Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

292 Scholastic Doctrine of Predestination. CHAP. x.
around us, a nicely graduated scale of human character,
division gliding into division, and shade deepening or
softening into shade. Men are such combinations of good
and evil, that we hardly know where to place them ; and a
large portion of the world seems to occupy a middle place,
in opposition to the twofold destination of mankind in
Scripture to glory on the one hand, and misery on the other.
The idea of a middle state has thus always recommended
itself more or less as a conjecture to human thought ; and
a tendency to this doctrine, even where not formally ex
pressed, is observable in all ages of the Church ; nor, so
long as the facts of the world around us remain the same,
will it be otherwise. In another aspect the world presents
itself to our minds in harmony with the scriptural division,
as consisting of the good few and the wicked and depraved
mass ; vice, selfishness, and corruption appearing the gene
ral rule, to which the disinterestedness or genuine goodness
of a select number is the exception. The wickedness of
the world is thus a recognised maxim in the world itself;
and is one of the deepest sentiments of the human mind,
whose universal judgment one wise man of even heathen
times expressed in the great proverb.
In this state of the case it is needless to add, that the
plain statements of Scripture on this subject are to be im
plicitly received, as containing certain and important truth.
One great division of mankind is seen there, that of good
and bad ; one great distinction of eternal lot, that of
heaven and hell. It remains that those who have received
this revelation should act accordingly, and, instead of
forming conjectures about a middle state,
live as for the
highest. Those who accept a revelation generally are
bound in consistency to accept its plain assertions in par
ticulars ; nor does this obligation cease because difficulties
may follow. Those who accept a revelation accept in doing
so a limitation to the rights of human reason. There are
great and important differences in the Christian world as to
the point at which such limitation comes in ; but whether
traditional interpretation of Scripture, or a present infal
lible one, or the letter of the Bible itself is the check, a