works. (4.) A fourth inference from the principles of Augustine was the perseverance of the saints. If God of his own good pleasure elects some to eternal life, they cannot fail of salvation. It thus appears that as all the distinguishing doctrines of the Pelagians are the logical consequences of their principle of plenary ability as the ground and limit of obligation, so the distinguishing doctrines of Augustine are the logical consequences of his principle of the entire inability of fallen man to do anything spiritually good.
Taught by his own experience that he was from his birtli guilty and polluted, and that he had no power to change his own nature, and seeing that all men are involved in the same sinfulness and helplessness, he accepted the Scriptui'al solution of these facts of consciousness and observation, and therefore held, (1.) That God created man originally in his own image and likeness in knowl- edge, righteousness, and holiness, immortal, and invested with do- minion over the creatures. He held also that Adam was endowed with perfect liberty of the will, not only with spontaneity and the power of self-determination, but with the power of choosing good or evil, and thus of determining his own character. (2.) That be- ing left to the freedom of his own will, Adam, under the tempta- tion of the Devil, voluntarily sinned against God, and thus fell from the estate in which he was created. (3.) That the conse- quences of this sin upon Adam were the loss of the divine image, and the corruption of his whole nature, so that he became spirit- ually dead, and thus indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all spiritual good. Besides this spiritual death, he became mortal, lia- ble to all the miseries of this life, and to eternal death. (4.) Such was the union between Adam and his descendants, that the same consequences of his transgression came on them that fell upon him. They are born the children of wrath, i. g., in a state of condem- nation, destitute of the image of God, and morally depraved. (5.) This inhei'ent, hereditary depravity is truly and properly of the nature of sin, involving both guilt and corruption. In its formal nature it consists in the privation of original righteousness and (con- cuj^iscence) inordinatio naturm^ disoi'der of the whole nature. It is of the nature of a habitus as distinguished from an act, activity or agency. It is voluntary, in the sense mentioned above, especially in that it did not arise from necessity of nature, or fi'ora the effi- ciency of God, but from the free agency of Adam. (6.) That the loss of original righteousness and the corruption of nature conse- quent on the fall of Adam are penal inflictions, being the punish- ment of his first sin. (7.) That regeneration, or effectual calling,