Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

372
Note XIII.
mystery, and not as a truth of reason, or an intelligible
truth ? And if he holds it as such, how can he be charged
with holding anything unreasonable ? How can an asser
tion be called contrary to reason, when we do not know
what its meaning, i.e. the thing asserted in it, is? And
how, therefore, can the maintaining of such an unknown
truth be unreasonable ? The Christian only believes that
there is a truth connected with this subject, which in the
present state of his capacities he cannot understand, but
which, on the principle of accommodation, is expressed in
revelation in this form, as that mode of expressing it which
is practically nearest to the truth.
NOTE XIII. p. 84.
THE connection of this present state of sin and suffering
with some great original transgression was too deeply laid
down in Scripture to offer an easy explanation to the Pela
gians. One main solution, however, of such passages was
given ; viz. that they referred to a connection not of descent,
but example, that the sin of Adam was fatal as an imitated,
not as a transmitted sin. But such an interpretation ob
nor was it
viously fell short of the meaning of Scripture,
improved by the details of the application.
The Pelagian
comment on the great passage in the Epistle to the Eomans,
that 4
by one man sin entered into the world, and death by
sin and so death ; passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned, opposed to the received doctrine of transmitted
sin ; first, the expression one man, which sufficed, it was
said, for the view of example, whereas both the man and
]
the woman were necessary for transmission ; secondly, the
distinction that death passed upon all men, not sin ; and,
thirdly, the ground of actual sin, as distinguished from
original, for that all have sinned. But the first of these
objections was futile ; the second was overruled by other
texts of Scripture which made death the consequence of
sin ; and the third can only at most be allowed a balanc
ing, not a disproving weight.
1
Op. Imp. 1. 2. c. 47. 64. 1. 3. c. 85.
;
The Pelagian was, indeed,