Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CFAP. vii. of Final Perseverance. 195
is the great gift which puts into execution God s eternal
decree with respect to the whole body of the elect. He
may predestine some to a higher and others to a lower
place, but He predestines all the elect to a place in the
kingdom of heaven and ; therefore, while He provides that
some shall exhibit higher and others lower degrees of sanc
tity and goodness, He provides that all shall exhibit enough
for admission ; which sufficiency is final perseverance.
CHAPTER VIII.
AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE OF FREEWILL.
THE preceding chapters have exhibited a full and sys
tematic scheme of predestinarian doctrine, as held by S.
Augustine, who asserts in the first place an eternal Divine
decree, whereby one part of mankind has been, antece
dently to any moral difference between the two, separated
from the other, and the one ordained to eternal life, and
1
the other to eternal punishment and ; next supplies a
grace for putting it into effect. 2 But while he lays down
this doctrine of predestination and irresistible grace, S.
Augustine at the same time acknowledges the existence of
freewill in man liberum arbitrium ; an admission, which,
understood in its popular sense, would have been a counter
balance to all the rest of his scheme. The question, how
ever, immediately arises, what he means by freewill;
whether he uses the word in the sense which the ordinary
doctrine of freewill requires, or in another and a different
sense. Persons are apt indeed to suppose, as soon as ever
they hear the word freewill, that the word must involve all
that those who hold the regular doctrine of freewill mean
by it. It remains, however, to see whether this is the case
in S. Augustine s use of the word.
The doctrine of freewill consists of two parts ; one of
1
Chap. V.
2
Chaps. VI. and VII.
o 2