66 acceptance in the Book of Life, and a righteousness through faith which raises to a Salvation that is absolutely perfect. To the first belong all the pious before the Christian Dispensation, since they fulfilled the commands-as Paul says in Rom. x. 5, (" For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the Law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them,") a meaning indeed which is quite opposed to the Pauline application of the passage. He emphatically asserted the harmonious connexion between Grace and Free Will, the powerlessness of the latter, and yet its importance as a condition of the operation of Divine Grace. As the organs of the human body," he says," *"cannot act, without the addition of moving causes, so the Human has indeed the capacity for knowing God, but if it does not receive through faith the gift of the Holy Spirit, it will not attain to that Knowledge. Yet the gift of Christ stands open to all, and that which all want is given to every one as far as he will accept it." It is the greatest folly," he says in another passage,+ "not to perceive that we live in dependence on and through God, when we imagine that in things which men undertake and hope for, they may venture to depend on their own strength. What we have, we have from God; on him must all our hope be placed." Accordingly, he did not admit an unconditional predestination; he did not find it in the passages in Rom. ix. commonly adduced in favour of it respecting the election of Esau, but only a predestination conditioned by the Divine foreknowledge of his determination of will; otherwise every man would be born under a necessity of sinning. 66 AMBROSE carries the approximation to AUGUSTIN a step farther. He says,§ "We have all sinned in the first man, and by the propagation of Nature, the propagation of guilt has also passed from one to all; in him human nature has sinned." A transference of Adam's guilt may seem to be here expressed; but in other expressions this is disowned.|| At 66 § Apolog. David. ii. § 71. In Ps. 48, § 9. * De Trinit. ii. 35. + In Ps. 51, § 20. In Ps. 57, § 3.-Sic Esau alienatus ab utero est, quum major minori serviturus etiam ante quam exsisteret nuntiatur, Deo futuræ non nescio voluntatis ipso potius hoc sciente, quam aliquo ad necessitatem genito naturamque peccati. the last Judgment we shall be punished for our own sins and not for another's." Here he appears to acknowledge guilt only so far as man has yielded to hereditary sin by his own will. He distinguishes the enticement to sin which proceeds from hereditary depravity, and actual guilt. Redemption he represents, still more decidedly than Hilary, as a work of grace, independent of merit. "Redemption," he says, "is freely given; it does not follow the merit of works, but takes place according to the freedom of the Giver and the choice of the redeemed. But it hinges on this, that men received what is offered with Freedom; this must rest with them. Since all do not obtain the remedy, but the majority decline it, God saves those who are willing to be saved. The Lord calls the slothful,§ and awakes the sleeping; he who comes and knocks at the door, is willing to enter; but it is our fault if he does not enter; whoever does not surrender himself to him, deprives himself of everlasting light." Hence it was that even AMBROSE admitted neither irresistible Grace nor an unconditioned Predestination; he admits Predestination,|| but makes it, in so many words, depend on Prescience. Only in two passages he seems in contradiction to this view to maintain unconditioned Grace and Predestination-" God calls those whom he deigns to call; he makes him pious whom he wills to make pious, for if he had willed he could have changed the impious into pious," and "it is God's pleasure** that that which is good in itself should appear good to us; for he will have mercy on whom he will; and hence he who follows Christ, if asked why he was willing to be in Christ, must conform because it so pleased himself, but in saying that, he does not deny that it so pleased God." This passage may be so understood that Man at conversion supposes that he only follows his own free will, while in fact he is determined by an unknown divine * L. 1.-Magis lubricum delinquendi quam reatum aliquem nostri esse delicti. Et + In Ps. 43, § 47. De Interpellationis Davidis, 4, 4. § In Ps. 118, § 13. De Fide, v. § 83. In Luc. 7, 27. ** Ibid. 1, § 10.-Christus ut id quod bonum est nobis quoque videri bonum possit, operatur; quem enim miseratur, et vocat. ideo qui Christum sequitur potest interrogatus cur esse voluerit Christianus, respondere: visum est mihi. Quod eum dicit, non negat, Deo visum; a Deo enim præparatur voluntas hominum. Ut enim Deus honorificetur a sancto, Dei gratia est. 345 operation by Grace which in an irresistible manner lays hold of his corrupt Will. In that case the Freedom would be only apparent, and everything is ascribable to Grace operating unconditionally; but then between this and his above-mentioned doctrine there would be an irreconcilable contradiction. Yet it might have been possible to extricate himself in spite of his strong language. He might have admitted a gratia præveniens, and thus maintained necessity of a co-operation of the Free Will. It is worthy of notice that AMBROSE, the teacher of AUGUSTIN, whose sermons gave him the first impulse to enter the Catholic Church, and whose writings Augustin diligently read, expressed himself in such a manner. AUGUSTIN in his work De dono perseverantiæ, sec. 49, appealed to these passages as testimonies in favour of his Doctrine of Grace. the THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 3. THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. The Commentaries of Pelagius on the Pauline Epistles preserved among the works of Jerome, ed. Martian. tom. v. Vall. tom. xi. They were recast under the direction of Cassiodorus, and on account of the omission of heretical passages, are no longer fully available as sources of information. His letter to Demetrias, a nun to whom he presents the model of the ascetic life, is valuable for its Anthropology and for its connexion with asceticism. Edited by Semler, Hal. 1775. His Libellus fidei ad Innocentum I. was held in the Middle Ages to be a Confession of Jerome, which he presented to Damasus, bishop of Rome; it is inserted under the title of Explanatio Symboli ad Damasum in Hieronymi, Opp. ed Mart. t. xi. p. 11. The confounding of Pelagius with Catholic writers proceeds in part from his intentional accommodation to the language of the Church Teachers, and still more to the real agreement between his own tendency and that prevalent in the Church, as to the doctrine of consilia evangelica and other points. Fragments of letters from his writings de natura and de libero arbitrio are to be found in the works of Augustin. Jerome and Marius Mercator, ed. Jo. Garnier. Fragments of the Libellus fidei of Caelestius are in Augustin de pecc. orig. v. 6, compare the charges brought against him at Carthage by Marius Mercator also in Augustin, t. x. Opp. pag. 42-Julian's v. Eklanum Works in Aug. de nuptiis et concup. libb. ii. contra Julian; op. imperf. c. Jul. Opp. Augustini, t. x., ed. Bened.; de peccatorum meritis et veniessione, de natura, de gestis Pelagii, de gratia Christi et peccato originali, de nupt. et conc. contra duas epp. Pelagian, contra Julian., libb. vi., and op. imperf. de grat. et lib. arbitr.-Hieronymus: ep. ad Ctesiphontem 43 Mart., 133 Vall. 3 vol. dialog. c. Pelagian.-Pauli Orosii apologeticus, c. Pelag. Opp. ed. Haverkamp.-Marii Mercatoris commonitorium against Caelestius and against Pelagius and Caelestius. Cornelius Jansenius, seu doctrina G. Augustini, etc., adv. Pelagian, et Massilienses, Lowaini, 1640 fol. Henricus Norisius hist. Pelag. Opp. i. 1729.-F. W. Walch. Ketzerhist. Bet. iv. v.-G. F. Wiggers Verf. einer pragm. Darst. des Augustinianism und Pelagianism, 1821. THE different conceptions of the degree of the corruption of human nature, and on the other hand, of the importance of Grace and Predestination, which were exhibited by PELAGIUS and AUGUSTIN in most striking contrast, rested on the difference in the general original tendencies of their minds, which were most closely connected with the differences of character and course of life. Let us picture to ourselves a man of sincere moral aims, but without great powers of mind or depth of feeling, who had not been agitated by severe interval conflicts-to whom the Moral System had not been presented in all its grandeur, who had no enthusiasm for a Moral Ideal, by which he might have learnt the inadequacy of his moral powers; and on the other hand, let us imagine a man of great endowments, of extraordinary elevation of mind, inspired with the sublimity of a Moral Ideal-but who had to combat with a wild energy in his own breast, before he could attain its realization :-the former would be soon settled; the latter would seek and combat long; the one would lead a quiet life devoted to Study; his activity would be confined within a narrow circle-the fulfilment of his duties would appear easy, and be soon attained;-the other would be agitated by the storms of Life and wrestle with them till he found power for victory in the Christian Faith. The former would easily trust too much to the moral powers of Man; and his own experience he would assume to be that of every man; soon satisfied he would not feel the need of Redemption; the latter on the contrary from his own deep inward experience would lay so much the greater stress upon it; he would point all to faith in the Redeemer, in whom he himself had found rest; in the consciousness of the sharp contrast of the new divine life to his former life, he would be likely to place Nature and Grace in opposition with intense onesidedness, and acknowledge Grace as everywhere supreme and subject to no conditions. In such terms may the general relation of PELAGIUS and AUGUSTIN be described. At the crisis of his spiritual life AUGUSTIN Occupied himself especially with the study of Paul's Epistles. Their ideas formed the foundation of his Anthropology; they were the central point of his doctrinal belief. His own life gave him a commentary on the form in which he here found Christianity exhibited the opposition between Law and Gospel-Flesh and Spirit-Nature and Grace. His experience and LUTHER'S, both resembled PAUL'S. From the Pelagian and recently from the Rationalist standpoint, AUGUSTIN'S Anthropology has been accounted for from his Manicheism. But this is contradicted AUGUSTIN. 347 by the fact, that when he renounced Manicheism, he combated the absolute corruption of human nature and maintained the freedom of the Will against the Manicheans. At this first period he thought more moderately on these points. It would be more correct to say, that the peculiar tendency of his Anthropology had been shown in that which led him to Manicheism. His experience of a schism in human nature impelled him to the inquiry respecting the Origin of Evil. When he proceeded from Manicheism to Platonism, he endeavoured to prove against the former that Evil was not to be thought of as something absolute, but as a u ov, not that he regarded it as a pure negation, as a mere transition point of development, but only asserted in opposition to Dualism that Evil might be considered simply as a defection from the Divine Will, and to this doctrine he always adhered. This tendency had an influence on his later system. In the construction of it, there is a double standpoint; the earlier form which may be learned from his treatises de libero arbitrio and de vera religione supposes everything in man to be conditioned by free will. In the present state of Man it is not in his power to be good, because he neither knows what he ought to be, nor, if he knew it, could he live in a manner corresponding to his knowledge. Ignorantia and difficultas boni are the roots of moral Evil. To admit this as the original condition of Man, cannot harmonize with the idea of a perfect Creator; it must rather be considered as the punishment of the first sin. Man who did not perform the good which he knew forfeited the knowledge of it, and the power of performing it. But how is it to be reconciled with the justice of God that in consequence of the original act, these obstacles should exist in human nature? We might justly complain, he says, if no man had ever overcome the power of error and of concupiscence. God is everywhere present, and in manifold ways through his creatures calls to himself Man who has apostatized from him, and teaches, and upholds him, if he exerts himself. Man will not be treated as guilty for unavoidable ignorance and defect, but only for his not striving after knowledge. Yet in his exposition of Rom. ix. (A.D. 394)* AUGUSTIN expressly opposes a reference of that passage to absolute Predestination and the exclusion of free will. Man indeed could not merit Explicatio Propositionum Quarundam de Epistola ad Rom. |