Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. x. of Predestination.
285
thus an extraordinary, natural an ordinary, gift ; the one
an inspiration, the other a providential endowment.
But while these two kinds of virtue, and the ends to
which they respectively tend, differ in the
quality of good
which belongs to them, both have, according to this lan
guage, some and the ; difference between these two states
is one of higher and lower good, and not one of good and
evil. As a disciple of S. Augustine, indeed, Aquinas is
obliged formally to preserve
the distinction between the
natural and spiritual man as one of positive good and posi
tive evil, and to use the terms predestination and reproba
tion as involving this difference ; to represent inclusion
within the Divine decree as salvation, exclusion from it as
damnation. The pure Augustinian doctrine admitted of
no medium between these two results ; which it defends
on the ground of an original guilt in the human race,
which meets with its due punishment in one of these, with
a gratuitous pardon in the other. Aquinas, then, formally
adopts the Augustinian scheme, with the established de
fences. But a careful observation of his language will
detect a contest between two different rationales in his
mind ; the Clementine view of human nature struggling
with the Augustinian. Reprobation, maintained on one
side in full is
severity, softened down on another, and iden
tified with a lower step in the scale of being and the ;
rigid
Augustinian line of defence for the doctrine mixes with
another, which implies a reduced doctrine to be defended.
We are referred, together with an original guilt
in human
nature, to a principle of variety in the constitution of
things, which requires that there should be higher and
lower places in the universe, down even to some lowest
place of all, which must be occupied. As created things,
he says, cannot attain to the Divine simplicity,
it is
necessary that the Divine goodness,
which is in itself one
and simple, should be represented multiforinly in them ;
ad actus naturales, sed etiam largiale
seternnmmfnnditali^uasformas.
tur eis formas et virtutes quasdam seu quaHtates supernaturales, secun-
quae sunt principia actuum. . . . dura quas suaviter et prompte ab ipso
Multo igitur magis illos quos movet moveantur ad bonura seternum con-
Q. 110. A. 2.
<Ue
1" ad consequendum bonum supernatur- sequendum.
2