Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

T go Augustinian Doctrine CHAP. vn.
a lapse. And if the want of authority in the Book of
Wisdom, as not being part of the sacred book, is alleged, he
replies that he can do without the text ; because even were
the certainty of a lapse lost to his argument, all that his
argument really wants is the l
danger of one ; for that, if
there is the danger of a lapse,
it cannot be the man s
stability
which constitutes his final perseverance, but the act of God
in forestalling his trial. What makes final perseverance in
such cases then, is, he concludes, the Divine location of the
end of life. And thence he argues immediately that in such
cases final perseverance itself is a Divine gift. Consider
how contradictory it is to deny that perseverance up to the
end of this life is the gift of God, when He undoubtedly
gives the end of life whenever He pleases ; and the giving of
the end of life before an impending lapse makes final per
severance. 2 How is not perseverance unto the end of God s
grace, when the end itself of life is in God s power, and
God can confer this benefit even on one who is not about
3
to persevere ?
Having proved one kind of final perseverance by this
argument to be a Divine gift, he then infers that all final
perseverance whatever is the same. There may be a wide
interval between the final perseverance of one who is
snatched from impending trial by some sudden illness or
accident, and that of one who has been reserved for trial
and has sustained it without falling ; but if the one kind
is ( the gift of God, the other is too. He who took away
the righteous man by an early death, lest wickedness should
alter his understanding, preserves the righteous man for
the length of a long life, that wickedness does not alter
his understanding. 4
persecutions is the more difficult ;
Perseverance amid hindrances and
the other is the easier :
but He to whom nothing is difficult can easily give both. 5
The substance of this argument is, that the power of
resisting temptation is as much a gift of God as the re
moval from temptation. Death can only be effective of
De Prsed. c. xiv. * De Prsed. c. xiv. (
2 (980.)
De Dono Pers. c.
5
xvii.
De Dono Pers. c. 2.
8
Ep. 217. c. vi.