As soon as the holy doctor read them, he without delay wrote the first of the four following books to the good monk, and then the second, in the shape of a letter, to the presbyter Peter, and the two last books to Victor himself, but after a considerable interval, as it appears from the following words of the fourth chapter of the second book: " If, indeed, the Lord will that I should write to the young man, as I desire to do." In the Retractations this little work of Augustin is placed immediately after the treatises of the year 419, i.e. in the fifth place after the Proeeedings with Emeritus, which were completed in the month of September in the year 418. It belongs, therefore, to the termination of the year 419 or to the commencement of the year 420, having been written after "the condemnation of the Pelagians by the authority of catholic Councils and of the Apostolic See,"'* but "very soon after,"' as that happy ev.ent had happened in the year of Christ 418.
In Book I., written to Renatus, he points out his own opinion about the nature of the soul, and his hesitation as to its origin, which had been unjustly blamed by Victor. He reproves the man's juvenile forwardness, shows him he had fallen into grave and unheard-of errors while venturing to take upon himself the solution of a question which exceeded his abilities, and points out that he adduced only doubtful passages of Scripture, and such as were not applicable to the subject, in his endeavour to prove that souls are not propagated, but that entirely new ones are breathed by God into every man at his separate birth.
In Book II., he advises Peter not to incur the imputation of having approved of the books which had been addressed to him by Victor On the Origin of the Soul by any use he might make of them, nor to take as catholic doctrines that person's rash utterances contrary to the Christian faith. Victor's various and very serious errors he points out and briefly confutes, and he concludes with advising Peter himself to try to persuade Victor to correct his errors.
In Book III., which was written to Victor himself, he points out the corrections which Victor ought to make in his books if he wished to be deemed a catholic; those opinions also and paradoxes of his, which had been already refuted in the preceding books to Renatus and Peter, the author briefly censures in this third book, and classifies under eleven heads of error.
In Book IV., addressed to the same Victor, he first shows that his hesitation on the subject of the origin of souls was undeservedly blamed, and that he was wrongly compared with cattle, because he had refrained from any bold conclusions on the subject. Then again, with regard to his own unhesitating statement, that the soul was spirit, not body, he points out how rashly Victor disapproved of this assertion, especially when he was vainly expending his efforts to prove that the soul was corporeal in its own nature, and that the spirit in man was distinct from the soul itself.
' See below, Book Lii. c. 2. * See below, ii. 13, 15. 3 See Augustin's letter 190, ch. i. * See Book ii. 17. ' See Book i. 34.
3" CONTENTS OF THE TREATISE "ON THE SOUL AND ITS ORIGIN."
1. Renatus had done him a kindness nv sending him the books which had been addressed to him 315 2. He keceives with a kindly and patient feeling the books of a voung and inexperienced man who wrote against Hi.M in a tone of arrogance. Vincentius Victor converted from the sect of the Rogatians 315 3. The eloquence of Vincenths, its dangers and its tolerauleness 316 4. The errors contained in the nooKs ok Vincentius Victor. He says that the soul comes from God, but was not made either out of nothing or out of any created thing 316 5. Another of Victor's errors, that the soul is corpokeai 3'7 6. Another error out ok his second book, to the effect, that the soul deserved to be polluted by the body. 317 7. Victor entangles himself in an exceedingly difficult question. God's foreknowledge:s no cause of sin.. 317 8. Victor's erroneous opinion, that the soul deserved to become sinful 318 9. Victor utterly unable to explain how the sinless soul deserved to be made sinful 318 lo- Another error of Victor's, that infants dying unbaptized may attain to the kingdom of heaven. Another, THAT the sacrifice OF THE BODY OF ChRIST MUST BE OFFERED FOR INFANTS WHO DIE BEFORE THEY ARE BAITIZED. 319 11. Martyrdom for Christ supplies the place of baptism. The faith of the thief who was crucified along with Christ taken as martyrdom and hence for baptism 3^9 12. Dinocrates, brother of the martyr St. Perpetua, is said to have been delivered from the state of condemnation by the prayers of the saint 319 13. The sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ will not avail for unbaptized persons, and cannot be offered for the majority of those who die unbaptized 320 14. Victor's dilemma: he must either say all infants are saved, or else God slays the innocent 320 15. God does not judge any one for what he might have done if his life had been prolonged, but simply for thk deeds he actually commits 321 16. Difficulty in the opinion which maintains that souls are not by propagation 321 17. He shows that the passages of Scripture adduced by Victor do not prove that souls are made by God in such a way as not to be derived by propagation: first passage 3^2 18. By " P.REATH" ft SIGNIFIED SOMETIMES THE HoLY SpiRlT 3^2 19. The meaning of " breath " in Scripture 3^3 20. Other ways of taking the passage 3^3 21. The second passage quoted by Victor 3^4 23. His fourth quotation, 3^4 24. Whether or no the soul is derived by natural descent (ex traduce), his oted passages fail to show...324 25. Just as the mother knows not whence comes her child within her, so we know not whence co.mes the soul. 325 26. The fifth passage of Scripture quoted by Victor 3^5 27. Augustin did not venture to define anything about the propagation of the soul 326 28. A natural figure of speech must not be literally pressed 327 29. The sixth passage of Scripture quoted by Victor 328 30. The danger of arguing from silence 328 31. The argument of the Apollinarians to prove that Christ was without the human soul of this same sort.. 328 32. The self-contradiction of Victor as to the origin of the soul 329 33. Augustin has no objection to the opinion about the propagation of souls being refuted, and that about their insufflation being maintained 329 34. The.\hstakes which must be avoided by those who say that men's souls are not derived from their parents, but are afresh inbreathed by God in every instance 33° 35. Conclusion 33" chapter pack 1. Depraved eloquence an injurious accomplishment 33* 2. He asks what the great knowledge is that Victor imparts 33' 3. The difference between the senses of the body and soul 33' 4. To believe the soul is part of God is blasphemy 33^ 5. In what sense created beings are out of God 33^ 6. Shall God's nature be.mutable, sinful, impious, even eternally damned 333 7. to think the soul corporeal an error 333 8. The thirst of the rich man in hell does not prove the soul to be corporeal 334 9. How could the incorporeal God breathe out of Himself a corporeal substance? 334 10. Children may be found of like or of unlike dispositions with their parents 335 11. Victor implies that the soul had a "state" and "merit" before incarnation 335 12. How DID THE SOUL DESERVE TO BE INCARNATED? 33^ 13. Victor teaches that God thwarts His own predestination 33° 14. Victor sends those infants who die unbaptized to paradise and the heavenly mansions, but not to the kingdom of heaven 337 15. Victor "decides" that oblations should be offered up for those who die unbaptized 338 16. Victor promises to the unbaptized paradise after their death, and the kingdom of heaven after their resurrection, although he admits that this opposes Christ's state.ment 338 17. Disobedient compassion and compassionate disobedience reprobated. Martyrdom in lieu of baptism 339 19. Victor relies on ambiguous Scriptures 34° 20. Victor quotes Scriptures for their silence, and neglects the biblical usage 34° 21. Victor's perplexity and failure 34^ 22. Peter's responsibility in the case of Victor 34' 23. Who they are that are not injured by reading injurious books 34^ 1. Algl'stin's purpose in writing 343 2. Whv Victor assumed the name of Vincentius. The names of evil men ought never to be assumed by other PERSONS 343 3. He enumerates the errors which he desires to have amended in the BOOKS OF Vincentius Victor. The first EHKOR 444 4. Victor's simile to show that God can create by breathing without impartation of His substance 345 5. Examination of Victor's simile: Does man give out nothing by breathing? 345 6. The simile reformed in accordance with truth 346 7. Victor apparently gives the creative breath to man also 346 9. His third error 347 10. His fourth error 347 11. His fifth error 347 12. His sixth error 348 13. His seventh error 348 14. His eighth error 348 15. His ninth error 349 16. God rules everywhere: and yet the " kingdom of heaven" may not be everywhere 349 17. Where the kingdom of God may be understood to be 349 18. His tenth error 350 19. His eleventh error 350 20. AUGUSTIN calls ON ViCTOR TO CORRECT HIS ERRORS 351 31. AuGUSTIN COMPLIMENTS ViCTOR'S TALENTS AND DILIGENCE 35I 22. a summary recapitulation of the errors of victor 352 23. Obstinacy makes the heretic 353 CHAPTER PAGB 1. The PERSONAL CHARACTER OF THIS BOOK. 353 2. The points which Victor thought blameworthy in Augustin 353 3. How much do we know of the nature of the body? 354 4. Is the question of breath one that concerns the soul, or body, or what? 35S 5. God alone can teach whence souls come 355 6. Questions about the nature of the body are sufficiently mysterious, and yet not higher than those of the soul 356 7. We often need more teaching as to what is most intimately ours than as to what is further from us...357 8. We have no memory of our creation 357 9. Our ignorance of ourselves illustrated by the remarkable memory of one Simplicius 358 10. The fidelity of memory; the unsearchable treasure of memory; the powers of a man's understanding sufficiently understood ay none 358 11. The Apostle Peter told no lie, when he said he was ready to lay down his life for the Lord, but only was ignorant of hls will 358 12. The Apostle Paul could know the third heaven and paradise, but not whether he was in the body or not. 359 13. In what sense the Holy Ghost is said to make intercession for us 359 14. It is more excellent to know that the flesh will rise again and live for evermore, than to learn whatever scientific men have been able to teach us concerning its nature 360 15. We must not be wise above what is written 360 16. Ignorance is better than error. Predestination to eternal life, and predestination to eternal death...361 17. A twofold question to be treated concerning the soul; is it "body"? and is it "spirit"? What body is.. 361 18. The first question, whether the soul is corporeal; breath and wind, nothing else than air in motion...361 19. Whether the soul is a spirit 362 20. The body does not receive God's image 362 21. Recognition and form belong to souls as well as bodies 363 22. Names do not imply corporeity 364 23. Figurative speech must not be taken literally 364 24. Abraham's bosom — what it means 364 25. The disembodied soul may think of itself under a bodily form 364 26. St. Pekpetua seemed to herself, in some dreams, to have been turned into a man, and then have wrestled with a certain Egyptian 3^5 27. Is the soul wounded when the body is wounded? 365 28. Is the soul deformed by the body's imperfections? 3*^6 29. Does the soul take the body's clothes also away with it? 366 30. Is corporeity necessary for recognition? 367 31. Modes of knowledge in the soul distinguished 3^7 32. Inconsistency of giving the soul all the parts of sex and yet no sex 367 33. The phenix after death coming to life again 368 34. Prophetic visions 3^8 35. Do angels appear to men in real bodies? 368 36. He passes on to the second question about the soul, whether it is called spirit 369 37. Wide and narrow sense of the word "spirit" 369 38. Victor's chief errors again pointed out 37° A TREATISE ON THE SOUL AND ITS ORIGIN, BY AURELIUS AUGUSTIN, BISHOP OF HiPPO; In Four Books, WRITTEN TOWARDS THE END OF 419.
BOOK I.'
ADDRESSED TO RENATUS, THE MONK.
ON RECEIVING FROM RENATUS THE TWO BOOKS OF VINCENTIUS VICTOR, WHO DIS-APPROVED OF AUGUSTIN's OPINION TOUCHING THE NATURE OF THE SOUL, AND OF HIS HESITATION IN RESPECT OF ITS ORIGIN, AUGUSTIN POINTS OUT HOW THE YOUNG OBJECTOR, IN HIS SELF-CONCEIT IN AIMING TO DECIDE ON SO ABSTRUSE A SUBJECT, HAD FALLEN INTO INSUFFERABLE MISTAKES. HE THEN PROCEEDS TO SHOW THAT THOSE PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE BY WHICH VICTOR THOUGHT HE COULD PROVE THAT HUMAN SOULS ARE NOT DERIVED BY PROPAGATION, BUT ARE BREATHED BY GOD AFRESH INTO EACH MAN AT BIRTH, ARE AMBIGUOUS, AND INADEQUATE FOR THE CONFIRMATION OF THIS OPINION OF HIS.
CHAP. I [l.] — RENATUS HAD DONE HIM A KIND- NESS BY SENDING HIM THE BOOKS WHICH HAD BEEN ADDRESSED TO HIM.
Your sincerity towards us, dearest brother Renatus, and your brotherly kindness, and the affection of mutual love between us, we already had clearproof of; but now you have afforded us a still clearer proof, by sending me two books, written by a person whom I knew, indeed, nothing of, — though he was not on that account to be despised, — called Vincentius Victor (for in such form did I find his name placed at the head of his work): this you did in the summer of last year; but owing to my absence from home, it was the end of autumn before they found their way to me. How, indeed, would you be likely with your very great affection for me to fail either in means or inclination to bring under my notice any writings of the kind, by whomsoever composed, if they fell into your hands, even if they * Written about the end of 419.
were addressed to some one else? How much less likely, when my own name was mentioned and read — and that in a context of gainsaying some words of mine, which I had published in certain little treatises? Now you have done all this in the way you were sure to act as my very sincere and beloved friend.
CHAP. 2 [11.] — HE RECEFVES WITH A KINDLY AND PATIENT FEELING THE BOOKS OF A YOUNG AND INEXPERIENCED MAN WHO WROTE AGAINST HIM IN A TONE OF ARROGANCE. VINCENTIUS VICTOR CONVERTED FROM THE SECT OF THE ROGATUNS.
I am somewhat pained, however, at being thus far less understood by your Holiness than I should like to be; forasmuch as you su[)posed that I should so receive your communication, as if you did me an injury, by making known to me what another had done. You may see, indeed, how far this feeling is from my mind, in that I have no complaint to make of having suffered 31S 3i6 [Book I.
any wrong even from him. For, when he entertained views different from my own, was he bound to preserve silence? It ought, no doubt, to be even pleasant to me, that he broke silence in such a way as to put it in our power to read what he had to say. He ought, I certainly think, to have written simply to me, rather than to another concerning me; but as he was unknown to me, he did not venture to intrude personally on me in refuting my words. He thought there was no necessity for applying to me in a matter on which he seei^ed to himself least of all Hable to be doubted,' but to be holding a perfectly well-known and certain opinion. He, moreover, acted in obedience to a friend of his, by whom he tells us he was compelled to write. And if he expressed any sentiment during the controversy which was contumelious to me, I would prefer supposing that he did this, not with any wish to treat me with incivility, but from the necessity of thinking differently from me. For in all cases where a person's aninms towards one is indeterminate and unknown, I think it better to suppose the existence of the kindlier motive, than to find fault with an undiscovered one. Perhaps, too, he acted from love to me, as knowing that what he had written might possibly reach me; being at the same time unwilling that I should be in error on such points as he especially thinks himself to be free from error regarding. I ought, therefore, to be grateful for his kindness, although I feel obliged to disapprove of his opinion. Accordingly, as regards the points on which he does not entertain right views, he appears to me to deserve gentle correction rather than severe disapproval; more especially because, if I am rightly informed, he has lately become a catholic — a matter in which he is to be congratulated. For he has freed himself from the schism and errors of the Donatists (or rather the Rogatists) in which he was previously implicated; and if he understands the catholic verity as he ought, we may really rejoice at his conversion.
CHAP. 3 [hi.] — THE ELOQUENCE OF VINCENTIUS, ITS DANGERS AND ITS TOLERABLENESS.
For he has an eloquence by which he is able to explain what he thinks. He must, therefore, be dealt with accordingly; and we must hope that he may entertain right sentiments, and that he may not turn useless things into objects of desire; that he may not seem to have propounded as true whatever he may have expressed with eloquence. But in his very outspokenness he may have much to correct, and to prune of redundant verbiage. And this characteristic ' [The Edinburgh translator conjectures minime dubitandam here: "on which he seemed to himself to be holding no doubtful, but a perfectly well-known and certain opinion." — W.J of his has actually given offence to you, who are a person of gravity, as your own writings indicate. This fault, however, is either easily corrected, or, if it be resorted to with fondness by light minds, and borne with by serious ones, it is not attended with any injury to their faith. For we have already amongst us men who are frothy in speech, but sound in the faith. We need not then despair that this quality even in him (it might be endurable, however, even if it proved permanent) may be tempered and cleansed — in fact, may be either extended or recalled to an entire and solid criterion; especially as he is said to be young, so that diligence may supply to him whatever defect his inexperience may possess, and ripeness of age may digest what crude loquacity finds indigestible. The troublesome, dangerous, and pernicious thing is, when folly is set off by the commendation which is accorded to eloquence, and when a poisonous draught is drunk out of a precious goblet.
CH-^P. 4 [iV.] — THE ERRORS CONTAINED IN THE BOOKS OF VINCENTIUS VICTOR. HE SAYS THAT THE SOUL COMES FROM GOD, BUT WAS NOT MADE EITHER OUT OF NOTHING OR OUT OF ANY CREATED THING.
I will now proceed to point out what things are chiefly to be avoided in his contentious statement. He says that the soul was made, indeed, by God, but that it is not a portion of God or of the nature of God, — which is an entirely true statement. When, however, he refuses to allow that it is made out of nothing, and mentions no other created thing out of which it was made; and makes God its author, in such a sense that He must be supposed to have made it, neither out of any non-existing things, that is, out of nothing, nor out of anything which exists other than God, but out of His very self: he is little aware that in the revolution of his thoughts he has come back to the position which he thinks he has avoided, even that the soul is nothing else than the nature of God; and consequently that there is an actual something made out of the nature of God by the self-same God, for the making of which the material of which He makes it is His own very self who makes it; and that thus God's nature is changeable, and by being changed for the worse the very nature of God Himself incurs condemnation at the hands of the self-same God! How far all this is from being fit for your intelligent faith to suppose, how alien it is from the heart of a catholic, and how much to be avoided, you can readily see. For the soul is either so made out of the breath, or God's breath is so made into it, that it was not created out of Himself, but by Himself out of nothing. It is not, indeed, like the case of a human being, when he breathes: he Chap. 7.]
cannot form a breath out of nothing, but he restores to the air the breath which he inhaled out of it. ^^'e may in some such manner suppose that certain airs surrounded the Divine Being, and that He inhaled a particle of it by breathing, and exhaled it again by respiration, when He breathed into man's face, and so formed for him a soul. If this were the process, it could not have been out of His very self, but out of the circumambient airy matter, that what He breathed forth must have arisen. Far be it, however, from us to say, that the Almighty could not have made the breath of life out of nothing, by which man might become a living soul; and to crowd ourselves into such straits, as that we must either think that something already existed other than Himself, out of which He formed breath, or else suppose that He formed out of Himself that which we see was made subject to change. Now, whatever is out of Himself, must necessarily be of the self-same nature as Himself, and therefore immutable: but the soul (as all allow) is mutable. Therefore it is not out of Him, because it is not immutable, as He is. If, however, it was not made of anything else, it was undoubtedly made out of nothing — but by Himself CHAP. 5 [v.] — ANOTHER OF VICTOR'S ERRORS, THAT THE SOUL IS CORPOREAL.
But as regards his contention, " that the soul is not spirit, but body," what else can he mean to make out, than that we are composed, not of soul and body, but of two or even three bodies? For inasmuch as he says that we consist of spirit, soul and body, and asserts that all the three are bodies; it follows, that he supposes us to be made up of three bodies. How absurd this conclusion is, I think ought rather to be demonstrated to him than to you. But this is not an intolerable error «on the part of a person who has not yet discovered that there is in existence a something, which, though it be not corporeal, yet may wear somewhat of the similitude of a body.
CHAP. 6 [m.] — ANOTHER ERROR OUT OF HIS SECOND BOOK, TO THE EFFECT, THAT THE SOUL DESERVED TO BE POLLUTED BY THE BODY.
But he is plainly past endurance in what he says in his second book, when he endeavours to solve a very difficult question on original sin, how it belongs to body and soul, if the soul is not derived by parental descent but is breathed afresh by God into a man. Striving to explain this troublesome and profound point, he thus expresses his view: " Through the flesh the soul fitly recovers its primitive condition, which it seemed to have gradually lost through the flesh, in order that it may begin to be regenerated by the very flesh by which it had deserved to be polluted." You observe how this person, hav' ing been so bold as to undertake what exceeds his powers, has fallen down such a precijiice as to say, that the soul deserved to be defiled by the body; although he could in no wise declare whence it drew on itself this deseit, before it put on flesh. For if it first had from the flesh its desert of sin, let him tell us (if he can) whence (previous to sin) it derived its desert to be contaminated by the flesh. For this desert, which projected it into sinful flesh to be polluted by it, it of course had either from itself, or, which is much more offensive to our mind, from God. It certainly could not, previous to its being invested with the flesh, have received from that flesh that ill desert by reason of which it was projected into the flesh, in order to be defiled by it. Now, if it had the ill desert from its own self, how did it get it, seeing that it did no sin previous to its assumption of flesh? But if it be alleged that it had the ill desert from God, then, I ask, who could listen to such blasphemy? Who could endure it? Who could permit it to be alleged with impunity? For the question which arises here, remember, is not, what was the ill desert which adjudged the soul to be condemned after it became incarnate? but what was its ill desert prior to the flesh, which condemned it to the investiture of the flesh, that it might be thereby polluted? Let him explain this to us, if he can, seeing that he has dared to say that the soul deserved to be defiled by the flesh.
CHAP. 7 [VII.] — VICTOR ENTANGLES HIMSELF IN AN EXCEEDINGLY DIFFICULT QUESTION. GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE IS NO CAUSE OF SIN.
In another passage, also, on proposing for explanation the very same question in which he had entangled himself, he says, speaking in the person of certain objectors: " W' hy, they ask, did God inflict upon the soul so unjust a punishment as to be willing to relegate it into a body, when, by reason of its association with the flesh, that begins to be sinful which could not have been sinful?" Now, amidst the reefy sea of such a question, it was surely his duty to beware of shipwreck; nor to commit himself to dangers which he could not hoi)e to escape by passing over them, and where his only chance of safety lay in putting back again — in a word, by repentance. He tries to free himself by means of the foreknowledge of God, but to no purpose. For God's foreknowledge only marks beforehand those sinners whom He purposes to heal. For if He liberates from sin those souls which He Himself involved in sin when 3i8 [Book I.
3i8 [Book I.
innocent and pure, He then heals a wound which Himself inflicted on us, not which He found in us. May God, however, forbid it, and may it be altogether far from us to say, that when God cleanses the souls of infants by the laver of regeneration. He then corrects evils which He Himself made for them, when He commingled them, which had no sin before, with sinful flesh, that they might be contaminated by its original sin. As regards, however, the souls which this calumniator alleges to have deserved pollution by the flesh, he is quite unable to tell us how it is they deserved so vast an evil, previous to their connection with the flesh.
CHAP. 8 [viii.] — victor's erroneous opinion, THAT THE SOUL DESERVED TO BECOME SINFUL.
Vainly supposing, then, that he was able to solve this question from the foreknowledge of God, he keeps floundering on, and says: " If the soul deserved to be sinful which could not have been sinful, yet neither did it remain in sin, because, as prefigured in Christ, it was not bound to be in sin, even as it was unable to be." Now what can he mean when he says, " which could not have been sinful," or " was unable to be in sin," except, as I suppose, this, if it did not come into the flesh? For, of course, it could not have been sinful through original sin, or have been at all involved in original sin, except through the flesh, if it is not derived from the parent. We see it, then, liberated from sin through grace, but we do not see how it deserved to be involved in sin. What, then, is the meaning of these words of his, " If the soul deserved to be sinful, yet neither did it remain in sin "? For if I were to ask him, why it did not remain in sin, he would very properly answer, Because the grace of Christ delivered it therefrom. Since, then, he tells us how it came to pass that an infant's soul was liberated from its sinfulness, let him further tell us how it happened that it deserved to be sinful.
CHAP. 9. — VICTOR UTTERLY UNABLE TO EXPLAIN HOW THE SINLESS SOUL DESERVED TO BE MADE SINFUL.
But what does he mean by that, which in his introduction he says has befallen him? For previous to proposing that question of his, and as introducing it, he affirms: " There are other opprobrious expressions underlying the querulous murmurings of those who rail at us; and, shaken about as in a hurricane, we are again and again dashed amongst enormous rocks." Now, if I were to express myself about him in this style, he would probably be angry. The words are his; and after premising them, he propounded his question, by way of showing us the very rocks against which he struck and was wrecked. For to such lengths was he carried, and against such frightful reefs was he borne, drifted, and struck, that his escape was a perfect impossibility without a retreat — a correction, in short, of what he had said; since he was unable to show by what desert the soul was made sinful; though he was not afraid to say, that previous to any sin of its own it had deserved to become sinful. Now, who deserves, without committing any sin, so immense a punishment as to be conceived in the sin of another, before leaving his mother's womb, and then to be no longer free from sin? But from this punishment the free grace of God delivers the souls of such infants as are regenerated in Christ, with no previous merits of their own — " otherwise grace is no grace." ' With regard, then, to this person, who is so vastly intelligent, and who in the great depth of his wisdom is displeased at our hesitation, which, if not well informed, is at all events circumspect, let him tell us, if he can, what the merit was which brought the soul into such a punishment, from which grace deliv^ers it without any merit.
Let him speak, and, if he can, defend his assertion with some show of reason. I would not, indeed, require so much of him, if he had not himself declared that the soul deserved to become sinful. Let him tell us what the desert was — whether good desert or evil? If good, how could well-deserving lead to evil? If evil, whence could arise any ill desert previous to the commission of any sin? I have also to remark, that if there be a good desert, then the liberation of the soul would not be of free grace, but it would be due to the previous merit, and thus "grace would be no more grace." If there be, however, an evil desert, then I ask what it is. Is it true that the soul has come into the flesh; and that it would not have so corne unless He in whom there is no sin had Himself sent it? Never, therefore, except by floundering worse and worse, will he contrive to set up this view of his, in which he predicates of the soul that it deserved to be sinful. In the case of those infants, too, in whose baptism original sin is washed away, he found something to say after a fashion, — to the effect, that being involved in the sin of another could not possibly have been detrimental to them, predestinated as they were to eternal life in the foreknowledge of God. This might admit of a tolerably good sense, if he had not entangled himself in that formula of his, in which he asserts that the soul deserved to be sinful: from this difficulty he can only extricate himself by revoking his words, with regret at having expressed them.