Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

Augustinian Doctrine CHAP. v.
who is saved eertissime liberantur qiiicumque liberan-
turj and that of the elect none perish, l and everywhere
speaking of predestination as predestination
to eternal life.
It is equally evident that he does not mean that these
individuals are predestinated to eternal life on account of
foreseen goodness in them. This was the ground on which
predestination was placed by some maintainers of a quali
fied doctrine on this subject in S. Augustine s time ; but
it met not with his agreement but strong condemnation ;
and those who held it are argued with as opponents not
so far gone as the Pelagians, but still labouring under
formidable error. The distinction of foreseen merits was
a regular and known distinction in the controversy on this
question at that day, and was thus disposed of. Thus,
commenting on the text, Ye have not chosen Me, but I
have chosen you (John xv. 16), he says, This, then, is
the immoveable truth of predestination. The Apostle
says,
" He
hath elected us in Him before the foundation
of the world." If this is interpreted, then, to mean that
Grod elects men because He foresees they will believe, and
not because He is about to make them believing, against
" such a
foreknowledge as this the Son speaks, saying, Ye
have not chosen Me, but I have chosen for you," upon this
interpretation Grod would rather have foreseen that they
would choose Him, and so deserve to be chosen by Him.
They are chosen therefore before the foundation of the
world by that predestination by which God foresees his
own future work ; and they are chosen out of the world
by that 2
calling by which Grod fulfils what He predestines.
Again, on the text i. (Eph. 4) According as He hath
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
" He
foreknew," says the Pelagian, who were about to
be holy and without blame by the exercise of their free
will, and therefore chose them before the foundation of
the world in His foreknowledge, because He foreknew that
2 S! S n Pers * c> xiv> stitutionem ea praedestinatione in
Lte Freed. Sanct. c. xvii. Quod qua Deus sua futura facta praescivit :
recto sii
propterea dictum est quia electi sunt autem de mundo ea vocaprascmt
Deus credituros esse ---- tione, qua Deus id, quod prsedes-
Mecti sunt autem ante mundi con- tinavit impleyit