Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

396
Note XXI.
esse velit ; fas nobis est ne putemus separare quae ille
conjunxit. . . . Ergo quantum ad futurum tempus, quia
nos adhuc rerum eventus latent, perinde ad officium suum
intentus esse quisque debet, ac si nihil in utramvis partem
constitutum foret. Vel ut magis proprie loquar, talem in
omnibus qua? ex Dei mandato aggreditur, successum
sperare debet, ut in rebus sibi incognitis contingentiam
cum certa Dei providentia conciliet. . . . Hac voce pius
vir se divinae providentiae organum constitui agnoscet.
Hac eadem promissione fretus, alacriter ad opus se accinget,
quia persuasus erit, non fortuitam se operam in aere
jacere. . . . Invocationem adeo non impedit, ut potius
stabiliat. . . . Non sequitur quin rerum adversarum culpam
vel ignavia nostra, vel temeritas, vel incogitantia,
vel aliud vitium merito sustineat. De Prcedestinatione,
vol. x. p. 725.
Here is the doctrine of the schools respecting mediate
and secondary causes ; that events take their character
from the causes that produce them, and are necessary or
contingent, according as their causes are the one or the
other. Calvin refers in the passage to the distinctions of
the schools, with which he says he does not disagree ; and
his statement is only another form of that of : Aquinas
Deus omnia movet secundum eorum conditionem ; ita
quod ex causis necessariis per motionem divinam sequuntur
effectus ex necessitate, ex causis
sequuntur
autem contingentibus
effectus contingentes. Supra, p. 254. He
protests against indolence or carelessness in temporal or
spiritual matters, as a wholly illegitimate result to fasten
and says that people must act as if events
on his doctrine ;
were contingent, and not suppose that, because events are
foreordained, that therefore they are foreordained without
the necessary means to bring them about which ; means
lie in our own conduct and course of action.
Thus, while maintaining the Divine infallible decree of
predestination, he protests against men making that decree
their starting point, and putting it in prior order to action,
in their own ideas and thoughts about themselves : Neque
ego sane ad arcanam Dei electionem homines ablego, ut