§ 14:6. CHARACTER OF THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 781
tendencies, which, in various modifications, extend thrtmgh the whole history of the church, and reappear in its successive epochs. Tlie Gottschalk controversy in the nintlj century, the Reformation, the synergistic controversy in the Lutheran church, the Arminian in the Reformed, and the Jansenistic in tlie Roman Catholic, only reproduce the same great contest in new and specifi.c aspects. Each system reflects the personal character and experience of its author. Pelagius was an upright monk, who without inward conflicts won for himself, in the way of tranquil development, a legal piety which knew neither the depths of sin' nor the heights of grace.' Augustine, on the other hand, passed through sharp convulsions and Litter conflicts, till he was overtaken by the unmerited grace of God, and created anew to a life of faith and love. Pelagius had a singularly clear, though contracted mind, and an earnest moral purpose, but no enthusiasm for lofty ideals ; and hence he found it not hard to realize his lower standard of holiness. Augustine had a bold and soaring intellect, and glowing heart, and only found peace after he had long been tossed by the waves of passion ; he had tasted all the misery of sin, and then all the glory of redemption, and this experience qualified him to understand and set forth these antagonistic powers far better than his opponent, and with a strength and fullness surpassed only by the inspired apostle Paul. Indeed, Augustine, of all the fathers, most resembles, in experience and doctrine, this very apostle, and stands next to him in his influence upon the Reformers.
The Pelagian controversy turns upon the mighty antithesis of sin and grace. It embraces the whole cycle of doctrine respecting the ethical and religious relation of man to God, and includes, therefore, the doctrines of human freedom, of the primitive state, of the fall, of regeneration and conversion, of the eternal purpose of redemption, and of the nature and operation of the grace of God. It cone es at last to the question, whether redemption is chiefly a work of God or of man ; whether man needs to be born anew, or merely improved, Tlie soul of the Pelagian system is human freedom ; the soil of the Augustmian is divine grace. Pelagius starts from the
788 THIKD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
natural n_au, and works up, by his owe exertions, torigliteous ness and holiness. Augustine despairs of tiie moral suthciency of man, and derives the new life and all power for good from the creative grace of God. The one system proceeds from th« liberty of choice to legalistic piety ; the other from the bondage of sin to the evangelical liberty of the children of God. To the former Christ is merely a teacher and example, and grace an external auxiliary to the development of the native powers of man ; to the latter he is also Priest and King, and grace a creative principle, which begets, nourishes, and consummates a new life. The former makes regeneration and conversion a gradual process of the strengthening and perfecting of human virtue ; the latter makes it a complete transformation, in which the old disappears and all becomes new. The one loves to admire the dignity and strength of man ; the other loses itself in adoration of the glory and omnipotence of God. The one flatters natural pride, the other is a gospel for penitent publicans and sinners. Pelagianism begins with self-exaltation and ends with the sense of self-deception and impotency. Augnstinianism casts man first into the dust of humiliation and despair, in order to lift him on the wings of grace to supernatural strength, and leads him througli the hell of self-knowledge up to the heaven of the knowledge of God. The Pehigian system is clear, sober, and intelligible, but superficial ; the Augustlnian sounds the depths of knowledge and experience, and renders reverential homage to mystery. The former is grounded upon the philosophy of common sense, which is indispensable for ordinary life, but has no perception of divine things ; the latter is grounded upon the ])hilosophy of the regenerate reason, which breaks through the limits of nature, and penetrates the depths of divine revelation. The former starts with the proposition : Intellectus prcecedit fiilem ; the latter with the opposite maxim : Fides prcecedit intelleeturn. Both make use of the Scriptures; the one, however, conforming them to reason, the other subjecting reason to them. PelagiaTiism has an unmistakable affinity with rationalism, and 8U])plie3 its i)ractical side. To the natural will of the former system corresponds tlie natural reason of the latter; ai.d a£