That there is one life for the saints; but rewards different according to their labour: as on the other side the punishments of the wicked shall be according to the measure of their sins. We hold one baptism, which we say ought to be administered with the same sacramental words to infants* as it is to elder persons. We receive the Old and New Testaments in the same number of books + as the authority of the Holy Catholic church doth deliver. If after baptism a man do fall, we believe he may be recovered by repentance (or penance). We believe that our souls are given by God, and we hold that they are made by Him; ‡ anathematizing those who say that souls are, as it were, a part of the substance of God. We do also condemn those who say that the souls have sinned in a former state, § or that they have lived in the celestial regions before they were sent into bodies. Scripture and of the church in other respects, should here be so unphilosophically orthodox! * The translator has the following note, which should be attended to:-St. Hierom had said, that the Pelagians must either own that infants are baptized for the forgiveness of sins, or else make two baptisms. Pelagius was, therefore, forced to say as he does here. And Celestius, in his draught of faith, gives this reason why he grants that infants are baptized for forgiveness of sins, "That we may not seem to make two sorts of baptism.” + The canon had been agreed upon long before this time, compris ing the same books which are received by all the Protestant churches. Pelagius did not hold the traduction of the soul, as Austin and others did: there have been many disputes on this point.—See Flavel on the soul; Watts on the ruin and recovery of mankind; and Fletcher on the fallen state of man. The doctrine of the soul coming immediately from God, makes original sin appear the more intricate. He renounces the opinions of Origen with respect to the pre-existence of souls. But some of his party held those opinions. We do also abhor the blasphemy of those who say that any impossible thing is commanded to man by God; or that the commandments of God cannot be performed by any one man, but that by all men taken together they may. Or that do condemn first marriages in compliance with Manichæus; or second marriages in compliance with the Montanists. Also we do anathematize those who say, that the Son of God did tell lies by the necessity of the flesh (or the weakness of his humanity); and that because of the human nature which He had taken on Him, He could not do all things that He would.* We do also condemn the heresy of Jovinian, who says, that in the life to come there will be no differ ence of merits (or rewards); and that we shall have virtues (or graces) which we took no care to have here. Free-will we do so own, as to say, that we always stand in need of God's help: and that as well are they in an error who say, with Manichæus, that a man cannot avoid sin; as they who affirm, with Jovinian, that a man cannot sin. For both of these take away the freedom of the will. But we say that a man always is in a state in which he may sin, or may not sin; so as to own ourselves always to be of a free-will; i. e. capable of either good or evil. * He refers to some things which Hierom had said, and which he thought subjected him to such an imputation. Christ said, I can do nothing of myself; and He told His brethren and kindred that He was not going to the Feast of Tabernacles; but when His brethren were gone up, then He also went up to the feast. Thus Christ, as man, could not do what He would, independent of His Divinity; and He did that which at one time He purposed not to do. But Hierom reproached the Pelagians with boasting that they could do whatever they pleased, as they held that man might live without sin, if he would. Pelagius here retorts. This, he assures Pope Innocent, was his faith, which he had learned in the Catholic church, and had always held. Celestius also presented a similar confession, of which only some fragments are preserved; but he speaks very boldly on the subject of original sin. The following extract is taken from St. Augustine's treatise on original sin, as given by Mr. Wall. "We own that infants ought, according to the rule of the universal church, and according to the sentence of the gospel, to be baptized for forgiveness of sins, because our Lord has determined that the kingdom of heaven cannot be baptized on any but baptized persons: which, because it is a thing which nature cannot give, it is necessary it should be given by the liberty of grace. But, when we say that infants are to be baptized for forgive ness of sins, we do not say with such intent as that we would seem to confirm the opinion of sin being by derivation (or propagation), which is a thing far from the Catholic doctrine. For that sin which man commits is not born with him; because it is demonstrable that sin is not by nature, but by choice. Therefore, it is both proper to own the former, that we may not seem to make two sorts of baptism; and also necessary to give a caution about the latter, lest, on account of that or dinance, it be averred, to the reproach of the Creator, that evil is by nature conveyed to a man before it be acted by him." The strength of the argument consists in representing the contagion of original depravity in an infant, as actually sinful. Where the intelligent powers are not yet in exercise, sin can have no actual existence, there being no law violated, not even in purpose or intention. An infant cannot be subject to the displeasure of the Divine Legislator as it respects individual responsibility; but an infant as the offspring of sinful parents, and descended from the first transgressors, may be subject to certain penalties, and in that sense need remission, Augustine, Hierom, Prosper, and others, were strenu ous and unremitting in their endeavours to counteract the contagion of the erroneous tenets of Pelagius. But this man had many friends and abettors; and the Catholic doctors found great difficulty in stopping the progress of those tenets, both in the eastern and the western churches. Their opponents trod on the verge of fatalism; and, indeed, the subjects in dispute were very intricate, and the contentions were warm and vehement on both sides, They sometimes fought in the dark, not properly understanding each other's meaning, nor having compassion on each other's infirmities. Thus the church was in dan ger of becoming a sort of Pandemonium; where the great poet represents the fallen angels involved in the mazes of endless disputation: Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate: Pelagius's confession was accompanied with a letter, in which he says that, in what he has advanced on the subject of free-will, he considers man so situated that he is at liberty either to sin or to refrain from sin; but that in all good works we must receive Divine assistance. This power of free-will, he affirms, that he held equally to exist in all men by nature, whether they be Christians, Jews, or Heathens; but that in Christians alone it is aided by the grace of God. "They, therefore, are to be judged and condemned, who, while they are endued with free-will through which they may attain to faith, and be fitted for the reception of the grace of God, 118 make a bad use of the liberty with which they are endued: but those will be rewarded who, through the proper use of their free-will, merit the grace of God and keep His commandments. 4. Spread of Pelagianism in Gaul and Britain. Enquiry whether Pelagius had imbibed his erroneous tenets from the principles of the Druid philosophy. In the year 425, the Emperor Valentinian set forth his imperial mandate to Patroclus, archbishop of Arles, and primate of the Gallican churches, enjoining all the bishops of his province, who favoured the Pelagian heresy, to be convened; and provided that within the space of twenty days they refused to revoke their heterodox opinions, they were to be expelled, and other orthodox persons to be preferred to their cures. to this time Pelagianism must have taken deep root in Previous that country, clergy. so as to cause a general alarm among the About that time one Cassian became the founder, it is Isaid, of the Semi-Pelagian doctrine in Gaul, where it appears to have prevailed to a considerable degree, under the sanction of some venerable names, as there were several who disproved of Pelagius's tenets, and, at the same time, could not enter altogether into the views of Augustine. Among these was the famous Vincentius Lirinensis, the author of the Commonitorium, or Rule of Faith, and brother to Garmon, or Germanus, of whom we shall soon have to speak. Hilary, bishop of Arles, was also a favourer of that cause, and was plained of to Augustine, who employed his pen to the last to silence his opponents, if possible; and could not |