Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

Note XXL 4 oi
quorsum attinebat, rem tantulam adeo superbo titulo in-
signire Equidem Xoyofjua^ias abominor, quibus
frustra ecclesia fatigatur; sed religiose censeo cavendas
eas voces quse absurdum aliquid sonant, proesertim ubi
perniciose erratur. Quotus enim quaeso qnisque est, qui,
dum assignari homini liberum arbitrium audit, non statim
concipit ilium esse et mentis sure et voluntatis dominum,
qui flectere se in utramvis partem a seipso possit? Atqui
(dicet quispiam) sublatum erit hujusmodi perictilum, si de
significatione diligenter plebs admoneatur. Imo vero cum
in falsitatem ultro humanum ingenium propendeat, citius
errorem ex verbulo uno hauriet, quam veritatem ex prolixa
oratione. Instit. 1. 2. c. 2. ss. 6, 7.
It is evident that Calvin s quarrel with Lombard here
is about the use of a word, and not about a substantial
point of doctrine. In substantial doctrine he considers
they both agree, though he thinks Lombard s distinction
of operative and co-operative grace so worded as to tend
to mislead, and though he objects to the use of the word
freewill altogether, which he thinks will always lie practi
cally understood by the mass of men in the sense of a selfdetermining
will. He would not object to the word if
Lombard s sense could be fastened upon it but he differs
;
from him as to the expediency of using a term on which it
and which will
will be so difficult to fasten this meaning,
always more readily suggest another and an erroneous one.
His disagreement with Lombard is thus of the same kind
with the disagreement noticed above, p. 267, with Aquinas,
which was concerned with language and mode of statement
as distinguished from substantial doctrine.
Calvin s reflections on the schoolmen, then, do not
appear to prove any substantial difference on the subject
of predestination, grace, and freewill, between himself and
the Augustinian portion of the schoolmen. And this con
clusion obliges me to notice some remarks of Pascal bearing
on this question in the Provincial Letters.
I must admit, then, that I have against me, on this
point, the authority of Pascal, who endeavours in the Pro
vincial Letters to prove a strong distinction between the
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