Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. vir. of Final Perseverance. 185
order to prove by our actions whether we are worthy of
reward or punishment in an eternal world to come. The
doctrine of final perseverance is, that those actions are not
estimated simply with regard to quantity, but also with
regard to order that what constitutes a ; good or bad life
is not the mere aggregate of them, in which case it would
not signify whether they came at the beginning or end of
life, for so long as there was enough of them to satisfy the
Judge,
it would be indifferent how the number was made
up ; but their succession, whether prior or posterior in life :
in other words, not the acts themselves, but their relation
to the man, whether they are appropriated by him or not ;
for this is what their order of prior or posterior tests.
And as the doctrine of final perseverance as a test is
only the doctrine of trial and probation explained
objections to it on the ground of justice are only of the kind
which attaches to the general doctrine of trial and proba
tion. The doctrine indeed that the whole period of trial
must be judged by its termination, prominently suggests
the question, in the case of a bad termination of it, Why
is this period terminated now ? As the end makes all the
; so the
difference, why could not that end have been postponed ?
Why could not the period have been extended to sufficient
length to give room for another, and so, by a small addi
tion to its duration, the whole of its effects have been re
moved ? But it is evident that this objection applies to
the end of all trial whatever, and upon whatever rule pro
ceeding, whether that of the order of actions or of the
aggregate simply. In either case a longer period might,
as far as we see, have produced a different issue from that
of a shorter one. The whole doctrine of trial and proba
tion is indeed incomprehensible to us ; for, whereas proba
tion must in the nature of the case be limited, we cannot
understand how a limitation of it can be so arranged as to
be perfectly just and equitable ; how it is that a person at
a particular time is completely tried and proved : notwith
standing which difficulty, the doctrine of trial and proba
tion is a doctrine both of revelation and natural religion.
The test of final perseverance does indeed, in some of