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Theological Results.
[PART II,
good and evil, of life and death, within his hands. There is in us the possibility of either; one and the same thing may be a root of all kinds of virtue, or a root of all kinds of wickedness. Pelagius leaves the freedom of humanity in a condition of indifferent equipoise towards the opposite poles of the moral universe. According to him, "the human will is, as it were, the eternal Hercules at the cross road, who takes first a step to the right, then a step to the left, and ever returns to his former position." Pelagius, indeed, acknowledged the power of habit ; but beyond that he seemed to know of nothing which touched the freedom of the will. He maintained that it received no bias from anything external to itself. As to ability, he considered man to be now the same as Adam was before the fall. Adam was created in a state of thorough freedom, and man is born in the same state. There is the same power to do right now as at the beginning. Pelagius speaks of three elements in human goodness-power, volition, act; the first pertaining to our nature ; the second to our will ; the third to our conduct. Divine grace is reduced by him to the bountifulness of God in nature, to the gift of a supernatural revelation in Scripture, and to the bestowment on individuals of pardon for past sins. And here it is worthy of notice that he speaks of this as a justification -a declaring of any one righteous. Also he allows a gracious strengthening of the human will through the power of instruction and example; and he seems to go beyond this by saying : " In those not Christians, good exists in a condition of nakedness and helplessness ; but in Christians it acquires vigour through the assistance of Christ." He also distinguishes between different stages of human improvement in a way which involves an idea