Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

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Note XXL
But if Augustine s doctrine was the one which has been
here stated to be his, and if it was expressed in the above
fundamental statement, it must be seen immediately that
it is the same as Calvin s doctrine.
And the identity of the two doctrines thus apparent at
first
sight, and from the fundamental statement by which
further from the cautions
they are expressed, will appear
and checks by which each guards the doctrine. We may
be referred to various cautions and checks which S. Augus
tine and his followers in the schools appended to the doc
trine of predestination ; from which it will be argued that
the doctrine was not the same as the Calvinistic one. But
it will be found on examination that Calvin has just the
same cautions and checks.
The checks and cautions, which S. Augustine and his
followers in the schools appended to their doctrine of pre
destination, were substantially these two : that God was
not the author of evil ; and that man had ivill, and was,
as having a will, responsible for his own sins. The doctrine
of predestination was relieved from two consequences which
appeared to follow from it. If God is the sole author and
cause of our goodness, how is He not the author and cause
of our sin too ? If we are bound to refer the one to Him,
not the other ? The doctrine thus led to the conse
why
quence that God was the author of evil. This consequence,
then, was cut off by a formal check, accompanied with more
or less of argument, that God was not the author of evil.
In the same way the doctrine of predestination, maintain
ing sin as necessary, led to the result that man was not
responsible for his sins. This consequence then was cut
off, as the former was, by a formal check, also accompanied
by more or less of argument that man had a will, that he
sinned with this will or willingly, and that sinning willingly
he was responsible for his sins.
But this whole check to the doctrine of predestination,
viz. that man is responsible for his own sins, and not God^
is appended to that doctrine by Calvin just as much as it
is by Augustine. Indeed, no one who professed to be a
Christian could teach the doctrine without such a check. No