Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. iv. of Original Sin. 1 1 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. 1 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.
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 iden
tifies the supernatural with future life, the natural with
present ; because the future life at which, as Christians,
we aim is a supernatural 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
2
on this subject , a natural one. Such an eternity was,
according to early theology, open to man in a state of ori-
pfToi,
o lKfiovvrai -rrj irpdrri ^6vri, sent by God to the Jews having
tyftfs 8 &\\oi fJ.fXP l TV* T\vraias. been sent for their sake as well.
L. 7. c. 2. Tatian, Ad Graec. c. 20. i&pi-
Athanasius (De Incarn. c. 12) ap- (r64)(ra.v ol irpcaToir^affral airb TT)S 7775
pears to speak of the heathen as in p*v, aAA. ot/ e TOVTTJS, KpEtrroi/os Se
a certain sense under the same dis- TTJS evravQa SiaKcff^irecas. See Bull,
pensation as the Jews as ; having On the State of Man before the Fall,
the power irarpbs \6yov yv&vai from p. 67.
2
the works of nature the ; prophets P. 105.