Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

306 Conclusion. CHAP. xi.
and maintained together, although thus opposite to each
other, because they are only incipient, and not final and
the great truths, I mean, of the Divine
complete truths ;
Power on the one side, and man s freewill, or his originality,
as an agent, on the other. And this is, in fact, the mode
in which this question is settled by the practical common
sense of mankind. For what do the common phrases em
ployed in ordinary conversation and writing upon this
question the popular and received modes of deciding it,
whenever it incidentally turns up amount to but this
solution ? Such phrases, I mean, as that we must hold
man s freewill together with God s foreknowledge and pre
destination, although we do not see how they agree ; and
other like formulae. Such forms of language for deciding
the question evidently proceed upon the acknowledgment
of two contradictory truths on this subject, which can not
be reconciled, but must be held together in
inconsistency.
and the
They imply that the doctrine of predestination
doctrine of freewill are both true, and that one who would
hold the truth must hold both. The plain natural reason
of mankind is thus always large and comprehensive ; not
afraid of inconsistency, but admitting all truth which
presents itself to its notice. It is only when minds begin
to philosophise that they grow narrow,
that there begins
to be felt the appeal to consistency, and with it the tempta
tion to exclude truths. Then begins the pride of argument,
the ingenuity of construction, the carrying out of ideas
and principles into successive consequences ; which, as they
oecome more and more remote, and leave the original truth
at a distance, also carry the mind of the reasoner himself
away from the first and natural aspect of that truth, as
imperfect and partial, to an artificial aspect of it
and exclusive. While the judgment, however,
as whole
of man s
plain and natural reason on this question is a comprehen
sive one, men have, on this as on other subjects, left the
ground of plain and simple reason for argument and philo
sophy ; and in this stage of things they have adopted man s
freewill or the Divine Power as favourite and exclusive
truths, and have erected systems upon them. The Pelagian