Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. vin. of Freewill. 231
into a state of necessity, both for evil and good, by an act
of Almighty Power that the wills of ;
wicked men are, on
their departure from this life, put by this act into a state
in which they are beyond recovery those ; of the good into
a state in which they are beyond lapse. The power of
choice being, according to the doctrine of freewill, retained
by man so long as he remains in this world, its determina
tion, on his departure to another, is caused not by an act
of his own, but by a Divine act of judgment or of reward,
as it may be. Thus all (rod s moral creatures pass, at a
particular stage of their being, by an act of Divine Power,
from a state in which their wills are indeterminate and
may choose either good or choose
evil, to a
one or the other.
state in which they
While there is life
necessarily
there is hope, and there is fear. The most inveterate
habits of vice still leave a power of self-recovery in the
man if he will but exert it ; the most confirmed habits of
virtue still leave the liability to a fall. The resources for
a struggle between good and evil remain up to the time of
departure from life, when a change takes place which no
thought can reach, and by a Divine act the will, remaining
the same in substance, is changed fundamentally in con
dition, and put out of a state of suspense and, in ordinary
language, freedom, into one of necessity.
But the combination of necessity, and that a necessity
communicated to the will from without, with freewill, being
admitted on both sides, the peculiarity of Augustine s doc
trine lies in the application of this principle
in the ; reason,
the time, and the manner he assigns to its operation. That
state of the will to which an original power of choice
attaches is upon the doctrine of freewill identical with a
state of trial ; and this consideration gives us the reason
and time of the introduction of necessity, as well as the
manner of its operation according to the doctrine of free
will. The ground of its introduction is final reward and
punishment ; the time of its introduction is after a state of
trial; and the manner of its operation consists in the
absence of struggle, effort, or interruption in the ;
entire,
continuous, and natural yielding of the will to the impulses