Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

54 The Pelagian Controversy. CHAP. m.
immediately drawn that every man had the power of
fulfilling the whole law. The will was able to make use
of grace ; but every man, as the Divine justice required,
had sufficient grace given him. For confining sometimes,
as a matter of language, the term grace to such higher
grace, or grace par excellence, as was given under the
gospel, such grace as facilitated goodness rather than was
1
necessary for it the ; Pelagians held really that every one
had in the sense of natural or other endowments, provi
dential aids, spiritual impulses, sufficient Divine assistance
or grace to enable him to do his duty. Every man, there
fore, having sufficient grace, and the absolute power to use
it, had the power to fulfil the whole law.
The doctrine of the perfectibility of man in this life
was held, indeed, by the opponents of Pelagius, as well as
by himself, but upon a totally
different ground from that
on which he based it. Augustine maintained that no
limits were to be put to the power of Divine grace ; but
that it might please Grod in a particular instance so to
control and direct all the motions of a human will, that
the person might even in this life become perfect. 2 The
admission, however, is made with much hesitation ; he
confesses such a case would be a miracle, as being contrary
to all the established laws of the operation of grace ; and,
what is most important, he rests the possibility of it solely
upon the ground of grace, or the Divine power. Pelagius,
on the other hand, naturalised this perfectibility, making
it part of the constitution of man, and drawing it from the
hoc posse donavit: quodverobcne vel implere per gratiam. Pelagius de
agimus, vel loquinmr, vel cogitamns Lib. Arb. ap. Aug. Epist. 186. n.
nostrum est, quia haec omnia vertere 35.
m malum possumus. Pelagius, ap. Sed formidantes multitudinem
Aug. De Gratia Christian. 5. Christianam, Pelagianum verbum
1
In omnibus est liberum arbisupponitis,
et quserentibus a nobis,
trram, sequaliter per naturam, sed quare moxtuus sit Christus, si natura
m sobs Christiani s juvatur a gratia. vel lex efficit justos ; respondetis ut
-Letter of Pelagius to Innocent, ap.
hoc ipsum facilius fieret, quasi posset,
Aug. de Gratia Christi, n. 33. quamvis difficilius fieri tamen, sive
Ideo Dei gratiam hominibus per naturam sive per legem. Op
dan ut quod facere per liberum ju- Imp. Contra Jul. 1. 2. c. 198
bentur arbitrium facilius 2
possint NOTE XI