Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. in. The Pelagian Controversy. 75
him ;
but he was responsible for those sins, in that he was
responsible for their cause. In like manner, man was
responsible for the sins which in the state of original sin
he could not avoid, in that he was responsible for original
sin itself. 1
Two difficulties, however, presented themselves to the
application of such a law to the case of original sin. In
the first place, though it is true that all sin, so far as it is
indulged, predisposes the mind to further sin, or creates
a sinful habit, this effect is in proportion to the amount
of such indulgence ; and it is only extreme indulgence
that produces an uncontrollable habit, or a loss of freewill :
whereas the sin of our first parents, to which this extreme
effect was attached, was but a single sin, and not appar
ently a heinous one. But the sin of our first parents, it
was replied, was neither a single nor a light one. The
outward act was but the consummation of a course of
inward sin, self-pleasing, pride, and departure from God.
And, even were its subject-matter light, the sin itself was
disobedience ;
the more wanton, that there was no strength
of passion as yet in man s nature to excuse it. Who would
measure the greatness of a first sin as being the first, a
departure from created rectitude, the primary act of the
will for evil, to which no previous evil predisposed ? But
the subject-matter was only externally light, not really,
being not a mere fruit of a tree, but good out of their
existing state of union with God, which was grasped at ;
showing a greediness for which Grod did not suffice ; and
that alien good being, moreover, the presumptuous position
1 Sed vos ista peccata ex illis liberum non est, illius peccati poena
venire peccatis quse nulla necessitate fuit a quo abstinere liberum fuit,
commissa sunt, in illo saltern con- quando nullum pondus necessitatis
ceditis, qui dicit, "Quod nolo malum urgcbat. Cur ergo non creditis
hoc ago." Qui enim, ut istam patiatur tantum saltern valuisse illud primi
necessitatem, non nisi peccandi con- hominis ineffabiliter grande peccasuetudine
premitur, procul dubio turn, ut eo vitiaretur humana natura
priusquam peccaret, nondum necessi- tiniversa, quantum valet nunc in
tate consuetudinis premebatur. Ac homine uno secunda natura? Op.
per hoc, etiam secundum vos, 1. i. pec- Imp. c. 105.
candi necessitas unde abstinere