which the catholic faith recognises, respecting original sin in infants; who, unless renewed in Christ, will assuredly perish." Perhaps the reason of his ambiguity on this subject had reference to the impeachments of the Pelagians, who continually asserted that he was still infected with the Manichean heresy of his youth and cited this doctrine as evidence. On this point he says, of his six books in reply to Julian, that "in the first two, by means of the testimonies of the saints, who, after the apostles, have defended the catholic faith, the impudence of Julian is repelled, who thought to object it against us as a Manichean dogma, because we assert original sin to be derived from Adam, which, by the washing of regeneration, is taken away, not only in adults, but in infants also. To what an extent some of Julian's own sentiments harmomonize with the Manicheans, I showed in the last part of my first book."+ In respect to the apostasy and original sin, the following were the leading points of the doctrine which Augustine vindicated against the Pelagians: 1. The whole human nature was created holy in the person of Adam. 2. It was so constituted, in its creation, that any act of sin would bind the nature which caused it in the bondage of depravity, as a natural necessity resulting from the sin. This necessary bondage he designates as the first element in the punishment of sin. 3. Adam was endowed with the generative faculty, by means of which his seed, who were one in him, should receive personal existence, and a several part in the common nature. 4. The transgression of Adam induced the subjection of the whole nature to the bondage of the depravity thus embraced; which, as it is not caused by any immediate divine interposition, but is the native and proper effect of the sin, is, therefore, not only a punishment of the sin, but an element of the criminality which thenceforth attaches to man's nature. 5. As each of the posterity of Adam receives existence, he with his birth acquires a part in the criminality of the first sin, and in the depravity so induced. 6. The sin and depravity thus arising involve Adam and all his posterity in the penalty of all earthly calamities, and eternal death; from which nothing but the redemption of Christ can save. 7. The bondage of sin is such that, as there is no escaping its curse but by the blood of Christ, so there is no freedom from its power but by the transforming Spirit of God. A few extracts will be sufficient to illustrate the views presented by Augustine on these points. In reply to the Pelagians, who urged that (aliena peccata) foreign sins could not be justly imputed to any, he says, Aug. Retractations, lib. ii. † Ibid. "Nor are those sins called foreign as though they belonged not at all to infants; since in Adam all then sinned, inasmuch as his nature was endowed with a power of producing those who as yet were (omnes ille unus) all one, to wit, he. But the sins are called foreign, because the posterity were not yet living their own lives; but whatever was to be in the future offspring, the life of the one man contained. 'But by no means is it to be admitted,' say they, (the Pelagians,) 'that God, who pardons men's own sins, should impute foreign sins.' He pardons; but by the Spirit of regeneration, not by the flesh of generation. They were, indeed, foreign, when they, who when propagated were to bear them, did not yet exist; but now, by carnal generation, they belong to those to whom they have not yet been forgiven through the spiritual regeneration."* Equally clear is the statement which we quote on page 496 of the present work. Again, he says; "In respect to the origin of the seed, from which all were to spring, all were in that individual; and all these are he, none of whom as yet existed individually. According to this seminal origin, Levi is said to have been in the loins of his father Abraham.-When, in respect to his substance, he did not yet exist, still, as respects the relation of seed, it is not falsely nor idly said, that he was there." "The whole human race (universum genus humanum) which by the woman was to become his offspring, was in the first man, when the pair received the divine sentence of condemnation. And what man was, not by creation, but by sin and punishment, that he begat, so far, at least, as pertains to the origin of sin and death." "I have said that sin injures no nature but its own; I therefore said it, because he who injures a good man does him in fact no injury, since it really increases his heavenly reward. . . . The Pelagians are ready to pervert this sentiment to the support of their dogma, and to say, that infants therefore cannot be injured by (aliena peccata) the sins of another, because I have asserted sins to injure no nature but their own: not observing that infants, as they pertain to the human nature, therefore contract original sin; because in the first man the human nature sinned, and, hence, it is true that human nature is injured by no sins but its own."? Great exception was taken by the Pelagians to that feature of the system of Augustine which represents the bondage of the nature of man to sin as being a punishment of the apostasy; and the outcry is still reechoed by the disciples of the Pelagian school. As is usual in such cases, these writers begin by misrepresenting the doctrine which they decry. Dr. Wiggers states it thus:-"The propagation of Adam's sin among his posterity, is a punishment of the same sin. The sin was the punishment Aug. de Pec. Mer. lib. iii. 7, 8. De Civ. Dei, lib. xiii. 3. † Opus Imperfectum, lib. iv. 104. 2 Retract. lib. i. cap. 10. which the catholic faith recognises, respecting original sin in infants; who, unless renewed in Christ, will assuredly perish." Perhaps the reason of his ambiguity on this subject had reference to the impeachments of the Pelagians, who continually asserted that he was still infected with the Manichean heresy of his youth and cited this doctrine as evidence. On this point he says, of his six books in reply to Julian, that "in the first two, by means of the testimonies of the saints, who, after the apostles, have defended the catholic faith, the impudence of Julian is repelled, who thought to object it against us as a Manichean dogma, because we assert original sin to be derived from Adam, which, by the washing of regeneration, is taken away, not only in adults, but in infants also. To what an extent some of Julian's own sentiments harmomonize with the Manicheans, I showed in the last part of my first book."t In respect to the apostasy and original sin, the following were the leading points of the doctrine which Augustine vindicated against the Pelagians: 1. The whole human nature was created holy in the person of Adam. 2. It was so constituted, in its creation, that any act of sin would bind the nature which caused it in the bondage of depravity, as a natural necessity resulting from the sin. This necessary bondage he designates as the first element in the punishment of sin. 3. Adam was endowed with the generative faculty, by means of which his seed, who were one in him, should receive personal existence, and a several part in the common nature. 4. The transgression of Adam induced the subjection of the whole nature to the bondage of the depravity thus embraced; which, as it is not caused by any immediate divine interposition, but is the native and proper effect of the sin, is, therefore, not only a punishment of the sin, but an element of the criminality which thenceforth attaches to man's nature. 5. As each of the posterity of Adam receives existence, he with his birth acquires a part in the criminality of the first sin, and in the depravity so induced. 6. The sin and depravity thus arising involve Adam and all his posterity in the penalty of all earthly calamities, and eternal death; from which nothing but the redemption of Christ can save. 7. The bondage of sin is such that, as there is no escaping its curse but by the blood of Christ, so there is no freedom from its power but by the transforming Spirit of God. A few extracts will be sufficient to illustrate the views presented by Augustine on these points. In reply to the Pelagians, who urged that (aliena peccata) foreign sins could not be justly imputed to any, he says, Aug. Retractations, lib. ii. † Ibid. "Nor are those sins called foreign as though they belonged not at all to infants; since in Adam all then sinned, inasmuch as his nature was endowed with a power of producing those who as yet were (omnes ille unus) all one, to wit, he. But the sins are called foreign, because the posterity were not yet living their own lives; but whatever was to be in the future offspring, the life of the one man contained. 'But by no means is it to be admitted,' say they, (the Pelagians,) 'that God, who pardons men's own sins, should impute foreign sins.' He pardons; but by the Spirit of regeneration, not by the flesh of generation. They were, indeed, foreign, when they, who when propagated were to bear them, did not yet exist; but now, by carnal generation, they belong to those to whom they have not yet been forgiven through the spiritual regeneration." Equally clear is the statement which we quote on page 496 of the present work. Again, he says; "In respect to the origin of the seed, from which all were to spring, all were in that individual; and all these are he, none of whom as yet existed individually. According to this seminal origin, Levi is said to have been in the loins of his father Abraham.-When, in respect to his substance, he did not yet exist, still, as respects the relation of seed, it is not falsely nor idly said, that he was there." "The whole human race (universum genus humanum) which by the woman was to become his offspring, was in the first man, when the pair received the divine sentence of condemnation. And what man was, not by creation, but by sin and punishment, that he begat, so far, at least, as pertains to the origin of sin and death." "I have said that sin injures no nature but its own; I therefore said it, because he who injures a good man does him in fact no injury, since it really increases his heavenly reward. . . . The Pelagians are ready to pervert this sentiment to the support of their dogma, and to say, that infants therefore cannot be injured by (aliena peccata) the sins of another, because I have asserted sins to injure no nature but their own: not observing that infants, as they pertain to the human nature, therefore contract original sin; because in the first man the human nature sinned, and, hence, it is true that human nature is injured by no sins but its own."? Great exception was taken by the Pelagians to that feature of the system of Augustine which represents the bondage of the nature of man to sin as being a punishment of the apostasy; and the outcry is still reechoed by the disciples of the Pelagian school. As is usual in such cases, these writers begin by misrepresenting the doctrine which they decry. Dr. Wiggers states it thus:-"The propagation of Adam's sin among his posterity, is a punishment of the same sin. The sin was the punishment * Aug. de Pec. Mer. lib. iii. 7, 8. De Civ. Dei, lib. xiii. 3. † Opus Imperfectum, lib. iv. 104. Retract. lib. i. cap. 10. of the sin. The corruption of human nature in the whole race, was the righteous punishment of the transgression of the first man, in whom all men already existed."* "The most signal moral punishment of Adam's transgression, was, therefore, the sin itself, or the moral corruption, that passed over to his posterity, by which Adam was also punished in his descendants. . . . But the moral punishment of Adam's sin was also a positive punishment of it. An entire moral ruin of man, did not follow from the nature of Adam's transgression, but God had annexed this to it as a punishment; and it was made a condition by the prohibition. God punished sin with sin. The sinfulness of the whole human race is penal." The zeal which this writer displays in charging this as the doctrine of Augustine, does not compensate for the lack of evidence in its support. What Augustine did teach on this point we shall presently see. That he did not hold the opinion thus attributed to him,-that the race are depraved, not by the natural effect of the sin, but by the positive interposition of God,-is sufficiently demonstrated by the very quotations with which Wiggers professes to prove his assertions.-"If Christ is the one in whom all are justified, because not the mere imitation of him makes them just, but grace regenerating by the Spirit; so is Adam therefore the one in whom all have sinned, because not the mere imitation of him makes them sinners, but the punishment generating by the flesh."‡ "We must distinguish three things:-sin, the punishment of sin, and that which in such manner is sin, that it is at the same time also the punishment of sin. Of the third kind is original sin, which is so sin that it is also the punishment.of sin; which is indeed in children just born, but begins to appear in them as they grow up and have the needful wisdom. Yet the source of this sin descends from the will of him that sinned. For it was Adam; and in him we all were. Adam perished; and in him we all perished." "By the first pair, so great a sin was committed, that by it human nature was changed for the worse, an obligation (obligatione, a bondage) of sin and a necessity of death being transmitted to posterity."|| Such are some of the passages of Augustine which Wiggers cites, to prove that he held the depravation of man's nature to have been, not a natural consequence of the apostasy, but a positive infliction from God! Nor have we been able to find any thing more plausible, to justify the charge here considered. Neander, with more candour, states Augustine's doctrines. "Man is already determined within himself by his disposition before he proceeds to act. Evil and good cannot spring from the same root. The good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, nor the evil tree good fruit. The root from which all good proceeds, is love to God; the root of all evil, is love to self. Wiggers' Augustinism and Pelagianism, p. 88. † Ibid. pp. 92, 93. Opus Imperfectum, lib. i. 47. De Civ. Dei, lib. xiv. 1. |