Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

^ 8 The Pelagian Controversy. CHAP. nr.
possibly think that he could be without serious sin in this
world. This sense of a law working for evil in our nature
is a consequence and a part of goodness ; and conscience
witnesses to opposite perceptions which it cannot harmonise.
Experience, indeed, shows the great improbability of perfec
tion in this life, but the enlightened conscience speaks to
its impossibility, because it sees a law of our present nature
to which it is opposed. Experience shows that men never
have been perfect, but not that they could not be : but the
enlightened conscience would, upon the mere hearing of
some or other human being who was perfect, justify the
setting down the assertion as in itself absurd and incredible;
containing, according to the Scriptural criterion, its own
refutation, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us. But what is this but a sense
of necessity on the side of evil ; for if it is simply absurd
that the state of man in this life should not be sinful, it
must be necessary that it should be.
From this sense of freedom on the one side, and of
captivity on the other, proceeds that mixture and opposi
tion in our nature, that whole ambiguous state of mind of
which man is so deeply conscious in moral action that
;
subtle discord in the will ; that union of strength and
weakness. Take the case of any action above the standard
of ordinary practice that a man may propose to himself to
do with ; what a mixture of feelings does he approach it ?
He feels, on the one hand, that he is certainly able to do it,
and can exert a force over himself sufficient for the pur
pose ; and he prepares for the turning point of a resolve
under this impression. On the other hand, the level of
ordinary practice pulls him down, and the weight^of habit
rests upon him. Nature falls back, the will is unnerved,
and invincible repugnance and disinclination contradict his
natural sensations of moral power. He doubts the sincerity
of these sensations, as if, however innate, they were specious
and deceptive. Can he, then, really do the good act ? Has
he freewill or not ? He alternates between both impres
sions, unable to deny his freedom, yet apparently unable
to use it, feeling no constraint, yet inferring from the diffi-