Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

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4
Examination of the
CHAP. ir.
But it must be remembered what kind of a premiss this is.
If it is a truth of revelation that all men deserve eternal
punishment in consequence of the sin of Adam, it is a
truth of our moral nature equally certain, that no man
deserves punishment except for his own sin.
personal And
the one is declared in revelation itself as plainly
as the
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other for it is
;
said, The soul that sinneth, it shall die :
the son shall not bear the iniquity
of the father, neither
shall the father bear the iniquity of the son ; the righteous
ness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wicked
ness of the wicked shall be upon him. It is a truth,
then, of reason and Scripture alike that no man is respon
sible for another s sin : and so far as this is true at all, it
as much to the case of
is universally true, 2
applying
Adam s sin, as to that of any other man. For though God
suspends the operation of general laws on occasions, such
laws are only modes of proceeding
in the physical world.
Moral truths do not admit of exceptions. The premiss,
then, on which we proceed in this question is a divided
one and if the ; predestinarian from one part of it concludes
the justice of his doctrine, his opponent can, from the
other, conclude the contrary. If the mystery of our
responsibility for the sin of Adam justifies his scheme, the
truth of our exclusive responsibility
for our own sins con
demns it.
Both in structure and defences, then, the doctrine of
predestination rests on an imperfect premiss, and can only
1
Ezek. xviii. 20. our father s sins to us, unto eternal
2
Jeremy Taylor s argument is damnation sound so far as he insists that the
case of original sin should not be
and is it otherwise in
;
this only? Vol. ix.
p. 383.
It is evidently wrong to treat the
treated as an exception to God s or- case of original sin as an exception,
dinary justice.
* When your lord- in one particular instance, to God s
for there can be
ship had said that "my arguments ordinary justice;
for the vindication of God s goodness no justifiable exception to the rule
and justice are sound and holy," your of justice. All God s acts must be
hand run over it again, and added just. It must be treated as a mys-
"
as abstracted from the case of oritery,
something unknown, and against
ginal sin." But why should this be which, on that account, we can bring
abstracted from all the whole eco- no charge of injustice. For before
nomy of God, from all His other we can call an act unjust, we must
dispensations ? Is it in all cases of know what the act is.
the world unjust for God to impart