed him (Adam) after
the Divine image, and was, as a seal, secretly impressed on his
soul — TO Trpos Osiav siKova Sia/jLOpfovv avrb, /cal G-^^avrpov
SLK^V aTropprjTWs svreBsLfjbevov^ - — 7. Dialog, de Trin. This
familiar abode of the Spirit in the first man, and the cha-
racter and seal stamped by the Spirit upon him, evidently
imply a certain disposition of mind or holy habit which was
formed in him, as Cyprian (De Bono Patientice) actually ex-
presses it, interpreting the Divine image as involving virtues
— virtutes.

398 NOTE XV.

NOTE XV. p. 108.

THUS Justin Martyr Fays of the human race : o dirb TOV '
VTTO OdvaTOv KOI ir\dv7]v TTJV TOV ofaws STCSTCTMKZI, irapd rrjv
ISiav alriav s/cdaTov avrcov Trovypsvcra/jLEvov. — Dial, cum Tryph.
c. 88. Trapa here signifying not besides (pr&ter) but by rea-
son of sua propria cujusque culpa, the latter half of this sen-
tence gives the natural truth — viz., that the individual sins by
the exercise of his own freewill; as the former gives the
revealed, that the individual sins in consequence of the sin-
fulness of the race. One sentence of Tatian's joins the two
in the same way : ffiOi TQ> dsa) rrjv ira\aidv ysvscriv Trapatrov-
IJLSVOS. OVK sysvo/AsOa Trpo? TO aTrod^a/csiv, airoQvr](JKO^v Ss SI
savTovs. — Contra Grcec. c. 1 1. The " old birth" is the myste-
rious, the " SI SCLVTOVS" the obvious and conscious cause of sin.
So far the fathers only follow the precedent of Scripture,
which put* the two grounds together, as in Eom. v. 12.,
<c As by one man sin entered into the world and death by
sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned ; " death being referred in the first part of the sentence
to the sin of Adam, in the last to each man's actual sins.
Again, several fathers speak of infants as innocent beings :
" Quid festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem peccatorum." —
Tertullian, De Bapt. c. 18. " *E\66vT£s sisTovSs TOV Koa^ov
avafidpTijToi." — Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. iv. 13. " To aTrsi-
pofcaicov vrjTriov . . prj SSOJJLSVOV TTJS s/c TOV /ca6ap0f)vai vytSLas,
OTL fj,r)Ss Trjv dpfflv Trjv voaov Trj ^v^(fj TrapsSs^aTO. . . TO /JLIJTS
ev dydOq), fj,r)TS h KCLKW £vpi(TKo^svov^ — Gregory Nyss. (De iis
qui praemature abripiuntur). But Hagenbach is precipitate
in concluding from the passage in Cyril, that " Cyril of
Jerusalem assumed that men are born in a state of inno-
cence" (History of Doctrines, v. i. p. 315.); i. e. if he means
by this that Cyril denied original sin. It is a truth of rea-
son and nature, that infants are innocent beings, which may
be asserted, as it must be by every rational person, without
prejudice to the mysterious truth of their guilt as descendants

NOTE XV. 399

of Adam. Tertullian, who asserts it, is at the same time
acknowledged as one of those fathers who have most strongly
asserted the doctrine of original sin ; and Scripture itself
asserts both, saying of children, that " of such is the kingdom
of heaven," while at the same time it declares, that " in Adam
all die." Chrysostom again denies that one man can be re-
sponsible for another man's sin : TO /JLSV <yap srspov &t' srspov
Ko\d£eo-dai ov a(j>&6opa SOKSI \6yov s^eiv. — Horn. X. in Rom.
But this is a simple truth of reason which nobody can deny,
and the assertion of it is quite consistent with holding the
mystery of our guilt in Adam. All the early fathers, more-
over, assert strongly the freewill of even fallen man, his
TrpoaLpscris s\svOspa, avTs^oixriov. But this runs side by side
with their assertion of his " captivity" and (f corruption," as
another part of the whole truth.

The case of Clement of Alexandria is perhaps peculiar,
though too much should not made of particular expressions,
like the ones just quoted, found in him. In combating,
indeed, the Gnostic doctrine of our evil nature, he uses
arguments which would equally tell against the doctrine of
original sin. He denies that any one can be evil but by his
own personal act : \8y4raMTav r^^lv TTOV siropvsvasv TO

TTafStOV, TJ 7TO)9 V7TO TTjV TOV 'A&tyt VTrOTTETTTCOKSV dpdv TO

svspyrjcrav, — Strom. 1. 3. c. 16. He describes, again, sin
after the fall, as if it were only a repetition, and not an effect
of sin at the fall : sis yap 6 airaT^v dvwOsv JJLSV TTJV Euaz>, vvv
£e rjSrj KOL TOVS a\\ovs avdpaiTrovs sis ddvaTOV virocfrepcov. —
Ad Gentes, vol. 1. p. 7. But Hagenbach is precipitate in
concluding that Clement " rejects the doctrine of original
sin, properly so called," simply on the strength of such pas-
sages as these. — History of Doctrine, v. 1. p. 173. Augus-
tine himself has a similar passage exactly to the one just
quoted: "Etiam nunc in unoquoque nostrum nihil aliud
agitur, cum ad peccatum quisque delabitur, quam tune actum
est in illis tribus, serpente, muliere, et viro. — De Genesi
contra Man. 1. 2. c. 14. Such expressions are no more than
what common sense justifies and obliges, and are quite
consistent with belief in the other truth. But Clement,
though he asserts sin to be " natural," TO <ydp

400 NOTE XVI.

S/UL^VTOJ/ KOI Koivbv^Pced. 1. 3. c. 12), (his language, how-
ever, seeming to express here universal rather than original
sin), certainly seems to explain away the passage in the Psalms,
" in sin hath my mother conceived me," interpreting it to refer
to sinful custom or habit, not to sinful nature (Strom. 1. 3.
c. 16.), though at the same time it must be remarked, that he
is relieving the passage of a Gnostic meaning, according to
which sin was inherent in natural generation as such, and
not opposing the Catholic. Jeremy Taylor gives a somewhat
similar explanation with less excuse. " The words are a
Hebraism, and signify nothing but an aggrandation of his
sinfulness, and are intended for a high expression, meaning
that " I am wholly and entirely wicked." — Vol. ix. p. 27.
On the whole, though Clement, in common with all the early
fathers, is a lenient interpreter of the doctrine of original
sin, and though such passages as these have not such coun-
terbalancing ones in his writings as they have in those of
other fathers, these passages are no test of his belief on the
subject.

NOTE XVI. p. 121.

Tous- Se (unbaptized infants, or those who by accident died
without baptism) /n^rs &o%ao-0r}cr£cr0ai,, IMJTS /coXacrOtjasaOai,
Trspl rov bifcalov /cpirov, ws da(f)pajL(7Tovs /jisv airovrjpovs $e,
d\\a TraObvras jJuaXkov rrjv tfl/jblav f) Spdaavras. ov jap 00-71$
ov KO\do~£(t)S a^ios ijSrj /cal TifATJs ' cbaTrsp OGTIS ov Tijmfjs ij$r] /cal
Ko\do-£dJ9. — Gregory Naz. Orat. 40. v. i. p. 653. Gregory
of Nyssa formally discusses the question of the future condi-
tion of those who die as infants, without reference to their
being or not baptized .(v. ii. p. 749) ; which, in distinction to
the ground taken by some, that they do not deserve so much
happiness as the mature good, he maintains to turn, not so
much upon any difference of claim, as of natural aptitude
and capacity for happiness. Ov/c E<TTW slTrelv icvpiws dvriBo-
auv TWV sv ffefficoKOTCov <ysvscr6ai rrjv rfjs farjs fjiSTOvaiav Kal

TO £/J,7Ta\l,V. 'A\V OjJLOiOV SffTl TO) Kara TOVS 6(f)Oa\fJiOVf

NOTE XVI. 401

TO \syofjisvov. Qvos jap T&> /cs/cadapfjusvp ras otysis
£7ra6\6v TL fyajJLSv elvai KOI Trpzcrftslov rr)V TCOV 6pdra)v /cara-
vdr](Tiv, rj T(j> VOCTOVVTL TO Ejji7ra\ti> /caraSiKrjv nva TO fjur] /ASTE-
^siv TTjf opan/cfjs evspygfas' 'AAA,' o)s dvayKalws STrsrai, TCO
Kara fyvaiv 8ia/C£i/j,sv(t) TO jSXsTrsiv, TU> rs diro irdOovs Trapsvg-
^dsvri TTfs (f)vasa)9, TO yu-^ Evspyslv Tr)V opacriv ' rbv avrov TOTTOV
Kal f) fjua/capia for) av/ji^urjs sari, /cat OiKsla rols KSKaOapfMsvo^
ra 777? 'tyvxfjs aladrjrrjpia. Upon this principle he proceeds
to argue that the happiness of infants in a future state will
be in proportion to their capacity for it, which will be lower
than that of those who have lived virtuously as mature men ;
that it will be analogous to their happiness in this life, which is
of the simpler and unconscious kind. ^aOdirsp yap 0rj\fj Kal
rydXaKTi YJ TTpcarr) TMV VTJTTICOV r)\iKia TiOuvovjjbsvri s/crpstpsrat '
slra SLaSs^srai Tavrrjv Kard\\,rf\os srspa TO>

TpO(j)r), olfCELCOS TS KOL STTLTrjBsLWS TTpOS TO Tp£(j)6/J,SVOV

fo>p av sjrl TO T£\£iov (f)0da-r) ' OVTOJS ol/jbat, Kal rrjv
Sid TWV dsl tear* d\\i]\a)v rd^st, nvl Kal aKoXovQia
rrj? Kara §\)<Jiv for)?, &$ XWP£^ Ka^ ^>vvaTai rwv sv

Tr)Ti,7rpoK£i,jj,sva)i> KaTa\a/j,{3dvovo-a fH Ss aysvcrros rrjy

dpsrrjs ^f%^, T0)v IJLSV EK Tro^ptay KaK&v, are fj,rjrs rrjv
rfj rfjs KaKias vbo-w, Stapsvsi, dp,£TO%os rrjs
ii]V ©eoO yvwcrt'v TS Kal /jusrovcrlav TOOTOVTOV
irapd Trjv 7rpu)Tr)v}ocrov ^a)psi TO Tpsfyofjuevov. — Augustine main-
tained a middle state, in his earlier theological life. — Dicunt
enim: quid opus est ut nasceretur qui antequam iniret ullum
vitae meritum excessit e vita? Aut qualis in futuro judicio
deputabitur, cui neque inter justos locus est, quoniam nihil
recte fecit ; neque inter malos, quoniam nihil peccavit ? Qui-
bus respondetur : ad universitatis complexum, et totius crea-
turse vel per locos vel per tempora ordinatissimam con-
nexionem, non posse superfluo creari qualemcunque hominem,
ubi folium arboris nullum superfluum creatur; sed sane su*
perfluo quae.ri de meritis ejus qui nihil meruerit. Non enim
metuendum est ne vita esse potuerit media quaedam inter
recte factura atque peccatum, et sententia judicis media esse
non possit inter pnemium et supplicium. — De Lib. Arb.
1. 3. c. 23.

D D

402 KOTE XVII.

NOTE XVII. p. 128.

IN the first of the following passages all wickedness, in the
second extreme wickedness, is referred to original sin ; in the
third, different degrees admitted in evil, are accounted for by
different degrees of original sin; in the fourth and fifth these
decrees in evil appear as the additions of the individual to
original sin, though in what precise sense they leave uncertain.
(1.) " Ad iram quippe Dei [in consequence of original sin]
pertinet justam, quicquid caeca et indomita concupiscentia
faciunt libenter mali." — Enchiridion, c. 27. (2.) " Omnes
ex eadem niassa perditionis et damnationis secundum duri-
tiem cordis sui et cor impenitens, quantum ad ipsos per-
tinet, thesaurizant sibi iram in die iraj, quo redditur uni-
cuique secundum opera sua." — Contra Julianum Pelayiamim,
1. 5. c, 4. (3.) " Veruntamen taciturn non est quod erat
eorum malitia naturalis ; quae quidem omnium hominum, sed
in aliis minor, in aliis major est : sicut corpora corruptibilia
sunt omnium, sed alias animas minus, alias plus gravant, pro
diversitate judiciorum Dei, occultorum quidem, sed sine ulla
dubitationejustoruni." — Opus Imp. Contra Julianum s\ A. C.12S.
(4.) " Hi ergo qui non pertinent ad istum certissirnum et fe-
licissimum numerum pro mentis justissime judicantur. Aut
enim jacent sub peccato, quod originaliter generatim traxerunt,
et cum illo haereditario debito hinc exeunt, quod non est rege-
neratione dimissum ; aut per liberum arbitrium alia insuper
addiderunt ; arbitrium, inquam, liberum sed non liberatum ;
liberum justitia3, peccati autem servum, quo volvuntur per
diversas noxias cupiditates, alii magis, alii minus ; sed omnea
mali."— De Correptione et Gratia, c. 13. (5.) " Si autem
male vivunt de suo male vivunt, vel quod originaliter traxe-
runt, vel quod insuper addiderunt. Sed si vasa sunt iraj,
quae perfecta sunt ad perditionem, quae illis debita redditur,
sibi hoc imputent, quia ex ea massa facta sunt, quam propter
unius peccatuin, in quo omnes peccaverunt, merito Deus
justeque damnavit." — Ep. 194. c. 6.

Jansen interprets S. Augustine as making the whole mass of

NOTE xrai. 403

actual sin in the world the simple effect and development of
original. " Positive reprobationis causa . . . peccata omnia
cum quibus morituri sunt, etiam originale peccatum. Nam
ex illius suppliciis quicquid peccatorum a reprobatis perpetra-
tum est accessu libers voluntatis, fluxit . . . ut proinde ilia
tota suppliciorum concatenatio, usque ad damnationem in
ignem aeternam, radicaliter et mediate in peccati originalis
meritum referenda videatur. Immediate tamen prima poc-
narum istarum promeretur secundam, et ita deinceps, donee
ultima tandem, velut praecedentium complementum, infera-
tm:"—De Gratia Christi, p. 1019.

NOTE XVIII. p. 130.

" ET propterea conantur parvulis non baptizatis innocentiae
merito salutem ac vitam aeternam tribuere ; sed, quia bap-
tizati non sunt, eos a regno coelorum facere alienos : nova
quadam et mirabili praesumptione, quasi salus ac vita aeterna
possit esse prseter Christi haereditatem, praeter regnum ccelo-
rum. . . . Profecto illi quibus Sacramentum defuerit in eis
habendi sunt qui non credunt Filio ; atque ideo, si hujus
inanes gratiae de corpore exierint, sequetur eos quod dictum
est, ' Non habebunt vitam sed ira Dei manet super eos.'
Unde hoc, quando eos clarum est peccata propria non habere,
si nee originali peccato teneantur obnoxii." — De Peccat.
Merit, et Bern. 1. 1. c. xx.

" Quia ergo de ovibus ejus non esse incipiunt parvuli nisi
per baptismum ; profecto, si hoc non accipiunt, peribunt." —
Ibid. c. xxvii.

" Quemadmodum enim omnes omnino pertinentes ad
generationem voluntatis carnis non moriuntur nisi in Adam
in quo omnes peccaverunt: sic ex his omnes omnino per-
tinentes ad regenerationem voluntatis spiritus non vivi-
ficantur nisi in Christo, in quo omnes justificantur. Quia
sicut per unum omnes ad condemnationem, sic per unuin
omnes ad justificationem. Nee est ullus medius locus ut
possit esse nisi cum diabolo, qui non est cum Christo. Hie et

D D 2

404 NOTE XVIII.

ipse Dominus volens auferre de cordibus male credcntium
istam nescio quara medietatem, quam conantur quidam par-
vulis non baptizatis tribuere, ut quasi merito innocentiae sint in
vita aeterna, sed quia non sunt baptizati non gint cum Christo
in regno ejus, definitivam protulit ad haec ora obstruenda
sententiam, ubi ait : ' Qui mecuin non est, adversum me est.'
Constitue igitur quemlibet parvulum : si jam cum Christo
est, ut quid baptizatur? Si autem, quod habet veritas, ideo
baptizatur ut sit cum Christo, profecto non baptizatus non est
cum Christo, et, quia non est cum Christo, ad versus Christum
est." — Hid. c. xxviii.

" Unde fit consequens ut, quoniam nihil agitur aliud, cum
parvuli baptizantur, nisi ut incorporentur ecclesiae, id est,
Christi corpori membrisque associentur ; inanifetstum est eos
ad damnationem, nisi hoc eis collatum fuerit, pertinere. Non
autem damnari possent, si peccatum utique non haberent.
Hoc quia ilia aetas nulla in vita propria contrahere potuit,
restat intelligere vel, si hoc nondum possumus, saltern credere,
trahere parvulos originate peccatum." — Ibid. 1. 3. c. iv.

ee Absit ut causam parvulorum sic relinquamus, ut esse
nobis dicamus incertum, utrum in Christo regenerati, si mo-
riantur parvuli, transeant in aeternam salutem; non regenerati
autem transeant in mortem secundam ; quoniam quod scrip-
turn est, * Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum,
et per peccatum mors ; et ita in omnes homines pertransiit,'
aliter recte intelligi non potest : nee a morte perpetua qua3
justissime est retributa peccato, liberat quenquam pusillorum
atque magnorum, nisi ille qui propter remittenda et originalia
et propria nostra peccata mortuus est, sine ullo suo originali et
proprio peccato. Sed quare illos potius quam illos? Iterum
atque iterum dicimus, nee nos piget, * O homo, tu quis es qui
respondeas Deo ? "; — De Dono Perseverantice, c. xii.

" Sed ut id quod dicimus alicujus exempli manifestatione
clarescat, constituamus aliquos ab aliqua meretrice geminos
editos, atque ut ab aliis colligerentur, expositos : horum sine
baptismo expiravit unus, alius baptizatus. ... Quid restat
quantum ad baptizatum attinet, nisi gratia Dei quae vasis
factis in honorem gratis datur; quantum autem ad non
baptizatum, ira Dei, quae vasis factis ad contumeliam pro

NOTE XVIII. 405

ipsius massae mentis redclitur ?" — Contra Duas, Ep. Pel. 1. 2.
c. vii.

" Ac per hoc, quia nihil ipsi male vivendo addiderunt ad
originale peccatum, potest eorum merito dici in ilia damna-
tioiie minima poena, non tamen nulla. Quisquis autem putat
diversitatem futuram non esse poenarum, legat quod scriptum
est, ' Tolerabilius erit Sodomas in die judicii, quam illi
civitati.' Non ergo a deceptoribus inter regnum et suppli-
cium medius locus quseratur infantibus ; sed transeant a
diabolo ad Christum, hoc est," a morte ad vitam, ne ira Dei
maneat super eos." — Ep. 184. c. 1.

" Respondeat quid de illo futuram sit, qui, nulla sua culpa
non baptizatus, ista fuerit temporal! morte praeventus. Si
non putamus esse dicturum quod innocentern Deus, nee
habentem originale peccatum ante annos quibus habere
poterat proprium, aeterna morte damnabit ; cogitur itaque
respondere quod Pelagius in ecclesiastico judicio, ut aliquo
modo catholicus pronuntiaretur, anathematizare compulsus
est, infantes, etiamsi non baptizentur, habere vitam aeternam:
hac enim negata, quid nisi mors aeterna remanebit?" — Ep.
186. c. viiL

(f Primus hie error aversandus ab auribus, exstirpandus a
mentibus. Hoc novum in ecclesia, prius inauditum est, esse
vitam aeternam praster regnum coelorum, esse salutem aeternam
praster regnum Dei. Primo vide, frater, ne forte hie con-
sentire nobis debeas, quisquis ad regnum Dei non pertinet,
eum ad damnationem sine dubio pertinere. Venturus Domi-
nus, et judicaturus de vivis et mortuis, sicut evangelium
loquitur, duas partes facturus est, dextram et sinistram.
Sinistris dicturus, Ite in ignem (Bternam, qui paratus est
Diabolo et anyelis ejus ; dextris dicturus, Venite benedictl
Patris mei, percipite regnum quod vobis paiatum est) ab origine
mundi. Hac regnum nominat, hac cum diabolo damnationem.
Nullus relictus est medius locus, ubi ponere queas infantes.
De vivis et mortuis judicabitur : alii erunt ad dextram, alii ad
sinistram : non novi aliud, Qui inducis medium, recede
de medio, sed noli in sinistram. Si ergo dextra erit, et
sinistra, et nullum medium locum in Evangelio novimus ; ecce
in dextra regnum ccelorum est, Percipite, inquit, regnum.

D n 3

40(> NOTE XIX.

Qui ibi non est in sinistra est. Quid erit in sinistra ? Ite in
ignem ceternum. In dextra ad regnum, utique seternum ; in
sinistra in ignem sternum. Qui non in dextra, procul dubio
in sinistra: ergo qui non in regno, procul dubio in ignc
ajterno. Certe habere potest vitam a3ternam qui non bapti-
zatur ? Non est in dextra, id est, non erit in regno. Vitam
seternam computas ignem sempiternum ? Et de ipsa vita
eeterna audi expressius, quia nihil aliud est regnum quam vita
aeterna. Prius regnum nominavit, sed in dextris; ignem
seternum in sinistris. Extrema autem sententia, ut docerct
quid sit regnum, et quid sit ignis sempiternus — Tune, inquit,
abibunt isti in ambustionem ceternam ; justi autem in vitam
ceternam.

" Ecce exposuit tibi quid sit regnum, et quid sit ignis icter-
nus ; ut quando confitearis parvulum non futurum in regno,
fatearis futurum in igne aeterno." — Serm. 294. c. iii.

NOTE XIX. p. 139.

HOOKER states S. Augustine's doctrine of predestination as
the doctrine " that the whole body of mankind in the view
of God's eternal knowledge lay universally polluted with
sin, worthy of condemnation and death ; that over the mass
of corruption there passed two acts of the will of God, an
act of favour, liberality, and grace, choosing part to be made
partakers of everlasting glory; and an act of justice, forsak-
ing the rest and adjudging them to endless perdition ; these
vessels of wrath, those of mercy ; which mercy is to God's
elect so peculiar, that to them and none else (for their num-
ber is definitely known, and can neither be increased nor
diminished), to them it allotteth immortality and all things
thereunto appertaining ; them it predestinateth, it calleth,
justifieth, glorifieth them ; it poureth voluntarily that spirit
into their hearts, which spirit so given is the root of their

NOTE XIX. 407

very first desires and motions tending to immortality ; as for
others on whom such grace is not bestowed, there is justly
assigned, and immutably to every of them, the lot of eternal
condemnation." — Appendix to bk. v. Keble's edition,
p. 730.

Another statement, a little further on, not so much of
Augustine's doctrine as professing to be founded upon it, is
somewhat less rigid : " To proceed, we have seen the general
inclination of God towards all men's everlasting happiness,
notwithstanding sin ; we have seen that the natural love of
God towards mankind was the cause of appointing or pre«
destinatino; Christ to suffer for the si us of the whole world —

O

we have seen that our Lord, who made Himself a sacrifice
for our sins, did it in the bowels of a merciful desire that no
man might perish — we have seen that God, nevertheless,
hath found most just occasion to decree the death and con-
demnation of some — we have seen that the whole cause why
such are excluded from life resteth altogether in themselves^ —
we have seen that the natural will of God being incline'.!
toward all men's salvation, and His occasioned will having set
down the death but of some in such condemnation, as hath
been shewed, it must needs follow that of the rest there is a
determinate ordinance proceeding from the good pleasure of
God, whereby they are, and have been before all worlds,
predestinated heirs of eternal bliss — we have seen that in
Christ, the Prince of God's elect, all worthiness was foreseen ;
that in the elect angels there was not foreseen any matter for
just indignation and wrath to work upon ; that in all other
God foresaw iniquity, for which an irrevocable sentence of
death and condemnation might most justly have passed over
all ; for it can never be too often inculcated that touching the
very decree of endless destruction and death, God is the Judge
from whom it cometh, but man the cause from which it
grew. Salvation contrariwise, and life proceedeth only both
from God and of God. We are receivers through grace and
mercy, authors through merit and desert we are not, of our
own salvation. In the children of perdition we must always
remember that of the Prophet, ' Thy destruction, O Israel,

i> o 4

08 NOTE XIX.

is of thyself ;' lest we teach men blasphemously to cast the
blame of all their misery upon God. Again, lest we take to
ourselves the glory of that happiness, which, if He did not
freely and voluntarily bestow, we should never be made
partakers thereof, it must ever, in the election of saints, be
remembered, that to choose is an act of God's good pleasure,
which presupposeth in us sufficient cause to avert, but none
to deserve it. For this cause, whereas S. Augustine had
some time been of opinion that God chose Jacob and hated
Esau, the one in regard of belief, the other of infidelity,
which was foreseen, his mind he afterwards delivered thus:
'Jacob I have loved; behold what God doth freely bestow.
/ have hated Esau ; behold what man doth justly deserve." —
p. 737.

There is some departure here from the rigour of the real
Augustinian language, though no positive inconsistency
with the Augustinian doctrine. The modification is given
by suppression ; " We have seen," he says, " that the whole
cause why such are excluded from life resteth altogether
in themselves" S. Augustine would say this, but he
would explain at the same time that this cause in man
himself was not foreseen personal sin, but original sin.
Hooker suppresses this interpretation, and leaves men's
actual foreseen sins as the cause, according to the natural
meaning of his phrase, of their exclusion from the decree of
predestination to life.

A third statement of the doctrine of predestination reverts
to a stricter line. "It followeth, therefore, — 1. That God
hath predestinated certain men, not all men : 2. That the
cause moving Him hereunto was not the foresight of any
virtue in us at all : 3. That to Him the number of His elect
is definitely known : 4. That it cannot be but their sins
must condemn them to whom the purpose of His saving
mercy doth not extend : 5. That to God's foreknown elect
final continuance in grace is given : 6. That inward grace
whereby to be saved is deservedly not given unto all men:
7. That no man cometh unto Christ, whom God by the in-
ward grace of the Spirit draweth not : 8. And that it is not
in every one, no, not in any man's mere ability, freedom, and

NOTE XX. 409

power, to be saved; no man's salvation being possible without
grace. Howbeit, God is no favourer of sloth, and therefore
there can be no such absolute decree touching man's salva-
tion, as on our part includeth no necessity of care and tra-
vail, but shall certainly take effect, whether we ourselves
do wake or sleep." — p. 752. The difference between this
statement and the Lambeth Articles consists in an omis-
sion and insertion, softening the general effect of the lan-
guage, while the substantial ground is the same. Thus the
first Lambeth Article mentions reprobation, which the first
article of this statement does not; but reprobation is im-
plied in it. Again, the 7th Lambeth Article says, " Gratia
salutaris non tribuitur universis hominibus qua servari
possint, si voluerint." Hookerjnserts after "is not given,"
" deservedly? which softens the effect, though the desert may
be admitted by the most rigid predestinarian in the shape
of original sin. There is a real difference between the two
statements of doctrine, in the omission in Hooker's of the
doctrine of assurance, which is asserted in the Lambeth
document.

NOTE XX. p. 251.

IN the controversy in the Gallican Church, on the subject of
predestination, which arose out of the doctrinal statements of
Gotteschalcus ; which was conducted by Hinckmar, archbishop
of Rheirns, on the one side, and Remigius, archbishop of Lyons,
on the other, and which produced the Councils of Quiercy
and Valence ; neither side appears to have sifted the question
to its foundation, or to have understood its really turning
points; and there is, accordingly, a good deal of arbitrary
adoption and arbitrary rejection of language on both sides ;
a good deal of reliance on distinctions without a difference,
that is to say, on words. The doctrinal statement of Gottes-
chalcus embraces the following five points. — Usher's Gottes-
chalci Historia, p. 27.

410 NOTE XX.

" 1 . Ante omnia secula, et antequam quicquam faceret, a
principio Deus quos voluit prasdestinavit ad regnum, et quos
voluit praedestinavit ad interitum.

" 2. Qui praedestinati sunt ad interitum salvari non possunt,
et qui pra3destinati sunt ad regnura perire non possunt.

(( 3. Deus non vult omnes homines salvos fieri, sed eos tan-
turn qui salvantur : et quod dicit Apostolus ' Qui vult omnes
homines salvos fieri,' illos dicit omnes qui tantummodo sal-
vantur.

" 4. Christus non venit ut omnes salvaret ; nee passus est
pro omnibus, nisi solummodo pro his qui passionis ejus sal-
vantur mysterio.

<s 5. Postquam primus homo libero arbitrio cecidit, nemo
nostrum ad bene agendum, sed tantummodo ad male agendum,
libero potest uti arbitrio."

This statement of doctrine is substantially Augustinian,
and nothing more ; and Remigius approves of it as a whole,
making an exception against the 5th proposition ; respecting
the meaning of which he must have been under some mistake,
for the language expresses no more than \vhat is necessarily
involved in the doctrine of original sin. With this excep-
tion, he maintains this doctrinal statement to be supported,
" uno sensu uno ore," by the fathers and the Church, and
appeals to the undisputed authority of Augustine in their
favour — " Beatissimi patris Augustini ab omni semper ecclesia
venerabiliter recepti et usque in finem scculi recipiendi" ex-
plaining the text "Qui vult omnes homines salvos fieri,"
apparently contradicted in the 3rd proposition, according to
Augustine's interpretation :, (1.) " Ut omnes homines omnia
hominum genera accipiamus : " (2.) " non quod omnes salven-
tur, sed quod nemo nisi miserationis ejus voluntate salve-
tur." On the 4th he says : " Si inveniantur aliqui patrum
qui etiam pro impiis in sua impietate permansuris Domi-
num crucifixum dicant ;" if they can prove it out of Scripture
well, if not, " quis non videat potiorem illam esse auctorita-
tem, quae et tarn evidenti ratione et tarn multiplici Scriptu-
rarum attestatione firmatur ? ... Si autem placet, propter
pacem, non renuatur. . . . Nihil tamen definiatur." — p. 34.

The Council of Quiercy (Concilium Carisiacense) sum-

NOTE XX. 411

moned by Hinckmar, condemned the opinions of Gotteschal-
cus, and published a counter statement of doctrine, which
placed the doctrine of predestination upon a ground of fore-
knowledge : ' ( Secundum pr&scientiam suam quos per gratiam
predestinavit ad vitam elegit ex massa perditionis. Caeteros
autem quos justitiae judicio in massa perditionis reliquit,
perituros praescivit, sed non ut perirent praedestinavit." —
p. 67. There is nothing in the language of this proposition
to which the most rigid predestinarian might not subscribe ;
but Remigius interprets the prcescienfia as the foreknowledge
of the individual's good life, and as implying the resting of
the doctrine of predestination on that ground : " Quod mani-
feste contrarium est Catholics fidei. Quia Omnipotens Deus
in electione eorum quos prsedestinavit, et vocavit ad vitam
rcternam, non eorum merita praescivit." On the subject of
the Divine will to save all mankind the Council decreed :
'* Deus omnipotens omnes homines sine exceptione vult salvos
fieri, licet non omnes salventur," to which proposition Remi-
gius opposes the fact of the heathen world, the damnation of
which he considers to be a point which has been decided by
the Church. The same question was taken up by the
Council in another form ; viz. whether Christ did or did not
suffer for all men, which it decided in the affirmative.
" Christus Jesus Dominus noster, sicut nullus homo est fuit vel
erit cujus natura in illo assumpta non fuerit, ita nullus est fuit
vel erat homo pro quo passus non fuerit ; licet non omnes pas-
sionis ejus mysterio redimantur." On this argument Reini-
gius remarks : " Quod dicitur quod nullus homo est fuit vel
erit cujus natura in Christo assumpta non fuerit. . . . Sus-
ceptio ilia naturae humanae in Christo non fuit ex necessitate
originis, sed ex potestate et gratia et misericordia et digna-
tione suscipientis. Quia ergo ista tarn divina et singularis
generatio hominis Christi non aliqua naturali necessitate, sed
sola ejus potestate et gratia et misericordia facta est; sic per
omnes generationes caro ejus descendit : sic ex eis veraciter
natus verus homo factus est ut quod ei placuit miserendo, et
sanando, et redimendo inde assumeret, quod autem non placuit
reprobaret." — ip. 79. The argument is, that our Lord's as-
sumption of human nature being itself a condescension, and

412 NOTE XX.

special dispensation, has a particular limited scope, according
to the Divine pleasure, and only brings Him, as possessing
this nature, into communion with a certain portion of those
whom this nature includes, and is only beneficial to this
portion.

The controversy, which is thus substantially between the
Augustinian and the Semi-Pelagian doctrines, exhibits, how-
ever, much confusion, and is encumbered by false distinctions.
A great deal is made of the question of the duplex prcedesti-
natio. Hinckmar admitting a predestination to life eternal,
refuses to admit a predestination to punishment, and insists
on the distinction between leaving men in their sinful state, of
which punishment will be the consequence, and ordaining
men to such punishment. " Quosdam autem, sicut praesci-
vit, non ad mortem neque ad ignem praedestinavit, sed in
massa peccati et perditionis juste deseruit, a qua eos praedes-
tinatione sua (z. e. gratis prasparatione) occulto sed non in-
justo judicio nequaquarn eripuit." — p. 93. But the most
rigid predestinarian would not object to this statement.
There is no real distinction between abandoning men to a
certain state, of which punishment will be the consequence,
and ordaining them to that punishment. The only distinc-
tion which would make a difference, respects the nature of
this sinful state, to which men are abandoned, whether it is
original sin or their own personal perseverance in sin. The
abandonment of a certain portion of mankind to the state
of sin in which they are born, is predestinarian reprobation,
whether we express it as abandonment to sin, or as ordaining
to punishment. Remigius exposes the irrelevancy of this
distinction: "Mirum valde est quomodo negare contendunt
eum aeternam ipsorum damnationem praedestinasse, quos jam
ab ipso mundi exordio, cum primus homo peccavit, et omne
humanum genus ex se propagandum unam massam damna-
tionis et perditionis fecit, manifesto dicant in eadem massa
damnationis et perditionis justo Dei judicio deputatos et de-
relictos. Quid est enim massa damnationis et perditionis ab
initio mundi divino judicio efFecta, nisi eodem divino judicio
aeternae damnationiet perditioni destinata et tradita?" — p. 93.

Hinckmar insists again on the Augustinian definition of

NOTE XXI. 413

predestination as gratice prceparatio (p. 94.), as favouring
his denial of any prcedestinatio damnationis ; to which Remi-
gius replies, that a predestination to life did not exclude
the predestination to punishment. It is obvious that the
whole of this discussion is verbal, and is not concerned with
the real grounds and substance of the controversy.

NOTE XXL p. 285.

I SEE no substantial difference between the Augustinian and
Thomist, and the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. S.
Augustine and Calvin alike hold an eternal Divine decree,
which, antecedently to all action, separates one portion of
mankind from another, and ordains one to everlasting life
and the other to everlasting punishment. That is the funda-
mental statement of both ; and it is evident, that while this
fundamental statement is the same, there can be no sub-
stantial difference in the two doctrines. This statement is
the sum and substance of the doctrine of predestination : and
therefore if Augustine and Calvin agree in this statement, it
may be pronounced in limine idle to talk of any real dif-
ference between their respective doctrines on this subject.
Let persons only consider what this statement is, and what
it necessarily involves, and they must see it is impossible that
there can be any real distinction of doctrine on the particular
subject of predestination, after this statement has been agreed
in by the two. Those who suppose that S. Augustine
differs from Calvin in his doctrine of predestination, do not
really know the doctrine which S. Augustine held on the
subject, and suppose it to be different from what it was.
They suppose it to be a qualified doctrine of predestination
to privileges and means of grace ; or they have some general
idea that S. Augustine did not hold such a doctrine as Cal-
vin held, — an assumption which settles to begin with the

414 NOTE XXI.

question for them. But if Augustine's doctrine was the one
which has been here stated to be his, and if it was expressed
in the above fundamental statement, it must be seen imme-
diately that it is the same as Calvin's doctrine.

And the identity of the two "doctrines thus apparent at
first sight, and from the fundamental statement by which
they are expressed, will appear further from the cautions
and checks by which each guards' the doctrine. We may
be referred to various cautions and checks which S. Au-
gustine and his followers in the schools appended to the
doctrine of predestination; from which it will be argued
that the doctrine was not the same as the Calvinistic one.
But it will be found on examination that Calvin has just the
same cautions and checks.

The checks and cautions, which S. Augustine and his fol-
lowers in the schools appended to their doctrine of predesti-
nation, were substantially these t\vo: that God was not the
author of evil ; and that man had ivill, and was, as having
a will, responsible for his own sins. The doctrine of pre-
destination was relieved from two consequences which ap-
peared to follow from it. If God is the sole author and
cause of our goodness, how is He not the author and cause
of our sin too? If we are bound to refer the one to Him,
why not the other ? The doctrine thus led to the consequence
that God was the author of evil. This consequence, then,
was cut off by a formal check, accompanied with more or less
of argument, that God was not the author of evil. In the
same way the doctrine of predestination, maintaining sin as
necessary, led to the result that man was not responsible for
his sins. This consequence then was cut off, as the former
was, by a formal check, also accompanied by more or less of
argument, — that man had a will, that he sinned with this
will or willingly, and that sinning willingly he was re-
sponsible for his sins.

But this whole check to the doctrine of predestination, viz.
that man is responsible for his own sins, and not God, is ap-
pended to that doctrine by Calvin ju,1 1 as much as it is by
Augustine. Indeed, no one who professed to be a Christian
could teach the doctrine without such a check. No Christian

NOTE XXT. 415

of any school could make God the author of evil, or say that
sin was not blameworthy.

First, Calvin protests generally against fatalism; i. e. any
doctrine that denies contingency, and asserts all events to take
place according to a certain fixed and inevitable order, which
could not have been otherwise : " Vetus ista calumnia fuir,
qua se Augustinus injuste fuisse gravatum alicubi conqueri-
tur : mine obsoletam esse decebat. Certe hominibus probis
et ingenuis, si modo iidem docti sint, valde indigna est»
Qualis fuerit Stoicorum imaginatio, notum est. Fatum suum
texebant ex Gordiano causarum complexu: in quern cuin
Deum ipsum involuerant, fabricabant aureas catenas, ut est
in fabulis, quibus Deum vincirent, ut subjectus esset in-
ferioribus causis. Stoicos hodie imitantur astrologi, quibus
fatalis ex stellarum positu dependet rerum necessitas. Valeant
igitur cum suo fato Stoici : nobis libera Dei voluntas omnium
sit moderatrix. Sed c anting entiam tolli ex mundo valde
absurdum est. Omitto qua3 in Scholis usitata3 sunt dis-
tinctiones. Quod afferam simplex, meo judicio, et minime
coactum erit, deinde ad vitaj usum accomodatum. Sic evenire
necesse est quod statuit Deus, ut tamen neque prsecise neque
suapte natura necessarium sit. Exemplum in Christi ossibus
fumiliare habeo. Christum corpus habuisse prorsus nostro
simile Scriptura testatur. Quare fragilia illi ossa fuisse fateri
nemo sanus dubitabit. Sed alia mihi videtur ac separata
quaastio, an ullum os ejus frangi potuerit. Nam Integra
omnia et illaesa manere, quia fixo Dei decreto ita statutum
erat, necessario oportuit. Nee vero quod a receptis loquendi
formis de necessitate secundum quid et absoluta, item con-
sequentis et consequential abhorream, ita loquor ; sed ne qua;
lectoris argutia impediat, quin agnoscat vel rudissimus quis-
que verum esse quod dico. . . . Ac memoria tenendum est,
quod ante posui, ubi Deus per mcdias et inferiores causas
virtutem suam exerit, non esse ab illis separandam. Te-
mulenta est ista cogitatio : decrevit Deus quid futurum sit ;
ergo curam et studium nostrum interponere supervacuum est.
Atqui, cum nobis quid agendum sit, praescribat, et virtutis
sure organa nos esse velit ; fas nobis est ne putemus separare
quae ille conjunxit. . . . Ergo quantum ad futurum tempus,

641 NOTE XXI.

quia nos adhuc rerura eventus latent, perinde ad officium
suura intentus esse quisque debet, ac si nihil in utramvis
partem constitutum foret. Yel lit magis proprie loquar,
talem in omnibus quae ex Dei mandate aggreditur, successum
sperare debet, ut in rebus sibi incognitis contingentiam cum
certa Dei providentia conciliet. . . . Hac voce pius vir sedivinas
providential organum constitui agnoscet. Hac eadem pro-
missione fretus, alacriter ad opus se accinget, quia persuasus
erit, non fortuitam se operam in acre jacere. . . . Invoca-
tionem adeo non impedit, utpotius stabiliat. . . . Non sequitur
quin rerum adversarum culpam vel ignavia nostra, vel teme-
ritas, vel incogitantia, vel aliud vitium merito sustineat." — -
De Pr&destinatione, vol. x. p. 725.

Here is the doctrine of the schools respecting mediate and
secondary causes ; that events take their character from the
causes that produce them, and are necessary or contingent,
according as their causes are the one or the other. Calvin
refers in the passage to the distinctions of the schools, with
which he says he does not disagree ; and his statement is only
another form of that of Aquinas: "Deus omnia movet
secundum eorum conditioner!! ; ita quod ex causis necessariis
per motionem divinam sequuntur effectus ex necessitate, ex
causis autem contingentibus sequuntur effectus contingentes.'
Supra, p. 254. He protests against indolence or careless
ness in temporal or spiritual matters, as a wholly illegitimate
result to fasten on his doctrine ; and says that people must
act as if events were contingent, and not suppose that, be-
cause events are foreordained, that therefore they are fore-
ordained without the necessary means to bring them about ;
which means lie in our own conduct and course of action.

Thus, while maintaining the Divine infallible decree of
predestination, he protests against men making that decree
their starting point, and putting it in prior order to action,
in their own ideas and thoughts about themselves : " Neque
ego sane ad arcanam Dei electionem homines ablego, ut inde
salutem hiantes expectent : sed recte ad Christum pergere
jubeo, in quo nobis proposita est salus ; quas alioqui in Deo
abscondita lateret. Nam quisquis planam fidei viam non
ingreditur, illi Dei electio nihil quam exitialis erit labaryn

NOTE XXI. 417

thus. . . . Hinc minime faciendum est exordium, quid de nobis
ante mundum conditum Deus statuerit ; sed quid de paterno
ejus amore nobis in Christo sit patefactum, et quotidie per
evangelium Christus ipse prasdicet. Nihil altius nobis quas-
rendum, quam ut Dei filii simus. " - — Yol. x. p. 708.

After this protest against fatalism, Calvin proceeds to
acknowledge a true will in man ; that he acts willingly and
without constraint ; and that consequently the blame of his
sins rests entirely upon himself; and that to charge God
with the authorship of them is impiety and blasphemy. The
ground he takes is strictly Augustinian : " Voluntas, quia
inseparabilis est ab hominis natura, non periit; sed pravis
cupiditatibus devincta fuit, ut nihil rectum appetere queat." —
Instit. 1. 2. c. 2. s. 12. "Non voluntate privatus est homo
quum in hanc necessitatem se addixit, sed voluntatis sani-
tate Si liberam Dei voluntatem in bene agendo non

impedit, quod necesse est ilium bene agere : si diabolus, qui
nonnisi male agere potest, voluntate tamen peccat; quis
hominem ideo minus voluntarie peccare dicet, quod sit pec-
candi necessitati obnoxius ? Hanc necessitatem quum ubique
prasdicet Augustinus, dum etiam invidiose Coelestii cavillo
urgeretur, ne turn quidem asserere dubitavit — f Per liberta-
tem factum est ut esset homo cum peccato : sed jam prenalis
vitiositas subsequuta ex libertate fecit necessitatem.' Ac
quoties incidit ejus rei mentio, non dubitat in hunc modum
loqui, de necessaria peccati servitute. Haec igitur distinc-
tionis summa observetur, hominem, ut vitiatus est ex lapsu,
volentem quidem peccare, non invitum nee coactum : affectione
animi propinquissima. . . . Augustino subscribens Bernardus ita
scribit, ' Solus homo inter animalia liber : et tamen, inter-
veniente peccato, patitur quandam vim et ipse, sed a voluntate
non a natura, ut ne sic quidem ingenita libertate privetur.
Quod enim voluntarium etiam liberum.' Et paulo post —
( Ita nescio quo pravo et miro modo ipsa sibi voluntas, pec-
cato quidem in deterius mutata, necessitatem facit; ut nee
necessitas (cum voluntaria sit) excusare valeat voluntatem,
nee voluntas (quum sit illecta) excludere necessitatem.' Est
enim necessitas haec quodammodo voluntaria." — L. 2. c. 3. s. 5.

E E

418 NOTE XXI.

" Yoluntatem dico aboleri non quatenus est voluntas, quia in
hominis conversione integrum manet quod primae est naturas ;
creari etiam novam dico, non ut voluntas esse incipiat, sed
ut vertatur ex mala in bonam. — L. 2. c. 3. s. 6.

Upon the ground, then, of the existence of this true will
in man, he lays the responsibility of sin entirely upon man
himself: " Nego peccatum ideo minus debere imputari, quod
necessarium est." — Instit. 1. 2. c. 4. s. 5. " Eant nunc qui
Deum suis vitiis inscribere audent, quia dicimus naturaliter
vitiosos esse homines. ... A carnis nostrae culpa non a Deo
nostra perditio est." — L. 2. c. 1. s. 10. " Respondeant, pos-
sintne inficiari causam contumacia3 pravam suam voluntatem
fuisse. Si mali fontem intra se reperiant, quid vestigandis
extraneis causis inhiant, ne sibi ipsi fuisse exitii authores
videantur." — L. 2. c. 5. s. 11. "Non extrinseco impulsu,
sed spontaneo cordis affectu, scientes ac volentes peccarunt."
— De Freed, vol. x. p. 709. " Ad reatum satis superque
voluntaries trangressio sufficit. Neque enim propria genui-
naque peccati causa est arcanum Dei consilitim, sed aperta

hominis voluntas Intus mali sui causam quum inve-

niat homo, quid circuire prodest, ut earn in coalo quaerat ?
Palam in eo apparet culpa quod peccare voluerit. Cur in
coeli adyta perrumpens in labarynthum se demergit ? Quan-
quam ut per immensas ambages vagando, deludere se homines
conentur, nunquam ita se obstupef'acient, quin sensum peccati
in cordibus suis insculptum retineant. Hominem igitur, quern
ipsius sui conscientia damnat, frustra absolvere tendit impie-
tas." — De Freed, vol. x. p. 7 1 1 . " Neque in Deum transferi-
mus indurationis causam acsi non sponte propriaque malitia
seipsos ad pervicaciam acuerent." — p. 727. " Quum perditis
exitium denuntiat Scriptura, causam in aeternum Dei consiliuni
minime rejicit, vel transfer! ; sed residcre in ipsis testatur.
Nos vero non ideo reprobos tradimus destitui Dei Spiritu,
ut scelerum suorum culpam in Deum imputent. Quicquid
peccant homines sibi imputent Quod si quis subterfugiat,
conscientias vinculis fortius constringi dico, quam ut se a
justa danmatione expediat. ... Si quis obstrepat, prompta
eet exceptio, Perditio tua ex te Israel. . . . Non audiendi
sunt qui procul remotas causas e nubibus accersunt, ut culpa3

NOTE XXI. 419

suae notitiam, quae et eorum cordibus penitus insidet, neque
occulta latere potest, utcunque obscurent." — p. 721.

The cautions and checks, then, which Calvin appends to
the doctrine of predestination are substantially the same with
those we find appended to the doctrine in S. Augustine and
the Augustinian schoolmen. Predestination, according to
Calvin, is no excuse for spiritual indolence or carelessness ;
it does not detract at all from man's responsibility, who is as
much to blame for his sins upon this doctrine as upon the
contrary one ; and therefore whether we look to the funda-
mental statement of the doctrine, or to the checks and cau-
tions with which it is surrounded, the doctrine of Calvin on
this subject is seen to be the same as that of S. Augustine.

It is true Calvin condemns the scholastic treatment of this
question, and after S. Augustine nobody, except perhaps S.
Bernard, seems to satisfy him. But this complaint is quali-
fied. He acknowledges, in the first place, that however their
own interpretations of such doctrines may have fallen short,
the fundamental doctrines of the schools were Augustinian
and orthodox on this question : " Qui postea secuti sunt,
alii post alios in deterius continuo delapsi sunt ; donee eo
ventum est ut vulgo putaretur homo sensuali tandein
parte corruptus Interea volitavit illud in ore om-
nium, naturalia dona in homine corrupta esse, supernatu-
ralia vero dblata. Sed quorsum tenderet, vix centesimus
quisque leviter gustavit. Ego certe si dilucide tradere
velim qualis sit naturae corruptela, his verbis facile sim con-
tentus" — Instit. 1. 2. c. 2. s. 4. He admits here a certain
foundation in the teaching of the schools which was orthodox,
though it was overlaid with weak or injurious commentary.
In the next place he makes a distinction amongst schoolmen ;
and while he complains of the refinements of Lombard and
Aquinas, regards them as in the main orthodox : " Longiore
intervallo a recentioribus sophistis differo" — Inst. 1. 2. c. 2.
s. 6. The older commentators he considers to have main-
tained, though with too little boldness and openness, and
with too great an appearance of compromise, the Augustinian
ground. Thus he complains of Lombard's use of the term
freewill: "Ac principalem quidem causam in gratia esse

420 NOTE XXI.

non negant : sed eo tamen contendunt non excludi liberum
arbitrium, per quod sit omne meritura. Neque id tradunt
posteriores modo sophistae, sed eorurn Pythagoras Lombardus ;
quern, si cum istis compares, sanum et sobrium esse dicas.
Mirae profecto caecitatis fuit, quum Augustinum toties in ore
haberet, non vidisse quanta solicitudine vir ille caverit ne
ulla ex bonis operibus gloriae particula in hominem derivare-
tur." — Instit. 1. 3. c. 15. s. 7. " Magister sententiarum du-
plicem gratiam necessarian! esse nobis docet, quo reddamur ad
opus bonum idonei. Alteram vocat Operantem, qua fit ut
efficaciter velimus bonum ; Cooperantem alteram quae bonam
voluntatem sequitur adjuvando. In qua partitione hoc mihi
displicet, quod dum Gratiae Dei tribuit efficacem boni appeti-
tum, innuit hominem jam suapte natura bonum quodam-
modo licet inefficaciter appetere. ... In secundo membro am-
biguitas me offendit, quae perversam genuit interpretationem.
Ideo enim putarunt nos secundae Dei gratias cooperari, quod
nostri juris sit primam gratiam vel respuendo irritam facere,
Tel obedienter sequendo confirmare. . . . Hcec duo notare
obiter libuit, ut videas jam lector, quantum a sanioribus scho-

lasticis dissentiam Utcunque, ex hac tamen partitione

intelligimus qua ratione liberum dederint arbitrium homini.
Pronuntiat enim tandem Lombardus, non liberi arbitrii ideo nos
esse, quod ad bonum vel ad malum vel agendum vel cogitan-
dum perceque polleamus, sed duntaxat quod coactione soluti
sumus. . . . Optirne id quidem, sed quorsum attinebat, rem

lantulam adeo superbo titulo insignire Equidem

Xo7o fjua^ias abominor, quibus frustra ecclesia fatigatur ; sed
religiose censeo cavendas eas voces quae absurdum aliquid
sonant, praesertim ubi perniciose erratur. Quotus enim quasso
quisque est, qui, dum assignari homini liberum arbitrium
audit, non statim concipit ilium esse et mentis sua3 et volun-
tatis dominum, qui flectere se in utramvis partem a seipso
possit? Atqui (dicet quispiam) sublatum erit hujusmodi
^periculum, si de significatione diligenter plebs admoneatur.
Imo vero cum in falsitatem ultro humanum ingenium pro-
pendeat, citius errorem ex verbulo uno hauriet, quam verita-
tem ex prolixa oratione." — Instit. 1. 2. c. 2. ss. 6, 7.

It is evident that Calvin's quarrel with Lombard here is
about the use of a word, and not about a substantial point of

NOTE XXI. 421

doctrine. In substantial doctrine he considers they both
agree, though he thinks Lombard's distinction of operative
and co-operative grace so worded as to tend to mislead, and
though he objects to the use of the word freewill altogether,
which he thinks will always be practically understood by the
mass of men in the sense of a self-determining will. He
would not object to the word if Lombard's sense could be
fastened upon it ; but he differs from him as to the expediency
of using a term on which it will be so difficult to fasten this
meaning; and which will always more readily suggest another
and an erroneous one. His disagreement with Lombard is
thus of the same kind with the disagreement noticed above,
p. 285., with Aquinas, which was concerned with language
and mode of statement as distinguished from substantial
doctrine.

Calvin's reflections on the schoolmen, then, do not appear to
prove any substantial difference on the subject of predestina-
tion, grace, and freewill, between himself and the Augus-
tinian portion of the schoolmen. And this conclusion obliges
me to notice some remarks of Pascal bearing on this ques-
tion in the Provincial Letters.

I must admit, then, that I have against me, on this point,
the authority of Pascal, who endeavours in the Provincial
Letters to prove a strong distinction between the doctrine of
Calvin and the Reformers, and the Augustinian and Jan-
senist doctrine, on the subject of grace and freewill. But I
admit it the more readily, for the obvious consideration, that
Pascal was not in a position to acknowledge such an identity
in the doctrine of the two schools. As an attached member
of the Roman communion, he was obliged by his position to
disconnect his own and his party's doctrine as much as pos-
sible from that of the Reformers, and to make out a wide dif-
ference between them. The Jansenists were attacked on all
sides as disaffected members of the Roman Church, Re-
formers in heart, though outwardly Catholics. They dis-
owned and repelled the charge with indignation. But what
is the natural, the irresistible disposition of a religious party
under such circumstances, with respect to the doctrines upon
which such a charge is founded ? It is, of course, to make

E E 3

422 NOTE XXI.

out, in any way they can. a difference between these doctrines
and those of the other school, with which their opponents
identify them. Under such circumstances, the authority even
of Pascal has not, upon the present question, any irresistible
weight. And when we come to examine his argument, and
the reasons upon which he erects the difference he does
between the Augustinian and the Calvinistic doctrine of
grace any weight that we might previously have been in-
clined to give his conclusion is much diminished. r,

Every reader of the Provincial Letters will remember the
great argumentative clearness and penetration, supported
by the keenest irony, with which Pascal proves the identity,
under a guise of verbal difference, of the Thomist doctrine of
grace with the Jansenist. The Thomist members of the
Sorbonne, siding with the Jesuits against the Jansenists, had
distinguished their own doctrine of grace from that of the
Jansenists by a particular term; to the use of which, though
apparently counter to their own Augustinian doctrine, they
had by an arrangement consented among themselves, but to
which the Jansenists would not consent. This was the term
prochain — proximus. The Thomists maintained that every
Christian had the pouvoir prochain to obey the Divine com-
mandments, and so attain eternal life ; while the Jansenists,
admitting the power of any Christian to do this, would not ad-
mit that this power was prochain ; the distinction being, that
the term power of itself, in the Augustinian sense (even suppos-
ing every one had such power), committed them to no assertion
contrary to the exclusive and predestinarian doctrine, which
made salvation only really attainable by the elect. For power
in the Augustinian sense only means potestas si vult ; in which
sense the admission that all Christians have the power is not
at all opposed to the doctrine that only the elect have the
will given to them to lead that good life on which salvation
depends. But the addition of the term " prochain " to "power"
seemed to fix on the word power a freewill sense, as distin-
guished from the Augustinian one ; and to imply the admis-
sion that every one had the full and complete power, in the
natural sense of the term, to attain eternal life, — which was
opposed to the predestinarian doctrine. The Jansenists,

NOTE XXI. 423

therefore, would not admit the terra " prochain" Now it is
evident that in this refusal they laid themselves open to a charge
of inconsistency ; for if they were ready to admit " power "
in an artificial sense, they might have admitted "prochain"
in an artificial sense too. But Pascal adroitly diverts atten-
tion from the inconsistency of the Jansenists in their meaning
of the word power, to the inconsistency of the Thomists in
the meaning they gave to f< power prochain ; " separating, as
the latter did from the Jansenists, on the express ground of
this phrase being refused, when they themselves held the
phrase in a Jansenist sense — i. e. so as to be consistent with
the exclusive and predestinarian doctrine : " Mais quoi ! mon
pere, s'il manque quelque chose a ce pouvoir, 1'appelez vous
prochain ? et direz vous, par exemple, qu'un homme ait, la
nuit, et sous aucune lumiere, le pouvoir de voir ? Oui-da, il
1'auroit selon nous, s'il n'est pas aveugle." — 1st Letter. It
is obvious that in this sense the whole Christian body might
have the pouvoir prochain, and still not a real and bond fide
power of attaining salvation, which might still be confined to
.the elect. He thus shows that the Thomists only differed
from. the Jansenists in the use of a word, and agreed with
them in meaning and doctrine. And he proves the same
thing in the case of the term "grace suffisante" which the
Thomists admitted while the Jansenists rejected it : " Mais
enfin, mon pere, cette grace donnee a tous les hommes est
suffisante^ Oui dit-il. Et neanmoins elle n'a mil effet
sans grace efficace? Cela est vrai, dit-il. Et tons les
hommes ont la suffisante, continuai-je, et tous n'ont pas efficace?
II est vrai, dit-il. C'est-a-dire, lui dis-je, que tous n'ont
assez de grace, et que tous n'en ont pas assez ; c'est-a-dire,
que cette grace suffit, quoiqu'elle ne suffise pas ; c'est-a-dire,
qu'elle est suffisante de nom, et insuffisante en effet." — 2nd
Letter. The Thomists then admitted the term " suffisante "
in an artificial sense, which enabled them to say that such
sufficient grace was given to all, while they really held that
sufficient grace, in the natural sense of the word, was only
given to the elect. And therefore Pascal shows in this
instance again, that the Thomists only differed from the Jan-

K E 4

424 NOTE XXI.

senists upon a word, while they agreed with them in meaning
and doctrine.

But the same argument by which Pascal proves that the
Thomists of the Sorbonne agreed in doctrine with the Jansen-
ists, proves equally that the Janseriist or Augustinian agreed
in doctrine with the Calvinist. The eighteenth Provincial
Letter contains a long statement and argument to show that
the Jansenist doctrine of efficacious grace differed from the
Calvinist : the argument resting upon a particular admission
with respect to this grace, which the Calvinists did not make,
and the Jansenists did, — the admission, viz. that man had
the power to resist this grace. He raises on this ground a
broad distinction between the Jansenists and the Calvinists ;
that the Jansenists allow freewill, while the Calvinists re-
present man as moved like an inanimate machine. I will
extract at some length from this part of the Letter.

" Vous verriez, mon pere, que non-seulement ils tiennent
qu'on resiste eftectivement a ces graces faibles, qu'on appelle
excitantes ou inefficaces, en n'executant pas le bien qu'elles
nous inspirent, mais qu'ils sont encore aussi fermes a soutenir
contre Calvin le pouvoir que la volonte a de resister meme a la
grace efficace et victorieuse qu'a defendre contre Molina le pou-
voir de cette grace sur la volonte, aussi jaloux de Tune de ces
verites que de 1'autre. Ils ne savent que trop que 1'homme,
par sa propre nature., a toujours le pouvoir de pecker et de re-
sister a la grace, et que, depuis sa corruption, il porte un
fonds malheureux de concupiscence qui lui augmente infini-
ment ce pouvoir ; mais que neanmoins, quand il plait a Dieu
de le toucher par sa misericorde, il lui fait faire ce qrfil vent
et en la maniere qiiil le veut9 sans que cette infaillibilite de
1'operation de Dieu detruise en aucune sorte la liberte natu-
relle de 1'homme, par les secretes et admirables manieres dont
Dieu opere ce changement, que saint Augustin a si excellem-
ment expliquees, et qui dissipent toutes les contradictions
imaginaires que les ennemis de la grace efficace se figurent
entre le pouvoir souverain de la grace sur le libre arbitre, et
la puissance qu'a le libre arbitre de resister a la grace ; car,
selon ce grand saint, que les papes de 1'Eglise ont donne pour

NOTE XXI. 425

regie en cette matiere, Dieu change le coeur de 1'homme par
une douceur celeste qu'il y repand, qui, surmontant la delec-
tation de la chair, fait que 1'homme, sentant d'un cote sa mor-
talite et son neant, et decouvrant de 1'autre la grandeur et
1'eternite de Dieu, consoit du degout pour les delices du pe-
che qui le separent du bien incorruptible. Trouvant sa plus
grande joie dans le Dieu qui le charme, il s'y porte infaillible-
ment de lui-nieme par un mouvement tout libre, tout volon-
taire, tout amoureux ; de sorte de ce lui serait une piene et
un supplice de s'en separer. Ce n'est pas qu'il ne puisse tou-
jours s'en eloigner, et qu'il ne s'en eloigndt effectivement s*il le
voulait. Mais comment le voudrait-il, puisque la volonte ne se
porte jamais qiia ce qui lui plait le plus, et que rien ne lui
plait tant alors que ce bien unique, qui comprend en soi tous
les autres biens ? Quod enim amplius nos delectat, secundum
id operemur necesse est, comme dit saint Augustin. — Exp.
Ep. ad Gal. n. 49.

" C'est ainsi que Dieu dispose de la volonte libre de 1'homme
sans lui imposer de necessite, et que le libre arbitre, qui pent
toujours resister a la grace, mais qui ne le veut pas toujours, se
porte. aussi librement qu'infailliblement a Dieu, lorsqu'il veut
1'attirer par la douceur de ses inspirations efficaces.

" Ce sont la, mon pere, lesdivins principes de saint Augustin
et de saint Thomas, selon lesquels il est veritable que ' nous

pouvons resister a la grace,' centre Fopinion de Calvin

" C'est par la qu'est detruite cette impiete de Luther, con-
damnee par le meme concile : f Que nous ne cooperons en au-
cune sorte a notre salut, non plus que des choses inanimees ' . . .
" Et c'est enfin par ce moyen que s'accordent tous
ces passages de 1'Ecriture, qui semblent les plus opposes :
que, coinme dit saint Augustin, ' nos ac-
tions sont notres, a cause du libre arbitre qui les produit ;
et qu'elles sont aussi de Dieu, a cause de sa grace qui fait
que notre arbitre les produit.' Et que, comme il dit ailleurs,
Dieu nous fait faire ce qu'il lui plait, en nous faisant vouloir
ce que nous pourrions ne vouloir pas : A Deo factum est ut
vellent quod nolle potuissent.

" Ainsi, mon pere, vos adversaires sont parfaitement d'ac-
cord avec les nouveuux thomistes memes, puisque les thomistes

426 NOTE XXI.

tiennent comrne eux, et le pouvoir de resister a la grace, et
1'infaillibilite de 1'eiFet de la grace, qu'ils font profession de
soutenir si hautement, selon cette maxime capitale de leur
doctrine, qu' Alvarez, 1'im des plus considerables d'entre eux,
repete si souvent dans son livre, et qu'il exprime (Disp. 72.
1. viii. n. 4.), en ces termes: f Quand la grace efficace meut
le libre arbitre, il consent infailliblement ; parce que 1'eiFet
de la grace est de faire qu 'encore qrfil puisse ne pas consentir,
il consente neanmoins en effet? Dont il donne pour raison
celle-ci de saint Thomas, son maitre (1. 2. q. 1 1 2. a. 3.) : * Que
la volonte de Dieu ne peut manquer d'etre accomplie ; et
qu'ainsi, quand il veut qu'un homme consente a la grace, il
consent infailliblement, et meme necessairement, non pas
d'une necessite absolue, mais d'une necessite d'infuillibilite.'
En quoi la grace ne blesse pas ' le pouvoir qu'on a de resister
si on la veut;' puisqu'elle fait seulement qu'on ne veut pas y
resister, comme votre pere Petau le reconnait en ces termes
(t. i. Theol Dogm. 1. ix. c. 7. p. 602.) : < La grace de Jesus-
Christ fait qu'on persevere infailliblement dans la piete,
quoique non par necessite : car on peut riy pas consentir si
on le veut, comme dit le concile ; mais cette meme grace fait
que Ton ne le veut pas?

" C'est la, mon pere, la doctrine constante de saint Augustin,
de saint Prosper, des peres qui les ont suivis, des conciles, de
saint Thomas, et de tous les thomistes en general. C'est
aussi celle de vos adversaires, quoique vous ne 1'ayez pas
pense ....

" •' Pour savoir, dites-vous, si Jansenius est a couvert, il faut
savoir s'il defend la grace efficace a la maniere de Calvin, qui
nie qu'on ait le pouvoir d'y resister ; car alors il serait here-
tique : ou a la maniere des thomistes, qui 1'admettent ; car
alors il serait catholique.' Voyez done, mon pere, s'il tient
qu'on a le pouvoir de resister, quand il dit, dans des traites
entiers, et entre autres au torn. iii. 1. viii. c. 20. : ' Qu'on
a toujours le pouvoir de resister a la grace, selon le concile :
QUE LE LIBRE 4RBITRE PEUT TOUJOURS AGIR ET N^AGIR
PAS, vouloir et ne vouloir pas, consentir et ne consentir pas,
faire le lien et le mal ; et que Vhomme en cette vie a toujours
ces deux libertes, que vous appelez de contrariete et de contra-

NOTE XXI. 427

diction.'' Voyez de meme s'il n'est pas contraire a. 1'erreur
de Calvin, telle qne vous-meme la representez, lui qui montre,
dans tout le chapitre 21., 'que 1'Eglise a condamne cet here-
tique, qui soutient que la grace efficace n'agit pas snr le libre
arbitre en la maniere qu'on 1'a cru si longtemps dans 1'Eglise,
en sorte qu'il soit ensuite au pouvoir du libre arbitre de con-
sentir ou de ne consentir pas : au lieu que, selon saint Au-
gustin et le concile, 072 a toujours le pouvoir de ne consentir
pas, si on le veut"

In this passage, then, we have the ground on which Pascal
claims a great distinction to be made between the Jansenist and
the Calvinist doctrine of efficacious grace ; the ground being
that while the Calvinists deny the Jansenists admit — le pou-
voir que la volonte a de resistir meme d la grace efficace et
victorieuse. Now this admission is in its very form plainly
and at first sight unmeaning ; for the only admission which
would carry freewill with it would be that man could resist
effectively this grace; and certainly no effective resistance
can by the very force of the terms be made to " victorious
grace." But the true explanation of this whole argument is
to be. found in a particular meaning in which the Augustinian
school understood the term power. Pascal rests the whole
claim of the Jansenists to be considered believers in freewill
on their use of this word — their admission that man has the
power to resist grace : " Us ne savent que trop que 1'homme
a toujours le pouvoir de pecher et de resister a la grace."
But the Augustinian definition of power entirely nullifies
this as any admission really of freewill ; for in this definition
power is defined to be potestas si vult. But, power being thus
understood, this admission leaves the whole question of the
will and its determination open, and allows the person who
makes it to maintain that, while every one has the power to re-
sist grace if he wills, no one who is moved by Divine grace wills.
Nor is this meaning of the term power at all concealed in this
letter, in which Pascal expressly time after time thus quali-
fies the term power, and appends to it this condition : " Ce
n'est pas qu'il ne puisse toujours s'en eloigner, et qu'il ne
s'en eloignat sil le voulait. Mais comment ce voudrait-il,
puisque la volonte ne se porto jamuis qu'a ce qui lui pluit,

428 NOTE XXI.

etc Le libre arbitre, qui peut toujours resister a la

grace, mais qui ne le veut pas La grace ne blesse pas

le pouvoir qu'on a de resister si on le veut Car on

peut n'y pas consentir si on le veut On a toujours

le pouvoir de ne consentir pas si on le veut." Pascal tells
us, then, that by man's power to resist grace is meant power
if fie wills. But would Calvin object to admit man's power
to resist grace in this sense f He could not, for it would leave
him free to hold his whole doctrine of irresistible grace. The
doctrine of irresistible grace is concerned with the will alone,
and its determination ; and this admission says nothing about
the determination of the will. Calvin, then, would allow at
once that man had the power to resist grace if he willed, but
that he could not will to resist effective grace ; for that this
grace determined his will and inclination itself, and caused it
to be what it was. He would simply say with Pascal him-
self, " Mais comment le voudrait-il? " with the writer whom
Pascal quotes, " Encore qu'il puisse ne pas consentir, il con-
sente neaamoins en effet;" and with Augustine, "A Deo
factum est ut vellent quod nolle potuissent."

This sense of the term power is the key to the statement
quoted from Jansen : " Qu'on a toujours le pouvoir de resister
a la grace, selon le concile ; que le libre arbitre peut toujours
ajfir et n'agir pas, vouloir et ne vouloir pas, consentir et ne
consentir pas, faire le bien et le mal, et que 1'homme en cette
vie a toujours ces deux libertes, que vous appelez de con-
trariete et de contradiction." The power spoken of is potestas
si vult; on which understanding the admission comes to no-
thing ; Jansen expressly saying that practically the individual
cannot act but in the way in which grace moves : " Non quod
cessatio ab actu quern tune (gratia) elicit, cum gratia delectantis
mfluxu consistere possit . . . quamvis fieri nequeat ut ipsa non
actio cumgraticB operatione in eadem simul voluntate copuletur."
— De Grat. Christi, p. 870. In short, all that the Augustinian
and Jansenist admission with respect to freewill amounts to,
is the admission of a will in man ; and this admission Calvin
is equally ready to make. The position condemned by the
Council of Trent, as that of the Reformers, that man was moved
by Divine grace like an inanimate thing, was not their posi-

NOTE XXI. 429

tion ; they fully acknowledged a will in man, that he acted
willingly and without constraint ; they acknowledged all the
facts of our consciousness; and, admitting them, they admitted
all that S. Augustine and his school admitted.

THE END.

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the Church, or rather of the Christians who composed it ; exhibits briefly, yet
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cinctly the opinions or doctrines of the different heresies, and judiciously comments
upon the whole in a tone alike removed from fanaticism or coldness. " — Spectator.

" ROBERTSON'S CHURCH HISTORY brings within a reasonable compass the most
important events, and the most conspicuous features of the progressive development
of the external form of her doctrines and her institutions. The spirit in which the
narrative is composed is that of a sound English Churchman. Clergymen and
Divinity students will find the work exceedingly valuable as a guide in the prose-
cution of their studies." — John Bull.

" ROBERTSON'S CHURCH HISTORY. Theological students will find the learned
annotations to this volume of the greatest use. It has a table of the various wor
cited, and is supplied with an excellent index. Its genuine scholarship and wi
research will obtain for its author considerable reputation." — The Press.

" ROBERTSON'S CHURCH HISTORY enjoys the rare merit of being free from par-
tisanship, or at least of effectually excluding it from historical investigation ; and
the diligence with which the author has searched for the truth, as well as the clear-
ness with which he has exhibited the results, will render his book a popular source
of information on the subject." — Morning Post.

" ROBERTSON'S CHURCH HISTORY only professes to supply us with a ' readable
introduction ' to the early history of the Church ; but with the volume in our
hands we are disposed to rank it somewhat higher. It is written by a man who
understands the bearings of his subject, and exhibits more than ordinary skill in
the construction of his materials ; but the features we select for special commen-
dation are his candour, honesty, and independence in handling controverted ques-
tions."— Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology.

" ROBERTSON'S CHURCH HISTORY during the first six centuries is a manly, solid,
straightforward, and clear-headed performance, evincing large scholarship, prompt
and vigorous discernment. The author is a man of moderate views, but nowise
wanting in decision and firmness in expressing them. Modest of pretension, and
without much that is absolutely new, it presents a faithful and compact digest of
all that modern research has rendered available for such an undertaking." — New
York Churchman.

" ROBERTSON'S CHURCH HISTORY is of great service to the educated classes of
the British community, by furnishing them with a really good compendium of
ancient Church history. Although the present publication is not called a first
volume of General Church history, but appears in an entire form, there are not
wanting indications of the author's purpose to continue his work, and we sincerely
wish him health and strength to do so." — Scottish Ecclesiastical Journal.

JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street.

ALBEJIABLE STREET,

January, 1855.

ME, MURKAY'S
GENERAL LIST OF WORKS.

ABBOTT'S (REV. J.) Philip Musgrave ; or, Memoirs of a Church of

England Missionary in the North American Colonies. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d.

ABERCROMBIE'S (JOHN, M.D.) Enquiries concerning the Intel-
lectual Powers and the Investigation of Truth. Fourteenth Edition.
Fcap. 8vo. 6s. 6d.

- Philosophy of the Moral Feelings. Ninth

Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 4s.

Pathological and Practical Researches on the

Diseases of the Stomach, the Intestinal Canal, the Liver, and other
Viscera of the Abdomen. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 6s.

AC/LAND'S (REV. CHARLES) Popular Account of the Manners and
Customs of India, Illustrated with Numerous Anecdotes. PostSvo. 2s. Qd.

ADDISON'S WORKS. A New Edition, with a New Life and

Notes. By Rev. WHITWELL ELWIN. 4 Vols. 8vo. In Preparation.

AESCHYLUS. (The Agamemnon and Choephorse). A New

Edition of the Text, with Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Philological,
for the Use of Students. By Rev. W. PEILE, D.D.. Second Edition.
2 Vols. 8vo. 9s. each.

AESOP'S FABLES. A New Version, chiefly from the Original
Greek. By Rev. THOMAS JAMES, M.A. Illustrated with 100 Woodcuts,
by JOHN TENNIEL. 21s« Edition. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d.

AGRICULTURAL (THE) JOURNAL. Published (half-yearly) by the
Royal Agricultural Society of England. 8vo. 10s.

AMBER-WITCH (THE). The most interesting Trial for Witch-
craft ever known. Edited by Dr. MEINHOLD. Translated from the
German by LADY DUFF GORDON. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d.

ARABIAN NIGHTS. A New Translation. By E. W. LANE.

With Explanatory Notes. 600 Woodcuts. Medium 8vo. 21*.

ARISTOPHANES. The Birds and the Clouds. Translated
from SUVERN by W. R. HAMILTON, F.R.S. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 9s.

ARTHUR'S (LITTLE) History of England. By LADY CALLCOTT.

Seventeenth Edition. Woodcuts. 18mo.

AUNT IDA'S Walks and Talks ; a Story Book for Children. By
a LADY. Woodcuts. 16mo. 6s.

LIST OF WORKS

ADMIRALTY PUBLICATIONS ; Issued by direction of the Lords

Commissioners of the Admiralty: —

1. A MANUAL OF SCIENTIFIC ENQUIRY, for the Use of Officers in

H.M. Navy and Travellers in General. By Various Hands. Edited
by SIR J. F. HEKSCHEL, Bart. Second Edition. Post 8vo. 10s. 6d.

2. AIRY'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS MADE AT GREENWICH

1836 to 1847. Royal 4to. 50s. each.

3. APPENDIX TO THE ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS.

1836, 1837, 1842, 8s. each ; and 1847, 14s. Royal 4to.

CONTENTS.

1836.— Bessel's Refraction Tables.

Tables for converting Errors of R.A. and N.P.D. into Errors

of Longitude and Ecliptic P.D.
1837.— Logarithms of Sines and Cosines to every Ten Seconds

of Time.

Table for converting Sidereal into Mean Solar Time.
1842.— Catalogue of 1439 Stars.
1847.— Twelve Years' Catalogue of Stars.

4. MAGNETICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVA-
TIONS. 1840 to 1847. Royal 4to. 50s. each.

5. ASTRONOMICAL, MAGNETICAL, AND METEOROLO-
GICAL OBSERVATIONS, 1848 to 1852. Royal 4to. 50s. each.
REDUCTION OF THE OBSERVATIONS OF PLANETS.

1750 to 1830. Royal 4to. 60s.

7. - LUNAR OBSERVATIONS. 1750

to 1830. 2Vols. Royal 4to. 50s. each.

8. BERNOULLI'S SEXCENTENARY TABLE. London, 1779. 4to. 5s.

9. BESSEL'S AUXILIARY TABLES FOR HIS METHOD OF CLEAR-

ING LUNAR DISTANCES. 8vo.

10. — — FUNDAMENTA ASTRONOMIC : Eegiomonti. 1818. Folio. 60s

11. BIRD'S METHOD OF CONSTRUCTING MURAL QUADRANTS.

London, 1768. 4to. 2s. Qd.

12. METHOD OF DIVIDING ASTRONOMICAL INSTRU-
MENTS. London, 1767. 4to. 2s. 6d.

13. COOK, KING, AND BAYLY'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS.

London, 1782. 4to. 21s.

14. EIFFE'S ACCOUNT OF IMPROVEMENTS IN CHRONOMETERS.

4to. 2s.

15. ENCKE'S BERLINER JAHRBUCH, for 1830. Berlin, 1828. 8vo. 9s.

16. GROOMBRIDGE'S CATALOGUE OF CIRCUMPOLAR STARS.

4to. 10s.

17. HARRISON'S PRINCIPLES OF HIS TIME-KEEPER. PLATES

1767. 4to. 5s.

18. BUTTON'S TABLES OF THE PRODUCTS AND POWERS OF

NUMBERS. 1781. Folio. 7s. 6d.

19. LAX'S TABLES FOR FINDING THE LATITUDE AND LONGI-

TUDE. 1821. 8vo. 10s.

20. LUNAR OBSERVATIONS at GREENWICH. 1783 to 1819. Compared

with the Tables, 1821. 4to. 7s. &d.

21. DISTANCES of the MOON'S CENTRE from the PLANETS.

1822, 3s.; 1823, 4s. Qd. 1824 to 1835. 8vo. 4s. each.

22. MASKELYNE'S ACCOUNT OF THE GOING OF HARRISON'S

WATCH. 1767. 4to. 2s. 6d.

23. MAYER'S THEORIA LUN^E JUXTA SYSTEMA NEWTONI-

ANUM. 4to. 2s.'6rf.

24. TABULA MOTUUM SOLIS ET LUN^E. 1770. 4to. 5s.

25 ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS MADE AT GOT-

TINGEN, from 1756 to 1761. 1826. Folio. 7s. 6d.

PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY.

ADMIRALTY PUBLICATIONS— continued.

26. NAUTICAL ALMANACS, from 1767 to 1858. 8vo. 2s. 6d. each.

27. SELECTIONS FROM THE ADDITIONS

up to 1812. 8vo. 5s. 1834-54. 8vo. 5s.

28. SUPPLEMENTS, 1828 to 1833, 1837 and 1838.

8vo. 2s. each.

TABLE requisite to be used with the N.A.

1781. 8vo. 5s.

30. POND'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. 1811 to 1835. 4to. 21s.

each.

31. RAMSDEN'S ENGINE for DIVIDING MATHEMATICAL INSTKUMENTS.

4to. 5s.

32. — — ENGINE for DIVIDING STRAIGHT LINES. 4to. 5s.

33. SABINE'S PENDULUM EXPERIMENTS to DETEBMINE THE FIGURE

OF THE EARTH. 1825. 4to. 40s.

34. SHEPHERD'S TABLES for CORRECTING LUNAB DISTANCES. 1772.

Royal 4to. 21s.

35. TABLES, GENERAL, of the MOON'S DISTANCE

from the SUN, and 10 STARS. 1787. Folio. 5s. 6d.

36. TAYLOR'S SEXAGESIMAL TABLE. 1780. 4to. 15s.
37. TABLES OF LOGARITHMS. 4to. 31.

38. TIARK'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS for the LONGITUDE

of MADEIRA. 1822. 4to. 5s.

39. • CHRONOMETRICAL OBSERVATIONS for DIFFERENCES
of LONGITUDE between DOVER, PORTSMOUTH, and FALMOUTH. 1823.
4to. 5s.

40. VENUS and JUPITER: OBSERVATIONS of, compared with the TABLES.

London, 1822. 4to. 2s.

41. WALES' AND BAYLY'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS.

1777. 4to. 21s.

42. WALES' REDUCTION OF ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS

MADE IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. 1764—1771. 1788. 4tO.

10s. 6d.

AUSTIN'S (SARAH) Fragments from German Prose Writers.
Translated, with Biographical Notes. Post. 8vo. 10s.

Translation of Eanke's Political and Ecclesiastical

History of the Popes of Rome. Third Edition. 2 Vols. 8vo. 24s.

B ABB AGE'S (CHARLES) Economy of Machinery and Manufactures.

Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 6s.

Table of the Logarithms of the Natural Numbers

from 1 to 108000. Fourth Edition. Royal 8vo. 6s.

- Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. Second Edition. 8vo.

9s. Gd.

Keflections on the Decline of Science in England,

and on some of its Causes. 4to. 15s.

- Exposition of 1851 ; or, Yiews of the Industry, the
Science, and the Government of England. Second Edition. 8vo. 7s. 6d.

BANKES' (RIGHT HON. G.) STORY OF CORFE CASTLE, with
documents relating to the Time of the Civil Wars, &c. Woodcuts. Post
8vo. 10s. 6d.

BASSOMPIERRE'S Memoirs of his Embassy to the Court of
England in 1626. Translated, with Notes. 8vo. 9s. 6^.

LIST OF WORKS

BARROW'S (SiE JOHN) Autobiographical Memoir, including
Reflections, Observations, and Reminiscences at Home and Abroad.
From Early Life to Advanced Age. Portrait. 8vo. 16*.

Voyages of Discovery and Research within the

Arctic Regions, from 1818 to the present time, in search of a North-
West Passage : with Two Attempts to reach the North Pole. Abridged
and arranged from the Official Narratives. 8vo. 15s.

(JOHN) Naval Worthies of Queen Elizabeth's Reign,

their Gallant Deeds, Daring Adventures, and Services in the infant state
of the British Navy. 8vo. 14s.

Life and Voyages of Sir Francis Drake. With nume-
rous Original Letters. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d.

BEES AND FLOWERS. Two Essays, by a CLERGYMAN, reprinted
from the " Quarterly Review." Fcap. 8vo. Is. each.

BELL'S (SiK CHARLES) Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression as
connected with the Fine Arts, fourth Edition. Plates. Impl. 8vo. 21s.

Mechanism and Yital Endowments of the Hand as

evincing Design. The Bridgewater Treatise. Fifth Edition. Plates.
PostSvo. 7s. 6d.

BENEDICT'S (JULES) Sketch of the Life and Works of Felix

Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Second Edition. 8vo. 2s. 6d.

BERTHA'S Journal during a Visit to her Uncle in England.
Containing a Variety of Interesting and Instructive Information. Seventh
Edition. Woodcuts. 12mo. 7s. 6d.

- The Heiress in her Minority ; or, the Progress of
Character. By Author of " BEETHA'S JOURNAL." 2 Vols. 12mo.

BIRCH'S (SAMUEL) History of Ancient Pottery : Egyptian, Asiatic,
Greek, Roman, Etruscan, and Celtic. With Illustrations. 8vo. (Nearly

BIRT'S (W. R.) Hurricane Guide. Being an Attempt to connect
the Rotatory Gale, or Revolving Storm, with Atmospheric Waves.
With Circles on Cards. PostSvo. 3s.

BIOSCOPE (THE) ; or, the Dial of Life explained. By GRANVILLE

PENN. Second Edition. With Plate. 12mo. 12s.

BLAINE (ROBERTON) on the Laws of Artistic Copyright and their
Defects, for Artists, Engravers, Printsellers, &c. 8vo. 3s. 6d.

BLUNT'S (REV. J. J.) Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings
of the Old and New Testament, an Argument of their Veracity : with
an Appendix containing Undesigned Coincidences between the Gospels,
Acts, and Josephus. Fourth Edition. 8vo. 9s.

Principles for the proper understanding of the Mosaic

Writings, stated and applied, together with an Incidental Argument for
the truth of the Resurrection of our Lord. Being the HULSEA* LECTURES
for 1832. PostSvo. 6s. 6d.

BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. With 1000 Illustrations of
Borders, Initials, and Woodcut Vignettes. A New Edition. Medium
8vo. 21s. cloth, 31*. 6d. calf, or 42s. morocco.

BOSWELL'S (JAMES) Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson. Including the
Tour to the Hebrides, with Notes by Sir W. SCOTT. Edited by the Right
Hon. JOHN WILSON CKOKEE. A New Edition, with much additional
Matter. Portraits. One Volume Royal 8vo. 15s.

PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY.

BORROWS (GEORGE) Lavengro ; The Scholar — The Gipsy — and
the Priest. Portrait. 3 Vols. PostSvo. 30s.

- Bible in Spain; or the Journeys, Adventures, and
Imprisonments of an Englishman in an Attempt to circulate the
Scriptures in the Peninsula. 3 Vols. Post 8vo. 27*., or Cheap Edition,
16mo, 5s.

Zincali, or the Gipsies of Spain; their Manners,

Customs, Keligion, and Language. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 18s., or Cheap
Edition, 16mo.5s.

BRAY'S (MBS.) Life of Thomas Stothard, R.A. With Personal
Reminiscences. Illustrated with Portrait and 60 Woodcuts of his
chief works. 4to. 21s.

BREWSTER'S (SiR DAVID) Martyrs of Science, or the Lives of

Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 4s. Qd.

More Worlds than One. The Creed of the

Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian. Sixth Edition. PostSvo. 6s.

BRITISH CLASSICS. A New Series of Standard English
Authors, printed from the most correct text, and edited with elucidatory
notes. Published in Monthly Volumes, demy 8vo., 7s. Qd. each.

Already Published.
GOLDSMITH'S WORKS. Edited by PETEE CUNNINGHAM, F.S.A.

Vignettes. 4 Vols.
GIBBON'S DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

Edited by WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D. Portrait and Maps. 8 Vols.
JOHNSON'S LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. Edited with Notes.

ByPETEB CUNNINGHAM, F.S.A.

In Preparation.
WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE. Edited by the RIGHT HON. JOHN

WILSON CROKER. Assisted by PETER CUNNINGHAM, F.S.A.
WORKS OF DRYDEN. Edited with Notes.
HUME'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. A new Edition, carefully revised

throughout, with Notes and Commentations, to correct his errors and

supply his deficiencies.
WORKS OF SWIFT. Edited with Notes.
POETICAL WORKS OF LORD BYRON. Edited, with Notes.
WORKS OF JOSEPH ADDISON. Edited, with Notes.

BRITISH ASSOCIATION REPORTS. 8vo. York and Oxford,

1831-32, 13s. 6d. Cambridge, 1833, 12s. Edinburgh, 1834, 15s. Dublin,
1835, 13s. 6d. Bristol, 1836, 12s. Liverpool, 1837, 16s. 6d. Newcastle,
1838,15s. Birmingham, 1839, 13. 6d. Glasgow, 1840, 15s. Plymouth,
1841, 13s. 6d. Manchester, 1842, 10s. Qd. Cork, 1843, 12s. York, 1844,
20s. Cambridge, 1845, 12s. Southampton, 1846, 15s. Oxford, 1847, 18s.
Swansea, 1848, 9s. Birmingham, 1849, 10s. Edinburgh, 1850, 15s.
Ipswich, 1851, 16s. 6d. Belfast, 1852, 15s. Hull, 1853, 10s. 6d.

BROGDEN'S (REV. JAS.) Illustrations of the Liturgy and Ritual

of the United Church of England and Ireland. Being Sermons and
Discourses selected from the Works of eminent Divines of the 17th
Century. 3 Vols. Post 8vo. 27s.

— Catholic Safeguards against the Errors, Corruptions,
and Novelties of the Church of Rome. Being Sermons and Tracts selected
from the Works of eminent Divines of the 17th Century. Second Edition
With Preface and Index. 3 Vols. 8vo. 36s.

LIST OF WORKS

BKOOKE'S (SiR JAMES) Journals of Events in Borneo, including
, the Occupation of Labuan, and a Visit to the Celebes. Together with
the Expedition of H.M.S. Iris. By CAPT. RODNEY MUNDY, R.N.
Plates. 2Vols. 8vo. 32s.

BROUGHTON'S (LORD) Journey through Albania and other

Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople, 1809—10.
New Edition. 2 Vols. 8vo.

BUBBLES FROM THE BRUNNEN OF NASSAU. By an OLD

MAN. Sixth Edition. 16mo.

BUNBURY'S (C. J. F.) Journal of a Residence at the Cape of Good
Hope; with Excursions into the Interior, and Notes on the Natural
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BUNYAN (JOHN) and Oliver Cromwell Select Biographies. By
ROBERT SOUTHEY. Post 8vo. 2s. 6d.

BURGHERSH'S (LORD) Memoir of the Operations of the Allied
Armies under Prince Schwarzenberg and Marshal Blucher during the
latter end of 1813-14. 8vo. 21s.

- Early Campaigns of the Duke of Wellington in

Portugal and Spain. 8vo. 8s. 6d.

BURN'S (LiEUT.-CoL.) French and English Dictionary of Naval
and Military Technical Terms. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 15s.

BURNES' (SiR ALEXANDER) Journey to the City of Cabool.

Second Edition. Plates. 8vo. 18s.

BURNS' (ROBERT) Life. Br JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. Fifth
Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3s.

BURR'S (G. D.) Instructions in Practical Surveying, Topogra-
phical Plan-drawing, and on sketching ground without Instruments.
Second Edition. Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d.

BUXTON'S (SiR FOWELL) Memoirs. With Selections from his
Correspondence. By his Son. fourth Edition. 8vx>. 16*.; or, Popular
Edition. Post 8vo. 8s. 6d.

BYRON'S (LORD) Life and Letters. By THOMAS MOORE. Plates.

6 Vols. Fcap. 8vo. 18s. Or, One Volume, royal 8vo 12s.

Poetical Works. Plates. 10 Yols. Fcap. 8vo. 30s.

Or, One Volume. Royal 8vo. 12s.

Pocket Edition. 8 Yols. 24mo. 20s.

Sold separately as follows, Prvte 2s. 6d. each volume :

Childe Harold.
Dramas, 2 Vols.
Tales and Poems.

Miscellanies, 2 Vols.
Beppo and Don Juan,
2 Vols.

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Illustrated Edition.

With 30 Vignettes. Crown 8vo. 10s. Qd.

- Beauties — Poetry and Prose. Fcap. 8vo. 3s.

BUTTMAN'S LEXILOGUS ; or, a Critical Examination of the
Meaning and Etymology of numerous Greek Words and Passages,
intended principally for Homerand Hesiod. Translated, and edited, with
Explanatory Notes and copious Indexes, by REV. J. R. FISHLAKE.
Third Edition. 8vo. 14s.

PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY.

BUTTMAN'S Catalogue of Irregular Greek Verbs ; With all the

Tenses extant— their Formation, Meaning, and Usage, accompanied by
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Edition. 8vo. 7*. 6d.

CALVIN'S (JOHN) Life. With Extracts from his Correspondence.
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CALLCOTT'S (LADY) Little Arthur's History of England. Seven-
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CAREME'S FRENCH COOKERY. Translated by W. HALL.

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CARMICHAEL'S (A. N.) Greek Verbs, Their Formations,

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CARNARVON'S (LORD) Portugal, Gallicia, and the Basque
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CAMPBELL'S (LORD) Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers
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Lives of the Chief Justices of England. From the

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Life of Lord Bacon. Reprinted from the Lives of

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(GEORGE). Modern India. A Sketch of the System

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— India as it may be. An Outline of a proposed

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CLAUSEWITZ'S (GENERAL CARL VON) Campaign of 1812, in
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COLONIAL LIBRARY. [See Home and Colonial Library.]

COMBER'S (DEAN) Friendly Advice to the Roman Catholics
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CRABBE'S (REV. GEORGE) Life and Letters. By his SON. Portrait.
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(CAPT. J. D.) History of the Sikhs. From

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Lives of Eminent English Poets. By SAMUEL

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PEILE'S (REV. DR.) Agamemnon of JEschylus. A New Edition

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Choephorae of JEschylus. A New Edition of the Text,

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PELLEW'S (DEAN OF NORWICH) Life of Lord Sidmouth, with
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PENN'S (RICHARD) Maxims and Hints for an Angler, and the
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— (GRANVILLE) Bioscope ; or, Dial of Life Explained. To

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PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 27

PENROSE'S (REV. JOHN) Lives of Vice-Admiral Sir C. V. Penrose,
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- (F. C.) Principles of Athenian Architecture, and the

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PERRY'S (SiR ERSKINE) Bird's-Eye Yiew of India. With Extracts
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PHILLIPS' (JOHN) Memoirs of William Smith, LL.D., (the Geo-
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PHILPOTT'S (BISHOP) Letters to the late Charles Butler, on the

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POOLE'S (R. S.) Horae Egyptiacse ; or, the Chronology of Ancient
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POPE'S (ALEXANDER) WORKS. An entirely New Edition. Edited
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PORTER'S (G. R.) Progress of the Nation, in its various Social and
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28 LIST OF WORKS

RAWLINSON'S (REV. GEORGE) Herodotus. A New English
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Notes, illustrating the History and Geography of Herodotus, from the
most recent sources of information, embodying the chief Results,
Historical and Ethnographical, which have been arrived at in the pro-
gress of Cuneiform and Hieroglyphical Discovery. Assisted by COLONEL
RAWLINSON, and SIR J. G. WILKINSON. 4 Vols. 8vo. In Preparation.

REJECTED ADDRESSES (THE). By JAMES AND HORACE SMITH.

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RICARDO'S (DAVID) Political Works. With a Notice of his

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ROBERTSON'S (REV. J. C.) History of the Christian Church, to
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ROBINSON'S (EDWD., D.D.) Biblical Researches in the Holy Land.

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— Later Biblical Researches in the Holy Land in the
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ROMILLY'S (SiR SAMUEL) Memoirs and Political Diary. By his

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ROSS'S (SiR JAMES) Voyage of Discovery and Research in the
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ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE (THE). TRANSACTIONS.
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RUNDELL'S (MRS.) Domestic Cookery, founded on Principles

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RUXTON'S (GEORGE F.) Travels in Mexico; with Adventures
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SALE'S (LADY) Journal of the Disasters in Affghanistan. Eighth

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(G-. p.) Memoir of Lord Sydenham, and his Administra-
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SENTENCES FROM THE PROVERBS. In English, French,
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PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 29

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200 Woodcuts. Crown 8vo. 7s. Qd.

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— School History of Greece ; from the Earliest Times to

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30 LIST OF WORKS

SPECKTER'S (OTTO) Charmed Roe; or, the Story of the Little
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STISTED'S (MRS. HENRY) Letters from the Bye- Ways of Italy.

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STRIFE FOR THE MASTERY. Two Allegories. With Illus-
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SUNLIGHT THROUGH THE MIST; or, Practical Lessons
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SUTTON (HoN. H. MANNERS). Some Account of the Courts of

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SWIFT'S (JONATHAN) Works. New Edition, based upon Sir
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SYDENHAM'S (LORD) Memoirs. With his Administration in
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TALBOT'S (H. Fox) English Etymologies. 8vo. 12s.
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TENNENT'S (Sin J. E.) Christianity in Ceylon. Its Introduction
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PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 31

THEEE-LEAVED MANUAL OF FAMILY PEAYEE ; arranged

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THEESHOLD (THE) OF LIFE. A Series of Letters addressed to

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TICKNOE'S (GEORGE) History of Spanish Literature. With Criti-
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WADDINGTON'S (DEAN) The Condition and Prospects of the

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WATT (JAMES) ; Origin and Progress of his Mechanical Inventions.
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32 LIST OF WORKS PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY.

WELLINGTON'S (THE DUKE OF) Character, Actions, and Writings.
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Despatches during his various Campaigns.

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Speeches in Parliament. Collected and Arranged

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WILKINSON'S (SiR J. G.) Popular Account of the Private Life,
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WOOD'S (LIEUT.) Voyage up the Indus to the Source of the
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WOODWARD'S (B.B.) Handbook of History; or Chronology
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WORDSWORTH'S (REV. DR.) Athens and Attica. Journal of a

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WORSAAE'S (J. J. A.) Account of the Danes and Northmen in
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YOUNG'S (DR. THOS.) (the Discoverer of Hieroglyphics) Life.
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EKADBURY AND EVAKS, riU.VTEKS, WHITEl'BIAB

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