Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. x. of Predestination.
277
tion of habits, rising one above another in formal scale
this whole complex machinery, did not complete the moral
being, who seemed always approaching the terminus of
action, and never attaining it.
For, secondly, habitual grace, with all this multiplicity
of internal construction, could still not put itself in action.
It was still no more than a habit of the mind, imparted
by God : and no habit, as has been just said, can put itself
in action ; for a man does not necessarily do a thing, in
fact, because he has a certain disposition to do it. It be
came then a vital question, what it was which put habitual
grace into action. Was it the freewill of man ? If it was,
then the human will had an original and independent act
assigned to it; a position which was contrary to this whole
scholastic doctrine of grace. It was not freewill, then, but
another and a further grace, which set in motion habitual,
viz. grace actual gratia actual-is. 1 This was the com
pletion of the system, the key-stone of the arch. Habitual
grace could be admitted without any serious drawback from
for God might impart a cer
the power of the natural will ;
tain disposition, or continuous impulse while it ;
depended
wholly on the independent motion of the will, whether the
man ac^ed upon it or not. The turning and distinctive
assertion in the system, then, was the assertion of actual
grace,
as that which moved habitual : and to this cardinal
position the Thomists, and their successors the Janseuists,
directed their most zealous and anxious attention, repelling
all interference with it as a subversion of the whole Gospel
doctrine of grace. The admission of habitual grace set
aside as one which the Semi-Pelagian or even the Pelagian
could make, without danger in principle to his theory ;
grace actual was defended as the central fort of Christian
truth in this department. 2
theologicae. . . . Unde oportet quod See p. 290.
2
his etiam virtutibus theolojdcis pro- Kon est habitus qui facit facere,
portioualiter respondeant alii habi- says Jansen. No habit, he urges, is
tus divinitus causati in nobis, qui the cause of action, but Ititrum
sic sehabentadvirtutestheologicas, arbitrium at the time. De Gratia
sicut se habent virtutes morales ad Christi, pp. 186, 996. Nee est lux
principia naturalia virtutum. I"* vel habitus quse velle vel non velle,
2<ie Q
63 A. 3. videre vel non videre iaciunt, sed