AUGUSTINE
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AUGUSTINE
inite church system. The union of their mental ele- ments would, without doubt, have made the most com- plete church teacher. Nevertheless, many qualities were united in Augustine, which we find scattered in Beparate tendencies of theological development, and hence we Bee the various periods of the church shad- owed forth in his mental career" (Neander, Hist, of Dogmas, ii, 258).
•■ In estimating Augustine as a theologian, we must remember that he commenced life as a Manichoean ; and many believe that traces of the Manichaean doc- trine (of the evil nature of matter, etc.) can be traced in the later and severer forms of his belief. In at- tacking the Maniehieans, he wrote his treatise De Libero Arbitrio, which certainly would have received a different shape had he written it at a later period, i. e. during his disputes with the Pelagians. In the various discussions which have arisen concerning pre- destination and the doctrines with which it is con- nected, some modern divines have quoted the argu- ments of Augustine against the Manichreans, and oth- ers those which he employed against the Pelagians, according to the discordant views which the comba- tants severally entertain on these controverted points. j One of them has thus expressed himself, in his en- deavor to reconcile Augustine with himself: ' The heresy of Pelagius being suppressed, the catholic doc- trine in that point became more settled and confirmed b3r the opposition ; such freedom being left to the will i of man as was subservient unto grace, co-operating in some measure with those heavenly influences. And so much is confessed by Augustine himself, where he asks this question, "Doth any man affirm that free will is perished utterly from man by the fall of Adam?" And thereunto he makes this answer: "Freedom is perished by sin ; but it is that freedom only which we had in Paradise, of having perfect righteousness with immortality." For, otherwise, it appears to be his opinion that man was not merely passive in all the acts of grace which conduced to glory, according to the memorable saying of his, so common in the mouths of all men, " He who first niade us without our help, ' will not vouchsafe to save us at least without our con- currence." If any harsher expressions have escaped his pen (as commonly it happeneth in the heats of a ! disputation), they are to be qualified by this last rule, j and by that before, in which it was affirmed that " God j could not with justice judge and condemn the world, : if all men's sins proceeded not from their own free j will, but from some overruling providence which en- forced them to it."' Another admirer of this father offers the following as an attempt at reconciliation: 'Augustine denied that the co-operation of man is at all exerted to produce the renewal of our nature ; but, ' when the renewal had been produced, he admitted ' th it there was an exercise of the will combined with the workings of grace. In the tenth chapter of his | work against the Manichseans, the bishop of Hippo thus expresses himself: " Who is it that will not ex- claim, How foolish it is to deliver precepts to that man not at liberty to perform what is commanded ! An I li w unjust it is to condi mn him who had not power tofaljil the commands! Yet these unhappy persons [the Manichseans] do not perceive that they are as- cribing such injustice and want of equity to God. But whal greater truth is there than this, that God has de- livered precepts, and that human spirits have freedom of will ?" Elsewhere he says, •• Nothing is more with- in our power than our own will. The will is that by which we commit sin, and by which we live right- eously." Nothing can be plainer than that the writer of these passages admitted the liberty of the human will, and the necessity of our own exertions in con- junction with divine grace. How this is to be recon- ' ciled with his general doctrine is perhaps indicated in tbe foH<» ;" ! pas age from his book De Gratia et lib. Arbitrio, <:. 17. Speaking of grace, he says "that we