Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. vnr. of Freewill. 2 1 r
ciently proved by Scripture saying, will not this, and will
not that, and demanding an act of the will in doing or not
doing anything. Let no one then blame God in his heart,
but impute it to himself when he sins. Nor, when he does
anything according to Grod s will, let him alienate it from
his own. For when he does it
willingly, then it is a good
work, then a reward attaches to it quando volens facit
tune dicendum est opus bonum." 1
Again on the text
All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it
is given ; he says, Those to whom it is not given either
will not or do not what they will : those to whom it is
given so will that they do what they will. That which is
not received by all, but is received by some, is both the
gift of Grod and also is freewill et "Dei donum eat, et
liberum arbitrium. That is to say, it is freewill in him,
because, from whatever source it comes, when he has it, it
is his own will. These explanations all appeal to the fact of
a will in man, as being sufficient to constitute a free agent,
and a proper subject of promises or threats, of reward or
punishment. Indeed, what these arguments are designed
to remove is not any part of the predestinarian doctrine,
but only a false practical inference from it ; for the occa
sion on which this treatise was written was, that certain
persons had begun to argue, that if that doctrine was true,
it did not signify what kind of lives men led, because they
were not responsible for them. Augustine
corrects this
inference by reminding them, that the predestinarian doc
trine did not exclude a will in man ; and that if he had a
will, that made him responsible.
Augustine s doctrine of freewill, then, does not come
up to that which is ordinarily understood as that doctrine ;
not advancing beyond that point up to which the doctrine
of freewill and the opposite doctrine agree. He acknow
ledges a will in man, that which makes him act willingly,
as distinguished from acting by compulsion and con
straint ; but this is saying nothing as to how that will is
determined.
II. But, in the second place, we come to the question
p 2