Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. iv. of Original Sin. 1 1 5
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 virtuous heathen and unbaptized infants, partly
implied and partly expressed, a middle state, it is in
different 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 modi
fied, 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 con
dition of the human race, which would not have been
unjustly ordained, had there been no original sin at all.
The infliction of positive 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 accom
paniment, the highest capacities 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 en this head ;
and on the same principle on which God has created dif
ferent 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 injus
tice as a consequence of the sin of Adam ; because it was
no injustice had it been no consequence of anything, but
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