Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. ii. Argumentfor Predestination. 45
been shown, both sanctioned and encouraged in the New
Testament. But while this is plain, it is also obvious that
this is only one side of the language of the New Testament.
There is another according to which all Christians, what
ever be their holiness, are represented and addressed as
uncertain, and feeling themselves uncertain, of fiDal salva
tion. They are exhorted to work out their own salvation
1
with fear and trembling to ; give diligence to make
2 and S. Paul himself the
their calling and election sure ;
great preacher of predestination, who, if any, had the right
to feel himself ordained to eternal life, and who said that
there was laid up for him a crown of righteousness, 3 also
tells us of his careful self-discipline, lest that by any means
when he had preached to others, he himself should be a
castaway. 4 Indeed to anyone who will fairly examine
the nature of this feeling of destiny which we have been
considering, and how far and in what mode it is entertained,
when it is entertained rationally, it will be evident that it
is not by any means an absolute or literal certainty of mind.
It is not like the perception of an intellectual truth. It is
only a strong impression, which however genuine or rational,
and, as we may say, authorised, issues, when we try to follow
and vanishes in the haze which bounds our
it, in obscurity,
mental view, before the reason can overtake it. Were any
of those remarkable men who have had it, asked about
this feeling of theirs, they would confess it was in them no
absolute perception but an impression which was consistent
with a counter feeling of doubt, and was accompanied by
this latent and suppressed opposite in their case.
Whether regarded, then, as a doctrine, or a feeling,
predestination is not in Scripture an absolute, but an in
definite truth. Scripture has as a whole no consistent
scheme, and makes no positive assertion ; it only declares,
and bids its readers acknowledge, a mystery on this subject.
It sets forth alike the Divine Power, and man s freewill,
and teaches in that way in which alone it can be taught,
the whole, and not a part alone of truth.
1 Phil. ii. 12.
2 2 Peter i. 10.
s 2 Tim. iv. 8. 1 Cor. ix. 27.