Nothing disagreeable marked these apostles of the new philosophy, nor could the malignant voice of theological hatred and envy bring upon their lives either scandal or reproach.  They had none of the infirmities which so often have dimmed the lustre of great benefactors.  They were not dogmatic like Luther, nor severe like Calvin, nor intolerant like Knox.  Pelagius, especially, was a most interesting man, though more of a philosopher than a Christian.  Like Zeno, he exalted the human will; like Aristotle, he subjected all truth to the test of logical formularies; like Abelard, he would believe nothing which he could not explain or comprehend.  Self-confident, like Servetus, he disdained the Cross.  The central principle of his teachings was man’s ability to practise any virtue, independently of divine grace.  He made perfection a thing easy to be attained.  There was no need, in his eyes, as his adversaries maintained, of supernatural aid in the work of salvation.  Hence a Saviour was needless.  By faith, he is represented to mean mere intellectual convictions, to be reached through the reason alone.  Prayer was useful simply to stimulate a man’s own will.  He was further represented as repudiating miracles as contrary to reason, of abhorring divine sovereignty as fatal to the exercise of the will, of denying special providences as opposing the operation of natural laws, as rejecting native depravity and maintaining that the natural tendency of society was to rise in both virtue and knowledge, and of course rejecting the idea of a Devil tempting man to sin.  “His doctrines,” says one of his biographers, “were pleasing to pride, by flattering its pretension; to nature, by exaggerating its power; and to reason, by extolling its capacity.”  He asserted that death was not the penalty of Adam’s transgression; he denied the consequences of his sin; and he denied the spiritual resurrection of man by the death of Christ, thus rejecting him as a divine Redeemer.  Why should there be a divine redemption if man could save himself?  He blotted out Christ from the book of life by representing him merely as a martyr suffering for the declaration of truths which were not appreciated,—­like Socrates at Athens, or Savonarola at Florence.  In support of all these doctrines, so different from those of Paul, he appealed, not to the apostle’s authority, but to human reason, and sought the aid of Pagan philosophy, rather than the Scriptures, to arrive at truth.

Thus was Pelagius represented by his opponents, who may have exaggerated his heresies, and have pushed his doctrines to a logical sequence which he would not accept but would even repel, in the same manner as the Pelagians drew deductions from the teachings of Augustine which were exceedingly unfair,—­making God the author of sin, and election to salvation to depend on the foreseen conduct of men in regard to an obedience which they had no power to perform.