Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. x. of Predestination. 263
as one school, and considers the predestination taught by
the Augustinian Aquinas to be of the kind which he here
describes ; i.e. a predestination on the ground of foreseen
good life. Of course if this is so, this is all the difference
between predestinarianism and the doctrine of freewill.
But I cannot understand how he can put this interpreta
tion upon the doctrine of Aquinas, when the latter plainly
and expressly asserts the contrary; viz., that foreseen
merits are not the cause of predestination, prcvscientia
meritorum non est causa vel ratio predestinationis, but
predestination the cause of these foreseen merits ; these
merits being the effect of grace, and grace the effect of
predestination ; id quod est gratiw est prcedestinationis
effectus. Archbishop Laurence appears to have been misled
by two classes of expressions in Aquinas, one relating to con
tingency, the other, to human blame and responsibility.
He refers in support of this interpretation of the doc
trine of Aquinas, to the latter s assertion of contingency.
The mistakes upon this subject of those who have but
partially consulted the speculations of the schools (he is
speaking of those who have interpreted these speculations
in a predestinarian sense) seem to have arisen from the
want of properly comprehending what was meant by the
effect of predestination, an effect always supposed
to be
contingent ; the operations of freewill, whether with or
without grace, being considered only as foreknown, and
l
not necessarily predetermined. And he quotes a passage
relating to contingent causes, as distinguished from neces
sary ones Although all things are subject matter of
Providence, all things do not take place necessarily, but
according to the condition of their proximate causes,
secundum conditionem causarum proximamrnj 2 which
are in some cases not necessary but contingent causes.
Archbishop Laurence understands this assertion of contin
gency as a denial of the doctrine of necessity, and an asser
tion of the received doctrine of freewill. But the system
of Aquinas, as explained
in the last chapter, does not verify
1
Bampton Lectures, p. 152. Q. 3. A. 1.; Bampton Lectures, p.
2
Aquinas in Lomb. 1. 1. Dist. 40. 354.