Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

140 Augustinian Doctrine
is a remnant according to the election of grace ;
^CHAP. v.
and if by
grace, then is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no
T more Wherefore grace."
ye are foolish who, when the
"
truth says, Not of works, but of Him that calleth," say,
on account of future works which God foresaw that Jacob
would do, and therefore loved him; contradicting the
Apostle s own words. As if the Apostle would not have
said, not on account of present, but of future works, if he
"
had meant this quasi non posset dicere, non ex prcesen-
2
tibus sed ex futuris operibus"
The ground of foreseen merits is thus expressly rejected
by S. Augustine as the ground of predestination, which is
referred, instead, to an absolute and inscrutable Divine
choice. Though one distinction must be here made. The
most rigid predestinarian must in one sense allow that
God predestinates the elect to eternal life in consequence
of goodness foreseen in them. For, however absolutely
(rod may predestinate particular persons to eternal life in
the sense of certainty, He plainly does not do it absolutely
in the sense of requiring no qualifications. His predeter
mination, then, to give them eternal life must suppose
the foresight of these qualifications for it in them, though
it is the
foresight of qualifications which He Himself has
determined to give them by the operation of efficacious
grace. (rod foresees His own future work. He has
decreed from all eternity to make, and therefore foresees
that He will make, Jacob of such a character. But this
is predestination in consequence of foreseen goodness, in
quite a different sense from that which is intended in the
modification of the doctrine above referred to. The effect
of that modification is to make the whole of predestination
conditional, God predestinating persons to eternal life in
consequence of something which by virtue of the Divine
attribute of foreknowledge He certainly foresees, but which
is in itself contingent, depending on the will and efforts
of the persons themselves. But of the distinction now
spoken of this is not the effect. For though, according
to it, God predestinates the elect to their final reward
1
Horn. xi. 5, 6. 2
Contra Dua8j Ep. Pel. 1. 2. n. 15.