Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

Augustinian
CHAP. vi.
or holiness and the ultimate gift of eternal life. Eternal
life is the gift of God, but it is given according to merit ;
that is,
it is a gift upon certain conditions, viz. the con
ditions of obedience and holiness in the persons to whom
it is awarded. But the conditions themselves of obedience
and holiness are not given according to merit, but are gifts
unconditional and gratuitous. The gift of eternal life is a
reward, and not a gift only but that for which it is a reward
;
is not itself a reward, or given upon condition of endeavours
and exercise of will by the man himself, but is a free gift
dona sua coronat Deus, non merita tua } God crowns
His gifts and not thy merits. Eternal life is the recom
but those merits of which it is
pense of preceding merits ;
the recompence are not prepared through our own suffi
ciency, but are made in us by grace ; it is given to merits,
but the merits to which it is given are themselves given
data sunt et ipsa merita quibus daturS 2 God at the
last judgment has respect to His own gifts in those who
appear before Him, not distributing eternal life to
person
this
or that, according to His own sovereign will and
pleasure only, but according to a rule ; that is to say, ac
cording as persons show the possession of certain previous
gifts of His own to them ; but those gifts themselves are
not to be divested of their proper character of gifts because
: a reward is based upon them, the second gift
is indeed
upon the basis of the first, but the first is
gift upon no
basis at all but the Divine will and pleasure. Here, then,
is a contrast which establishes the sense of the term gift
as used of the qualifications for eternal life, as the more
simple and natural one of a gift absolute, for so used it is
opposed to the gift conditional.
Thus he handles the text Turn unto Me, and I will
turn unto you 3
; a text of which the natural meaning is,
that if a man does his part according to the power of free
agency which he possesses, God will do His in the way of
pardon and reward. They, the Pelagians, gather from
this text, that the grace wherewith God turns to us is given
as a reward for our own turning of ourselves to God ; not
1
See Note, p. 8.
2
Ep. 134. n. 19. 3 Zech. i. 3.