Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. ITT. The Pelagian Controversy. 61
be sin ; its very substance is that part of it which survives
the act, and its continuance is its existence. The Pelagian,
then, secures his unqualified freewill at the cost of the very
rudiments of morals his ; theory would injure the moral tone
of any mind that received it, and its natural effect, if it
spread, would be a relaxation of the religious standard, and
a lowering of the sense of sin in the world ; showing how
one truth to an excess without im
impossible it is to carry
pairing another. Those who will not allow the will to be
the less free for any amount of sin must accept the alterna
tive, that sin has very little effect, with its natural corol
lary, that that which has so slight an effect cannot be a
very serious matter itself. And thus an unlimited freewill
can only be maintained by abandoning the sanctity of moral
principle.
2. The argument respecting the will was succeeded, in
the Pelagian controversy, by the argument respecting the
nature of virtue and vice. How could there be such a
thing as hereditary
sin ? sin transmitted from father to
son, and succeeded to by birth ? How were moral disposi
tions involved in the operations of nature? 1
This appeal to
reason was properly answered by an appeal to mystery an
answer, however, which was needlessly perplexed by too
minute attempts to define the mode of the transmission of
sin ? 2 The explanation of a mystery cannot really advance
beyond the statement of it, but the too subtle explainer
forgets his own original admission and the inherent limits
1 Amentissimum est arbitrii ne- hodie conceptos aiite tot secula ha-
gotium seminibus immixtum putare.
Julian, Op. Imp.
justum est ut reatus per semiria
buisse sensum, judicium, efficientiam
1. 6. c. 9. In- voluntatis. L. 4. 104.
2
Op. Imp. 1. 6. c. 22. traderetur. L. 3. c. 11. Habue-
; 1. 2. c.
123.; 1. 4. c. runt ergo parvuli voluntatem non
solum antequam nascerentur, verum
90104., 1. 6.; c.
9 23. An elaborate attempt at an
explanation of this difficulty, by the
etiam antequam proavi eorum gene- analogy of rarentur et usi sunt electionis ar- ;
bitrio, priusquam
bodies, quae affieiendo
transeunt, non emigrando (L 5. Con-
substiintise eorum tra Jul. Pel. n. semina conderentxir. Cur itaque
metuis dicere,
51.), concludes thus:
Sic et vitia cum sint in
subjecto ex
in eis tempore concep- parentibus tamen in filios, non quasi
tuum eorum esseliberam voluntatem, transmigratione de suo subjecto in
qua peccatum non trahant naturalitei1 subjectum alterum, sed affectione et
sad sponte committant ; si credis eos contagione pertranseunt.