Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

Note VIII.
355
meaning to them. And if so, so far as this language goes,
the Apostle expresses a modified doctrine of predestination
rather than an extreme one, or predestination to unequal
advantages, rather than to positive good and evil. But
whether this is so or not, such a sense of predestination
only obtains so far as the language which expresses it
goes.
The stronger sense of predestination, as predestination to
positive good and evil, is the main and pervading one in
the passage; and this sense must not be lost sight of
because there may be a milder sense too in which the doc
trine is asserted. It is characteristic of S. Paul to slide
from one meaning to another ; and just as a counter doc
trine altogether to that of predestination is put forth in
other passages of Scripture, so the same passage may be
more or less contradictory, and contain its own balance.
But if the milder meaning of predestination is there,
it must not be thought that the stronger meaning is
therefore not there too; or supposed that all that this
passage means is a predestination to unequal privileges
and advantages.
There is another mode of interpreting predestination in
Scripture, so as to make the doctrine agree with the truth
of freewill; viz. that of allowing predestination to be to
eternal salvation itself, but with the qualification that it is
caused by the Divine foresight of the future good life of
the individual. But this is
qualification opposed to the
plain meaning of those passages of Scripture in which this
doctrine is set forth. These passages obviously represent
predestination as a of the individual to a
predestination
good life, as well as to the reward of one, to the means as
well as to the end thus ; making a good life the effect of
and not the cause or reason of it. He hath
predestination,
chosen us before the foundation of the world that we
should be holy .... predestinated
us to be conformed
to the image of His Son.
But the ninth chapter
of Romans, just quoted, supplies
the most decisive answer to this qualification
of the doc
said there that
trine of predestination ; it being expressly
the purpose of Grod according
AA2
to election is antecedent to