Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

230 Augustinian Doctrine CHAP. vni.
this doctrine may be called, in the first place, a combination
of freewill with necessity.
The peculiarity, however, of the Augustinian doctrine
does not lie in this combination ; for the combination itself
is not, when we examine the matter, open to any substan
tial objection. We are apt, indeed, at first to think that
no will can be in any sense free that acts necessarily ; but
a little reflection will show us that this is a first thought
resulting from not properly knowing our own admissions
on this subject. We attribute to the Supreme Being, the
angels, and saints in their state of reward, a necessity on
the side of goodness ;
but we attribute to God, the angels,
and the saints the operation of a genuine will. We attri
bute to the evil spirits and the wicked, in their state of
punishment, a necessity on the side of evil, and together
with it the same genuine will. Necessity indeed only ope
rates in matter in this lower world ; inevitable growth,
inevitable decay, organisation, and disorganisation, are only
seen in the animal, vegetable and mineral bodies ; but in
the eternal world, the intelligent substance acts necessarily,
and that which moves with certainty in the direction of
good or evil is will. The Supreme Will, being essentially
good, cannot contradict itself ; the will of the wicked can
not agree with, the will of the righteous cannot recede
from, the Will Supreme. Indeed, we are conversant with
certain approaches to necessity in human conduct in this
life. It is the essential characteristic of habit, that it
makes acts to be performed by us as a matter of course,
implants a kind of law in our minds, by which we act in
this or that way ; and therefore habit is called a second
nature. But we do not consider that men who have
formed habits, virtuous or the contrary, do not act with
freewill.
Nor, again, does the peculiarity of S. Augustine s doc
trine, as it does not lie in the combination of freewill with
necessity, lie either in the source which he assigns to such
necessity, which is one external to the agent. The doctrine
of an eternal state of reward and punishment, which all
Christians admit, asserts the transference of human wills