Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. TIL The Pelagian Controversy. 7 1
the voluntary. But the Pelagian adopted an extreme
and unqualified doctrine on this head ; throwing every
thing upon the direct choice or exertion of the will, and
separating absolutely the necessary from the voluntary.
Virtue, in the heavenly state, then, could be no virtue in
his eye^, because it had ceased to require effort and choice.
He allowed, so far as his language went, no room for an
ultimate and perfect state, and established an eternal rest
less contingency in the moral world. Not, however, to
fasten this extreme meaning upon his language, which
was perhaps hardly intended, inasmuch as the Pelagian
nowhere denies the received doctrine of a future state ;
and understanding him only to mean that a man could not
be good or bad in this life except by his own individual
choice, his position is still a narrow and one-sided one.
The general sense of mankind is certainly on the side of
there being good and bad natural dispositions, and we
attach the idea of goodness to generous excitements and
emotions, which do not arise from any effort of the will
but spontaneously. The Christian doctrine of grace which
makes goodness a divine gift or inspiration is thus fully in
accordance with the instincts of our nature, while the
Pelagian doctrine, which reduces all virtue to effort and
discipline, is felt as a confinement and an artificial limit
in morals.
There are, however, two distinct questions properly
involved in this subject ; one, whether the trial of the will
is, as opposed to implanted dispositions, essential to the
nature of virtue or vice the other ; relating to the deter
mination of the will on its trial, whether its self-deter
mination is necessary to the nature of virtue and vice as
distinct to its determination from without. The Pelagian
thought it essential that, for this purpose, the will should
determine itself, that virtue and vice, in order to be such,
must be of our own originating. S. Augustine maintained
a goodness and a sinfulness to which the will was deter
mined from without. Both these positions are true, if
held together, and both false if held apart.
3. To the questions of the power of the will, and the