Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. in. The Pelagian Controversy. 97
the faculty, as we experienced it, really is ; and an abso
lute freewill, which was a simple conception of the mind,
displaced the incomprehensible actual will, the enigma of
human nature, the mystery of fact.
The s Pelagian argument respecting the Divine justice
proceeded in the same way upon an idea without consider
ing facts. It was founded indeed upon the true natural
idea of justice 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 comprehensible sense, a just
one. Our moral nature, then, and the existing constitu
tion of things, being at variance on the question 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 contra
dicted 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 move
ment of the natural will to good, unassisted by Grod.
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, the religious mind feeling an insnrmountable
check and prohibition against calling any good
movement purely its own, and appropriating it to the
exclusion of Grod. But the Pelagian ventured on this act
of appropriation.
Kaised upon a basis thus philosophically and religiously