the slightest idea of deciding on the truth or falsity of any doctrine, that we enter on the investigation before us. But there are some, with whom the authority of the Fathers has more weight than with us. These persons, if told that the ancient church uniformly believed in propagated sin, irresistible grace, etc., as Augustine did, are almost or quite ready to take it for granted themselves, that the doctrines are true. With them, investigation has come down to the simple affair of counting opinions and weighing authorities. There are those likewise who have not hesitated to throw out the insinuation, that the conductors of the Christian Spectator are Pelagians in doctrine; and the statements of this kind, which are made, are for the most part, entirely unqualified. It is not said that we agree with Pelagius as to this or that particular doctrine; but in general, that we are Pelagians; that we have gone, or are almost certainly going, over to Pelagianism. Thus the impression is inevitably made, that, whatever Pelagianism may be, we believe the whole of it. Names sometimes acquire, by association, a sort of magical power. There is a great deal of this sort of power attached to the word Pelagianism. At the sound of this simple word, what a troop of suspicions, fears, alarms, and dire forebodings of some fearful thing, very few can tell what, rush in upon many a frighted imagination! It is not necessary to the effect of such a cry as "Pelagianism!" that there should be a single idea, or the shadow of one, present to the mind that is to be alarmed, except first, that it is something, in distinction from nothing, and secondly, that it has been denounced as a heresy, by those who claim the prerogative of governing the religious opinions of our country. Now those who throw out the insinuation to which we have just alluded, beyond all question, understand these facts perfectly well; and, unquestionably, they also know, if they have studied the subject at all as they ought, that there are great and cardinal doctrines in the creed of Pelagius, which we reject altogether. What shall be said, then, for the purity of their intentions, who under these circumstances, bring against us the random and general charge of holding Pelagian sentiments? But leaving the motives of these men to be judged of by their own consciences, we shall undertake to show, first, how far the views of Pelagius and Augustine, respectively, as developed in their controversy with each other, agreed or disagreed with the established doctrine of the early church; and secondly, we shall point out some essential differences between our own creed and that of Pelagius. In entering on this subject, we would remark, that in order to ascertain correctly the views of any one of the ancient Fathers on a given point, all his statements which have a bearing on it, must be carefully examined and compared with one another, and with his system of philosophy. Without this precaution, we shall be very

liable to mistake their real views; and we think many have mistaken them for this very reason. There is, moreover, the greater difficulty in this investigation, and the more need of care, because, the doctrines in question not having been controverted before the time of Augustine, we do not find them at that early period, so fully stated and explained as they would otherwise have been.

In respect then, to the great points of practical duty for sinful men, repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Augustine and Pelagius were heartily united. Both were pious men, and were ardently devoted to the work of bringing their fellow-sinners back to duty and to God. We speak of them thus jointly, because the warmest opposers of Pelagius and his doctrines, never denied, but always admitted, that he was a man of the most exemplary character. Nor was he inferior to his adversary, in learning or talents, though Augustine was possessed of far greater influence in the church. He was a bishop, while Pelagius was only a monk. Augustine could command the decrees of councils, at a time when orthodoxy was decided by a majority of votes ; Pelagius could only argue. It would not have been strange, therefore, even if Pelagius had been altogether in the right, that the weapons of debate should not have been able to stand against the arm of power.Both, as we have said, agreed in their zeal for christianity, and in respect to its great duties. But in respect to the instruction which is to be given to sinners in order to their conversion, and to christians for their growth in grace, they differed widely. Pelagius believed that the proper and only means of bringing men to the performance of their duty, is to show them the great end of their being, the beauty of moral excellence, the practicability and obligation of repentance and faith, of high attainments, and even of perfection, in holiness. His principal aim was, to give encouragement to effort in religion. In doing this, he gave great prominence, as he ought, to the doctrine of man's free moral agency, and his perfect competency to do his whole duty; for he thought that the praise or blame-worthiness of any conduct could be founded only on the fact of such a competency. But unfortunately for the cause of truth, he did not stop here. The tenor of his instructions was calculated also to give the fatal impression, that the direct influences of the Holy Spirit are not necessary, in any respect, in order that men may exercise their moral powers aright. We shall dwell more upon this hereafter, when we come to point out what were, as we think, the real errors of Pelagius. The course which Augustine, on the other hand, took for the moral improvement of men, was to impress on them a sense, not only of guilt, but of utter helplessness. He taught that all effort on the part of the sinner to obtain personal religion, is hopeless, from the

want of the requisite moral powers for the work; and that therefore, nothing can be done, but to feel and acknowledge our entire dependence upon God for conversion, and wait for his interposition to accomplish it.

Such was the difference between the views of Augustine and Pelagius, which laid the foundation for the whole of their controversy. The occasion upon which it broke out, was the following. Pelagius meeting with Augustine at Rome, the latter happened to say in his presence, that a sinner, with right views and feelings in regard to his sinfulness aud his dependence upon God, would express himself in these petitions: "Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt." Pelagius openly opposed the sentiments of Augustine, thus exhibited, as tending to encourage delay and inactivity on the part of the sinner. The controversy soon became violent. Celestine, a follower of Pelagius, became involved in it, and acted a conspicuous part; and council after council was called, in which the sentiments of Pelagius were generally condemned, and himself denounced as a heretic. That so many decrees of councils were obtained against Pelagius, hast been thought by some to be sufficient ground for the random charge, that his opinions were in every respect, a departure from the established creed of the church. These men, in the first place, forget that those councils would be likely to confound together all the opinions of Pelagius, whether agreeing or not with what was thought to be orthodoxy by the earlier Fathers. Some glaring errors he unquestionably held, and errors which were at variance with the generally received sentiments of the church. Hence it was natural, that those of his sentiments which were orthodox should be associated with those which were not, and the whole looked upon as one system; especially as the leading sentiments of Pelagius trenched upon ground which had not been previously covered by any creed or decrees of councils. In the second place, the fact already mentioned, is too often forgotten, viz. that Angustine, possessing immensely more power and influence than Pelagius, might easily secure a decree against him, whether his opinions were, or were not, conformed to those before received in the church. Zeal, activity, eminent station, and power, all combined to give Augustine the advantage in decisions, however the case might stand in the field of argument. It cannot, therefore, we think, be inferred from the frequent anathemas pronounced against the doctrines of Pelagius, that they were all at variance with the established belief of the church, even if we had no testimonies on the subject, from the early Fathers themselves.

It will be convenient, first, to bring into view the opposing sentiments of the two controversialists, and place them side by side.

We have seen that the starting point of the controversy was the doctrine of the grace of God in conversion. Augustine maintained the entire incompetency of men to do good, and hence the question arose, whence comes this incompetency? Augustine traced it to the sin of Adam. The consequences of that sin, he made to be, mortality, sinfulnesss, and liability to punishment. Münscher, from whom, chiefly, we derive this exposition of the views of Pelagius and Augustine, represents it as uncertain whether Pelagius admitted mortality to be one of the consequences of Adam's sin, or not. If he denied it, he only denied a thing which no man can prove to be true. If Adam had never sinned, he might, for aught any one can show, have been removed from Eden to a higher and more perfect state of being, by a change analogous to what we call death. Who can prove, that, if Adam had stood, God after a limited period would have miraculously changed his natural body into a "spiritual body," and taken it at once to heaven? Was he then to remain on earth? But what space would have been found for the multiplying millions on millions of the race? Let us not be "wise above what is written," nor condemn those who would restrain our speculations to subjects within our reach.

With respect to the two other consequences which Augustine derived from the apostasy, Pelagius denied them both. Augustine taught, that all men sinned in Adam. This sin, as the foundation of all actual transgression, he called peccatum originis, and it is antecedent, of course, to all personal acts of will. It is easy to explain Augustine's views on this subject, by simply referring to his philosophy. He was what has since been called a realist. He had been taught in the Platonic school, that every abstract term, such as man, animal, &c. has some real thing, or existence, in nature, which corresponds to it; and which is the object of the mind, when contemplating the general idea. Thus, according to his philosophy, there must be some real being, or existence, denoted by the general term man; and Adam, as the parent of the human race, might naturally be considered as that being. Adam therefore, was in his view, not simply a man, but man, in the same sense in which we use the term when we say, man is mortal; he included in himself human nature; that is, all that is common to the individuals who compose the race. This philosophy has been long since extinct; but the effects of it remain, in abundant and wide-spread error. The whole representative system, as it is called, is founded upon it. According to that system, as it was developed by Augustine, Adam stood on probation for the whole race, or represented them, because he was, in fact, the being or existence, denoted by the generic term, man. He did not stand for the whole race, simply because God had decreed that he should,

but God considered him as thus responsible, because he actually was man, viewed as a whole. This explanation of Augustine's philosophy shows how he was led to adopt his interpretation of Rom. 5: 12, "in whom all have sinned;" and likewise illustrates his meaning in the following passage from his writings: "thus they all (mankind) were in the loins of Adam, when he was condemned, and therefore without them he was not condemned; just as the children of Israel were in the loins of Abraham when he paid tithes, and therefore he did not pay tithes without them." From this notion of our sinning in Adam, the doctrine of imputation necessarily followed. For on this theory, the imputation of the first sin, would be only reckoning that sin to be ours, which we, as parts of the great whole, Adam, or man, actually committed. If we admit the correctness of Augustine's philosophy, imputation is not, in any sense, charging us with the sin of another, but only holding us liable for one which is truly and properly our own. Augustine would have revolted with as much abhorrence as any man, from the idea, that God imputes to every individual of our race, the sin of another being, entirely distinct and separate from him. He would have viewed it in the same light that Pelagius did, as implicating the justice of God beyond the possibility of vindication.

The third consequence which Augustine derived from the apostasy, viz. guilt, or liability to punishment, is likewise a just and necessary inference from his scheme of philosophy. If the sin of Adam was the sin of man, as a race, then every one is justly liable to be punished for it, and no individual in particular, more than another. Pelagius and his followers, who could not conceive of such a summing up, or generalizing of the whole race in Adam, strenuously opposed this view, as utterly irreconcileable with the dictates of common sense, and with the character and word of God. They held that "the sin of Adam harmed himself alone; that men are born in the same condition in which Adam was created; with only this difference, that Adam being an adult, possessed mature faculties, while his posterity, being born infants, have not the full use of reason and freedom."* Pelagius, therefore, not only denied that there is sin, or sinfulness, in our nature, but also that it is by

Münscher, Vol. 4. p. 186. This author states the Pelagian doctrine to have been, that men are born not only free from sin, but good. The following passage, quoted by Augustine from Pelagius, shows the contrary. "All good and evil, on account of which we are either praise or blame-worthy, is acted by us; it is not born with us. For we are born capable of each, not possessed of either; just as we are without excellence, at our birth, so are we without fault, and before the acting of his own will, there is only that in man, which God created." This is precisely the doctrine, that neither sin nor holiness is predicable of man, prior to the commencement of moral agency. 38

VOL. IV.