THE FALL OF MAN 137 



of the tenth article is concerned, we need only to 

 remember that the good works referred to are such as 

 pertain to everlasting life. These are made possible 

 for us only by the grace of Christ, and without them 

 we do not fulfil the chief end for which we are 

 made. That the unregenerate do works which in their 

 motives and immediate results are good, need not be 

 thought to be denied. But these works are defective 

 in being dissociated from the chief purpose and the 

 supernatural destiny for which God created us. 



Such I take to be the teaching of our articles on 

 man's fall and on original sin. It is impossible here 

 to argue at length for the correctness of my interpreta- 

 tion. The point to be insisted on is that our articles 

 omit certain very explicit and objectionable specula- 

 tive corollaries of the doctrine of the fall which are 

 found in other sixteenth-century documents ^ and in 

 many modern treatises.^ It is also to be maintained 

 that what these articles positively and unmistakably 

 assert and define agrees with the catholic doctrine 

 on the subject. This doctrine is found in a wide 

 range of patristic literature, both East and West ;^ is 

 imbedded in the elaborate and partly speculative 

 theology of St. Augustine and his mediaeval successors; * 



^ Some of them are collected by Dr. Tennant, Origin of Sin, note A. 



2 Especially of the "evangelical" type. 



3 Patristic teaching is given by J. B. Mozley, Predestination, ch. 

 iv; and by F. R. Tennant, Sources, chh. xii, xiii. 



4 St. Augustine's position is best expounded by J. B. Mozley, 

 Predestination; and W. Bright, Lessons from the Lives of Three Great 

 Fathers, pp. 157-180; Age of the Fathers, Vol. II., chh. xxxiii, xxxiv. 



