reveals and divine authority confirms.  It took a greater than Abelard to show the tendency of his speculations, from the logical sequence of which even he himself would have fled, and which he did reject when misfortunes had broken his heart, and disease had brought him to face the realities of the future life.  So God raised up Pascal to expose the sophistries of the Jesuits and unravel that subtle casuistry which was undermining the morality of the age, and destroying the authority of Saint Augustine on some of the most vital principles which entered into the creed of the Catholic Church.  Thus Jonathan Edwards, the ablest theologian which this country has seen, controverted the fashionable Arminianism of his day.  Thus some great intellectual giant will certainly and in due time appear to demolish with scathing irony the theories and speculations of some of the progressive schools of our day, and present their absurdities and boastings and pretensions in such a ridiculous light that no man with any intellectual dignity will dare to belong to their fraternity, unless he impiously accepts—­sometimes with ribald mockeries—­the logical sequence of their doctrines.

Now it was not the Manicheans or Donatists who were the most dangerous people in the time of Augustine,—­nor were their doctrines likely to be embraced by the Christian schools, especially in the West; but it was the Pelagians who in high places were assailing the Pauline theology.  And they advocated principles which lay at the root of most of the subsequent controversies of the Church.  They were intellectual men, generally good men, who could not be put down, and who would thrive under any opposition.  Augustine did not attack the character of these men, but rendered a great service to the Church by pointing out, clearly and luminously, the antichristian character of their theories, when rigorously pushed out, by a remorseless logic, to their necessary sequence.

Whatever value may be attached to that science which is based on deductions drawn from the truths of revelation, certain it is that it was theology which most interested Christians in the time of Augustine, as in the time of Athanasius; and his controversy with the Pelagians made then a mighty stir, and is at the root of half the theological discussions from that age to ours.  If we would understand the changes of human thought in the Middle Ages, if we would seek to know what is most vital in Church history, that celebrated Pelagian controversy claims our special attention.

It was at a great crisis in the Church when a British monk of extraordinary talents, persuasive eloquence, and great attainments,—­a man accustomed to the use of dialectical weapons and experienced by extensive travels, ambitious, ardent, plausible, adroit,—­appeared among the churches and advanced a new philosophy.  His name was Pelagius; and he was accompanied by a man of still greater logical power than he himself possessed, though not so eloquent or accomplished or pleasing in manner, who was called Celestius,—­two doctors of whom the schools were justly proud, and who were admired and honored by enthusiastic young men, as Abelard was in after-times.