Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

262 Scholastic Doctrine CHAP. x.
known treatise, whicL professes
to give a resume of the
opinions of the schools on this subject. Archbishop Lau
rence asserts the predestination maintained by the school
men to be, a predestination in consequence of foreseen
good works in the individual. Almighty Grod before the
foundations of the world were laid, surveying in His com
prehensive idea, or, as they phrased it, in His prescience
of simple intelligence, the possibilities of all things, before
He determined their actual existence, foresaw, if mankind
were created, although He willed the salvation of all, and
was inclined to all indifferently, yet that some would de
serve eternal happiness, and others eternal misery and
;
that, therefore, He approved and elected the former, but
disapproved or reprobated the latter. Thus grounding
election upon foreknowledge, they contemplated it not as
an arbitrary principle, separating one individual from an
other, under the influence of a blind chance, or an irrational
but on the contrary, as a wise and just one, which
caprice ;
presupposes a diversity of nature between those who are
accepted, and those who are rejected. Persuaded that Grod
is the fountain of all good, that from His Divine preordi
nation freely flows the stream of grace, which refreshes and
invigorates the soul, they believed that He has regulated
His predetermination by the quality of the soil through
which His grace passes, and the effects which in any case
it produces, not restricting His favours, but distributing
them with an impartial hand ; equally disposed toward all
men, but, because all are not equally (disposed toward Him,
distinguishing only such as prove deserving of His bounty.
They considered the dignity of the individual as
the meritorious basis of predestination. 1
The first remark that this passage suggests, is that the
writer confuses all the schoolmen together, and attributes
one common opinion to them on this subject ; whereas
there were different schools amongst them, as among
modern thinkers, some taking the predestinarian side, and
others that of freewill ; though the great names are chiefly
on the former side. The writer, however, treats them all
1 Laurence s Bampton Lectures, pp.
148. 152.