s of its author. The difference
between them was, that the sensible experience of the one furnished him
with only the human element of religion, which was unduly magnified by
him; while the divine element was the great prominent fact in the
consciousness of the other, who accordingly rendered it too exclusive in
the formation of his views. The one elevated the human element of religion
at the expense of the divine; the other permitted the majesty of the
divine to overshadow the human, and cause it to disappear.

The causes which induced Augustine to take this sublime but one-sided view
of religion may be easily understood. In the early part of his life, he
abandoned himself to vicious excesses; being hurried away, to use a
metaphor, by the violence of his appetites and passions. His conscience,
no doubt, often reproved him for such a course of life, and gave rise to
many resolutions of amendment. But experience taught him that he could not
transform and mould his own character at pleasure. He lacked those views
of truth, and those feelings of reverence and love to God, without which
true obedience is impossible. Hence he struggled in vain. He felt his own
impotency. He still yielded to the importunities of appetite and passion.
Of a sudden, however, he finds his views of divine things changed, and his
religious sensibilities awakened. He knows this marvellous transformation
is not effected by himself. He ascribes it, and he truly ascribes it, to
the power of God; by which he has been brought from a region of darkness
to light. Old things had passed away, and all things become new.

But now observe the precise manner in which the error of Augustine takes
its rise in his mind. He, too, as well as Pelagius, confounds the passive
susceptibility of the heart with a voluntary state of the will. The
intelligence and the sensibility are the only elements in his psychology;
the states of them, which are necessitated, constitute all the phenomena
of the human mind. Holiness, according to him, consists in a feeling of
love to God. He knows this is derived from the divine agency; and hence he
concludes, that the whole work of conversion is due to God, and no part of
it is performed by himself. I know, says he, that I did not make myself
love God, by which he means a feeling of love; and this he takes to be
true holiness, which has been wrought in his heart by the power of God.
"Love is the fulfilling of the law; but love to God is n