Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

The Argument
CHAP. i.
He necessarily resolves to bestow some grace upon them
which will control their wills and insure this result. There
are two main kinds of grace laid down in the schemes of
divines, one, assisting grace, which depends on an original
act of the human will for its use and cultivation, and which
was therefore conferred on man at his creation when the
power of his will had not been as yet tried the ; other, effec
tive or irresistible grace, given when that will has been tried
and failed, and must have its want of internal strength
supplied by control from without. The Divine saving act
is the bestowal of this irresistible grace. The subject of
the Divine is
predestination
rescued by an act of absolute
power from the dominion of sin, dragged from it, as it
were, by force, converted, filled with the love of God and
his neighbour, and qualified infallibly for a state of ulti
mate reward.
Here, then, it must be observed, is the real essence and
substance of the doctrine of predestination. Predestinarians
do not differ from their opponents in the idea of eternal
Divine decrees, which, though popularly connected with this
system more than with others, belongs in truth to all theo
logical systems alike. For the believer in freewill, who
only admits an assisting grace of God, and not a controlling
one, must still believe that God determined to give that
assisting grace, in whatsoever instances He does give it,
from all
eternity. Nor do they differ from their opponents
in the ground or reason of God s final judgment and dis
for this takes place in
pensing of reward and punishment 1
;
both schemes wholly upon the moral ground of the indi
vidual s good or bad character. But the difference between
the predestinarians and their opponents is as to that act
which is the subject matter of the Divine decree, and as to
the mode in which this difference of moral character is pro
duced ; that is to say, the two schools differ as to the nature,
quality, and power of Divine grace under the Gospel ; one
1 Vita geterna . . . gratia mincu- dirnn est, sed tibi gratia est, cui
patur non ob aliud nisi quod gratis gratia est et ipsa justitia. Aug. Ep.
datur, nee ideo quia non meritis 194. n. 19. 21.
tlatur . . . Justitise quidem stipen-