Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. x. of Prcdtstination.
265
in the human agent here referred to is not one to be con
founded with the fault of individual choice : it is the ori
ginal fault of the whole race. All mankind are to begin
with, according to the doctrine of original sin, disinclined
to grace, and, so far as themselves are concerned, reject it.
Aquinas then can assert that the reason why grace
is with
held is man s own fault, without committing himself in
saying so to the common doctrine of freewill. It is the old
position which meets us in S. Augustine. The will of man is
naturally a corrupt and faulty will, but it is so at the same
time necessarily, and as the effect of original sin. Respon
the voluntary agent is
sibility attaches to it as being will ;
as such susceptible of praise or blame ut ei imputetur
aliquid ad culpam vel ad meritum * and ; legitimately
comes under a dispensation of rewards and punishments.
Such is the sense in which man s fault is said by Aquinas
to be the first cause why grace, where it is withheld, is
withheld. It is the faulty will of the race, not the mere
choice of the person, which is this cause which faultiness
;
is therefore consistent with necessity, and not opposed to
it. It is a further test of such a sense, that the will thus
represented as the original barrier against grace, is next
represented as wholly able to be changed and made a dif
ferent will, by grace. Grod is able when, where, and in
whomever He pleases, to convert men s evil wills from
2
evil to good. It follows that when man s will is changed
from evil to good, it is by His irresistible power and
;
therefore that the admission into a state of grace takes
place, according to this system, on a ground quite different
from that on which Archbishop Laurence considers it to
do, upon his too hasty and superficial interpretation
of the
scholastic language. Indeed, if none are to be considered
necessitarians who make man a responsible being, and lay
his sins and their consequences at his own door, there can
not be a Christian necessitarian ; for we must either do
1 S. T. l ma Q. 22. A. 2. converters. Augustine, quoted by
2 Quis tarn impie desipiat, ut Lombard, 1. 1. Dist. 47. Neque ideo
dicat Deum malas hominum volun- prsecepit omnibus bona, quia vellet
tates quas voluerit, et quando voluerit ab omnibus bona fieri, si enim vellet
et ubi voluerit in bonum non posse utique fierent. Ibid.