Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. xr. Conclusion. 311
nature which He has made. Nature and revelation, as
having the same source, are both expressions of the same
truth, and must correspond with each other. If a religion
is true, then, it must harmonise with that whole complex
and intricate body of feelings and ideas, of which human
nature is really and actually composed. The Pelagian,
then, or to take the stronger instance the Socinian, may
appeal to the simplicity and plainness of his system, that
it contains no obscure and incomplete, no discordant and
irreconcilable ideas ; but if he does, he boasts of a religion
which is self-convicted of falsehood and delusion, and is
proved on its own showing to be a dream. Such a religion
may satisfy a mind that has thought out a belief for itself,
and has allowed a particular line of thought to lead it out
of the great circle of human feelings and instincts, but it
cannot satisfy the natural wants of the human heart ; it
may please and amuse in comfort and tranquillity,
but it
will not support in distress ; it may be argued for, but
it cannot be loved ; and it may be the creed of a philo
sopher, but it is not the religion of man.
In this state of the case the Church has made a wise
and just distinction, in its treatment of the respective
errors of the Pelagian and the predestinarian ; and while it
has cast Pelagianism out of its communion, as a system
to Christian belief, it has tolerated
fundamentally opposed
predestinarianism ; regarding it as a system which only
carries some religious ideas to an excess, and does not err
in principle, or offend against piety
or morals. The seven
teenth article of our Church has accordingly allowed a
place for a predestinarian school among ourselves ; and such
a school has long existed, and still exists among us. This
article indeed admits of two interpretations, and may be
held and subscribed to in two ways, one suiting the believer
in freewill, the other the It
predestinarian. may be held
as containing one side of the whole truth respecting grace
and freewill the side, viz., of grace or the Divine Power ;
one s belief m a
but not at all as interfering with any
counter truth of man s freewill and originality as an agent.
And in this sense it only excludes a Pelagian, and not such