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die; that his sins hurt him alone, and not mankind; that the STRIC aw conducts to the kingdom even as the Gospel.""

§ 6. No one ought to wonder that the Catholic doctors so severely opposed the doctrine of Pelagius, viz. that "eternal life is promised in the old law, as distinguished from the Gospel," since it is at open war with the two first principles of Christian faith (set forth in the examination of Stricture XVII., in the first and fourth Theses): viz. 1st. that the covenant of life entered into with Adam in a perfect state was made void through his sin not only to himself, but to his posterity, so that all the sons of Adam, as such, are sons of death, i. e. entirely shut out from all promise of eternal life. 2ndly, that God hath entered into no covenant of eternal life with the descendants of fallen Adam, which has not been confirmed and ratified in Christ our Saviour; and therefore none other than the Gospel. Hence also Pelagius inferred that a man might by any law, even by that of nature, obtain heavenly and eternal life. But to resume the main subject.

XXI.

advers.

§ 7. Some light will be thrown on these passages of St. Austin, by a passage of Jerome, where he thus addresses lib. i. Critobulus (who in these dialogues sustains the character of Pelag. Pelagius): "You add besides, 'that the kingdom of heaven is [§ 31. vol. promised also in the Old Testament,' and you bring forward ii. p. 714.] quotations from the Apocrypha: whereas it is plain that the kingdom of heaven was first preached in the Gospel through John the Baptist, and the Lord our Saviour and the Apostles. Read the Gospels, &c. But you call us Manichæans, because preferring the Gospel to the Law, we say that in the latter is the shadow, but in the former the truth: while you do not perceive your own folly and impudence. It is one thing to condemn the Law as a Manichæan does; another to prefer the Gospel to the Law as the Apostles' do," &c. In this eminent testimony, besides that it is most evident that the doctrine, which is contrary to ours, was condemned of old by Catholics in Pelagius, two things are especially to be observed. 1st. That Pelagius sought the proof of his assertion in general from no other place than the writings of the

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lemly known, it is no wonder if this doctrine is set forth there most distinctly. 2ndly. That the Heresiarch charged The Catholes of his age with Manichæism, because they taught that the kingdom of heaven was not promised in the Old Testament: as though, with that blasphemous teacher, they had defamed the law of God given by Moses. You will are therefore, my Censurer, whether you yourself are not guilty of somewhat akin to the crime of Pelagius in venturing to brand me with the mark of heresy and even of blasphemy, for userting this very Catholic doctrine:

§ 8. Let the learned reader learn from your example, how all advised it is to spend all one's labour and study over the writings of Nystematics and Neoterics, while entirely neglecting or but carelessly reading the remains of the ancients. In truth, besides other sufficiently grievous mischiefs it generally happens that they repudiate Catholic doctrines as heretical, while on the contrary they take up and embrace the exploded madnesses of heretics as Divine oracles. And therefore, O young men, if you would not be deceived by these would be theologians, next to the Holy Scriptures,

"Be the Fathers' works

By day and night for ever in your hands."

STRICTURE XXII.

ON II. DISS. x. 4. p. 119.

Here I say, "the Mosaic law, by containing only temporal promises and threatenings, was therefore adapted to produce in men a mean and sordid spirit and disposition, entirely foreign to true and genuine picty," &c. Upon this you inflict the severe censure, "Restrain, I entreat you, the petulance of your tongue, chattering against the wise economy of God. Does not Moses, throughout the whole almost of the book of Deuteronomy, by these same arguments excite and turn the people to believe, fear, love, and obey God? Are Divine benefits unfit to raise the mind to God? Did not Moses, or the Lord Himself in the law of Moses, consult

Tendency of the Mosaic law earthly,

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for religion, and provide against this ingratitude? But you STRIC. reproach God, when you rashly assert that the law, which was ordained by God to produce piety, could not effect it. You load a pure and holy law with calumnies, as though it were the nurse of avarice and intemperance. The fountain surely is defiled whence this corrupt and unwholesome channel flows. Correct your words by the better judgment of David concerning the law of God, given by Moses, which is Ps. 19.7,8. open for you to read."

ANSWER TO STRICTURE XXII.

§ 1. Better language I pray, good Aristarchus! restrain your own anger, or rather madness, and with tranquil and steady judgment see if this waggon-load of reproaches which you have heaped on me, a poor wretch already enough bruised and afflicted, does not at length fall upon the most holy Fathers of the Church, and even upon the inspired writers. I am speaking of the law or covenant of Sinai taken in its carnal and literal sense, as promising nothing beyond these carnal and earthly advantages. I say that that law thus viewed, was calculated to produce in men a mean and sordid disposition, utterly at variance with true and genuine piety. Who in his senses would ever question it? the very plainness of the fact cries out that what I say is true. I ask you, when you shall have returned to yourself? Since true and genuine piety consists chiefly in self-denial, in contempt of this world, in a mind panting for a future and a better life, was it possible that the law of Moses should produce this piety in man, viewed in its carnal and literal sense, as promising no advantage beyond this life?

§ 2. But if he who has said this, must be held to have chattered with petulant tongue against the wise economy of God, to have reproached God Himself, &c., what then (not to mention all the other Fathers) will become of St. Austin himself? Thus he writes: "Although in the Old Testament, on account of the promise of temporal goods, and threatening of temporal evils, the temporal Jerusalem brings

4 Tom. vi. contra adversarium Legis et Prophetarum 1. 17. [vol. viii. p. 566. § 35.]

212 as is taught by St. Augustin and St. Paul.

TRIC, forth slaves, while in the New Testament, where faith wins XXII. love, whereby the law may be fulfilled no less by the love of righteousness than by the fear of punishment, the eternal Jerusalem brings forth free men: yet even in those times were there spiritually righteous men who were not slain by the letter, which commanded, but were made alive by the Spirit, which aided them." Also"; "From the natural sense, because the natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, arise all dissensions and schisms; and all who go on guided by this sense, the Apostle says, belong to the Old Testament, i. e. to the desire of earthly promises: in which indeed spiritual things are figured, but the natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God," &c. Again"; "It is plain that even that Scripture which was given to the elder people, was the law of Christ, which He came to fulfil by love, but which was not fulfilled through fear. The same Scripture therefore, while it depresses slaves bent upon earthly goods, is called the Old Testament, but is called the New Testament as elevating free men burning for eternal goods."

§3. But why do I speak of the Fathers? St. Paul the Apostle (whose authority you abuse every where for the confirmation of your own dreams) says the same plainly as we. Gal, 4, 24, Speaking of the covenant of Sinai, as it is opposed to the

Gospel, he says that that covenant 'gendereth to bondage.' But what is this bondage? Hear a most learned interpreter. "The bondage to which the Old Testament begat its sons consisted partly in the unbearable yoke of ceremonial precepts, laid upon the necks of its sons: partly in the servile affections and fear, by which they were governed: which Rom.8.15. the Apostle calls 'the spirit of bondage to fear."" And therefore this bondage is especially that servile disposition with which men under the Old Testament, clinging to its letter not from the love of righteousness, as sons, but from the hope of impending good, and fear of impending evil, as slaves and hirelings, performed the service of God. However therefore you interpret the 'spirit of bondage,' this is plain,

r Vol. vii. contra Donatistas 1. 15. [de Baptismo contra Donat. 1. 23. vol. ix. p. 92.]

s Tom. iv. Expos. ad Gal. 6. [§ 58. vol. iii. p. 976.]

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XXII.

that this spirit is opposed by the Apostle to 'the spirit of STRIC. adoption,' or the free ground of serving God, which is enjoined on us Christians; and therefore comes to that mean and sordid disposition of which I spoke, entirely foreign to true and genuine piety. Now St. Paul says that the covenant of Sinai' gendereth to bondage' of this kind, because it is naturally adapted, by force of its promises and threatenings, to implant such a disposition in men.

§ 4. The judgment of David in Psalm the nineteenth, which you appeal to, is not to the purpose. For the law of God, which that holy man there and continually in other places so much eulogizes, must by no means be restricted to the law or covenant of Sinai (of which alone I am speaking): but (as Vatablus on the first and second Psalm remarks) comprises not only the law, but also all the books of Holy Scripture which had been written up to his time, which are an exposition of the law. As regards this, David (if any one) was thoroughly enough aware of the mysteries hidden in the carnal law, and was among the chief of those spirituallyminded men, who, in St. Austin's words just quoted, “lived in the sacraments of the Old Testament, but hiddenly belonged to the New Testament which then was hidden." So that the words in which a most ancient Father and martyr, St. Justin, rebukes the unskilfulness of the Jews in Dial.cum Tryph. p. and interpreting the writings of the Old Testament, suit you 251. [c.34. such as you exactly. "You deceive yourselves by equivocal p. 131.] expressions. For where the law of the Lord is called blameless, you understand it not as that which was to be after Moses, but as that which was made by Moses; though God Himself proclaims that He will make a new law and a new covenant."

§ 5. It may here be objected, If the law of Sinai was calculated to engender that servile disposition in men, must it not be imputed to God, the Author of that law, that most of the Jews did not rise above that servile disposition? I answer, Far from it. For it was sufficiently provided by Divine care, that the Jews should not remain in the letter of the law of Sinai. For God provided that the tradition of a future life, handed down from the patriarchs, (whether derived immediately from Himself, or taught in other ways, as espe

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