Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. in. The Pelagian Controversy. 95
3. Pelagianism was fundamentally opposed to the doc
trine 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 Incar
nation. 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 signifi-
cancy, 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 Kedeemer, to the
whole race of man, was abandoned in that doctrine of free
will 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 pardoning 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 neces
sary assistance 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 atone
ment 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 Christ was a Pelagian fiction, accom
modated to a theory opposed to it, and maintained as a
turae nostrae communione distin- qui carnem Christi a naturae nostrae
gueret. Op. Imp. 1. 6. c. 33. communione distinguunt, sed qui
Augustine, in reply, distinguishes nullam carnem Christum habuisse
between the Apollinarist statement, contendunt. . . . Dimitte illos . . .
Christum non habuisse corporis sensus,
and his own, that those senses non
quia nobiscum carnem Christi etsi
dissimiliter confiteris. Nee nos enim
contra Spiritum concupisse 4. c.
(1.
47.); and as against the Manicheans,
he says, Manichaei non sunt,
earn a naturae atque substantiae
carnis nostrae,sed a vitii communione
distinguimus. 1. Op. Imp. 6. c. 33.