extending the system very much impeded. His opinions were the same with those of Pelagius. They were borrowed from him. Though that good man denied them to be his before the Synod, yet he openly defended them when he came to give his views in theology at large, soon after. The propositions which we here present are the opinions of Pelagius, and the style of reasoning is the same which he every where adopts.

With regard to Pelagius' method of propagating his system, a slight attention to the difficulties which environed him will satisfy any one that it was ingenious beyond description. He conceived that the doctrine of man's dependence on grace discouraged all exertion, and plunged sinners in ruin. The Church had always regarded grace as that which heals man's diseased nature. Now to deny the corruption of human nature and yet teach the necessity of grace, was like denying the existence of God, and asserting his providence. He certainly denied the existence and necessity of grace as the Church had always understood that term; and so undoubtedly do all who, at the present day, reject the doctrine of the native depravity of the human heart. He gave a variety of meanings to that term, but never the true one; denied that it affected the heart or will; he also taught that grace is bestowed according to merit, and finally, that man only does more easily with grace what he could do very well without it.— He boasts that he is a champion of grace; and so artfully did he use his terms in a work to which he particularly refers, that Augustine confesses he could not, for a time, discover the deception. But, after all, it must be conceded, that he did not assert grace so artfully or so zealously as those who, at the present day, deny the native depravity of the human heart, though he undoubtedly did very well for his age.

The Christians of this time, surely were as anxious about the progress of practical religion as Pelagius. They did not desire the prevalence of a piety which should rest in externals, or the heroic, but momentary resolutions of free will. They well knew, that the faster such a piety should spread, the more souls would be ruined, and the sooner the Church would be corrupted. They knew that till the commandment comes in its spirituality-till the sinner knows the nature, holiness and extent of the divine law, he will rest in such doings. They could not see how any

one acquainted with the law, could entertain such extravagant notions of human ability, or expect to yield any obedience to it without the aids of grace. They believed that all saving piety, in all its separate acts, is the work of grace; and that a doctrine which should forbid the sinner to look to the only source of strength, must deceive him to his ruin. These scriptural Christians had not adopted such explanations of the divine law as would have proved to them in a moment, that a man can keep it with the utmost ease, by free will alone. They had such notions of the love of God, which is the substance of the law, that they could not be convinced that any combination of the innate affections of the human heart would produce this holy principle, or that any persuasion, however eloquent and forcible, would excite it: they believed it will never exist in man's heart till it shall be shed abroad there by the Holy Spirit. Had they believed that the constitutional desire of happiness is the ultimate motive of all voluntary action-and that, in conversion, men are induced to love God, not from any change in their nature, which alters the tastes and inclinations of the soul, but simply from the same constitutional desire of happiness, which, it is said, they exercise in loving the world; had they been favoured with the late decision of .nental philosophy, that God is to be preferred to the world only because he has more power to confer happiness than the world: and that men choose or love God from the same motives that they love the world, no doubt they would have unhesitatingly denied the necessity of grace altogether. They doubtless would have seen that it is a sin of ignorance in mankind to seek their happiness from the world, when more happiness of the same nature was to be found elsewhere, and they would confidently expect that the good sense of mankind and even the constitutional desire of happiness itself, would lead them instantly to correct the great but unfortunate mistake, as soon as it should be made known to them. Those good men would at once have seen the truth of the new doctrine, that man can easily keep the whole law, and, in fact, would have been ready to acknowledge that no one can possibly break it but through sheer ignorance.

The contemporaries of Pelagius believed that the church is built upon the grace of Christ, that this grace alone makes christians; and that the continued piety and final salvation of

all its members depends on a constant and firm reliance upon this grace. Should they see a person engaged in tearing up these foundations, though he might profess the very best intentions, though he should do it with a good degree of secrecy, and even if he should utterly deny that he was doing it at all-they would not stand and look on with indifference. They would not indeed attempt to take from Pelagius what they conceded to infidels, the right to propagate his opinions; but they would not consent that he should use the influence which he derived from his connexion with the Church for the purpose of corrupting it and destroying his weak brethren: they would have felt it their duty, from a regard to the safety of those within, to place such a person outside the camp, till all danger from the infection of his leprosy should be past. This was evident in the case of Colestius. He had hardly made a display of his discoveries in Africa before he was accused, and brought before an ecclesiastical council; and though he defended himself with peculiar skill, concealed some parts of his system, denied others, and condemned others, it did not avail him: he received the censure of excommunication.

We have made these observations to show that there were almost insurmountable obstacles which met Pelagius at the very threshhold, in his attempts to reform the Church, and that the highest praise is due to his skill in avoiding them. Christians were so strongly prejudiced against the truth, that it was not safe to propagate it, nor even to profess it. But Pelagius was admirably fitted for his work; and his genius pointed him at once to the true policy. If truth was declared contraband, why the only way was to smuggle it in. This was the expedient he adopted, and his course has since been sanctioned by very high authority. It was his true policy to use the utmost secrecy; to conceal all his notions, and work as long as possible in the dark. He perfectly understood the orthodox scheme, and he succeeded in disguising free will so artfully, that a person would be very likely to mistake it for grace, and with many the fraud was successful. Perhaps we ought not to use so harsh a word as fraud. He was almost single, in the midst of his enemies, and in their power, working too under their eyes, and if discovered, at their mercy. It therefore stood him in hand to use the dark lantern; to employ light enough to assist him, and not enough to betray him. He succeeded for a long

time in keeping out of sight, and though his followers were becoming numerous they seemed to have the charm of fernseed, they could keep themselves invisible though ever so numerous-they knew when to conceal and when to avow their sentiments, and might remind one of the fire-flies of our summer evenings, which though ever so plenty yet are seen only when they please.

Pelagius depended most upon his efforts in making proselytes in secret. He was very cautious for a long time about committing any thing to writing. Not that he distrusted his ability to defend himself, but in controversy the great points of his system must be avowed in order to be supported, besides he well knew that the public were not as yet prepared for most of his arguments. The astonishing zeal of his converts seemed to render any public efforts unnecessary-Every one who embraced the system instantly became a champion. It worked like leaven. A man had hardly taken the infection before he communicated it to all around him. It spread like sound in every possible direction, and like that, seemed to multiply itself by diffusion. It was not long before the policy, skill and success of our Reformer were acknowledged even by his very opposers. Jerome exhorted him to preach in public, what he taught his disciples in secret, "Nam," says he," nam ecclesiæ victoria est, vos aperte dicere quod sentitis." An open avowal of the system at this time would have been its ruin. The good man had to teach truth where he dared not even propose it in intelligible terms: his only chance of success was so to disguise it that with most it would be mistaken for errour. Had the first preachers of Christianity been placed in such circumstances we doubt whether they would have discovered the policy displayed by our Reformer. He was evidently as partial to the term grace as the church was to what was signified by it, and he gave it a great variety of significations which enabled him to use it the more frequently.

In no point did he more fully display his generalship than in making the term express that which was its opposite, and which he intended should supplant it. The church had such views of the divine law, that they believed that freewill could keep none of its commands, and that grace was necessary to produce any obedience. Pelagius believed VOL. IV.

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that free-will could perfectly keep the whole, and that grace was wholly unnecessary-and what does he do? He ventured to call free-will by the name of grace and introduce it into the church under that name. God he says, has bestowed on man the possibility of keeping all his commands. When he comes to explain himself, he tells us that by this possibility he means free-will, which he concedes is not only a possibility of keeping them all, but also of breaking them all-he meant precisely what late divines understand by natural ability-But as this free-will is what we are all born with, he proves that it is proper to regard it as the gift of God, and so to call it grace. This was the true secret of the good man's orthodoxy; he contrived to use orthodox language to teach heresy, and his example and success have certainly seemed to justify the same efforts in later times.

He devised another stratagem to disseminate truth. He contrived not only to conceal the potion administered, but also to mix it with something else which should make it palatable. In his letter to Demetrias, (to be sure it was a lady he was addressing) he uses flattery most profusely. Nothing makes a man so soon pleased with an argument, as to make him first pleased with himself; and though this is not classed as a distinct method of reasoning in any of our regular systems of logic, there is no doubt that it is more powerful than any laid down in those valuable works. He who can sway the passions of the multitude, is thenceforth absolute master of their reason. Indeed it is passion which guides mankind in the search and reception of truth, and reason does little more than come in afterwards to justify the decisions of passion. Pelagius indeed had a perfect right to make use of the constitutional desire of praise in disseminating truth. The fact is that the passions of the human heart, or as they are now called, our innocent constitutional emotions, are the great springs of all human actions the great sources of all crimes and of all that is called human virtue, and they have almost as much influence on the understanding as they have on the conduct: in fact they decide ten questions where reason does one. The reformer who has the sagacity and skill to enlist men's passions and interests on the side of truth, will not labour long without seeing success crown his efforts. This fact seems to be perfectly understood by many of our moral