Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

226 Augustinian Doctrine CHAP. Yin.
nothing more than to say that the will must receive when
it receives accipere et habere utique accipientis et habentis
est. The believing will thus comes out, after due ex
planation, a simple gift, to which the only consent is one
which is involved in the "mere fact of it being given; viz.
reception and possession. And, lastly, why one man has
this gift, and another not, is explained by a simple appeal
to mystery.
Any one who carefully examines this passage will see
that the explanation here given of it is the only one by
which a consistent meaning is secured for it throughout.
A phrase apparently owning an original power in the
human will to accept or reject the Divine operation upon
it, is admitted ; but as soon as it has been admitted it is
explained in a particular way,
and reduced into entire
harmony with a theory of omnipotent grace, resting upon
a basis of mystery. 1
To sum up in one distinction the general argument of
this chapter, the Augustinian doctrine of freewill may be
said in a word to describe the nature of freewill as being
a mode of action, not a source of action taking source in
its proper sense as an original source. The mode of human
1
Jansen (De Gratia Christi, pp. of Augustinian election as ex prce-
220,225, 908, 936,955,980, 989) visis operibus (p. 989) : and his and
properly explains various passages
of Augustine from which the Jesuits
Molini s explanation of gratia effi-
cax, as efficacious si voluntas cum ca
Bellarmine.Suarez, Molina, Lessius, co-operari velit and others had extracted a freewill
(p. 936), omitting
the whole consideration that this
meaning, as applying to the will of consent of the will is man as created, or simply to will as
itself, accord-
ing to Augustine the such. But while such explanation
is sometimes required on his own
side, nothing
effect of grace,
Having excluded Augustinianism
from the pale of tolerated opinion,
can be more far-fetched the Church of Kome is obliged to
arid artificial than the Jesuit inter- prove that S. pretations
Augustine was not
of the great pervading Augustinian. But the dicta and fundamental positions of
Augustine if ; interpretations deserve
that name which are obvious
and barefaced contradictions to,
rather than explanations of, S.
plain language
of S. Augustine refutes such interpreters,
and forces one of two alter-
natives upon them, either that they
tolerate his doctrines, and so keep
him in communion with their
Augustine s meaning, as Lessius interpretation of the Augustinian
predestination as conditional and
Church, or anathematise his doc-
trines, and confess that S. Augustine
does not belong to their commuincomplete
(pp. 955, 981) his view nion.