A complete body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…A compleat body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…

1. WHAT are we to understand by an action? Ans. AN action, in the common nation of it, is the application of the faculty to the object. In every agent we consider a power which is in it, and that seated in the faculties, and is in them a principle of operation, which is called the habit; and is that whereby it is fitted to serve to its end: and there is such a power in every faculty, and that various, according to the end and use of it. Hence, there is the intellectual power, and the visive power, &c Now whensoever this power is exerted by any faculty in the creature, that is property an action; and that is always by applying to an object. Now these actions are some natural, and some rational and spontaneous. Hence the distinction between natural and voluntary agents; and these latter are either elicit […] imperate. Elicit are such as do immediately proceed from the will at the dictate and direction of the understanding, as choosing and refusing: imperate are, such as are performed by the other powers in man at the command of the will. These actions again are divided into thoughts, words and deeds: the former whereof are performed in and by the heart or inner man; the latter by the outward man or bodily members. And because these are all of them under the influence of the understanding and will, they are therefore called humane actions; and all such come under our present consideration. Here also we are to observe, under the head of actions we rank omissions; not only because they refer unto them negatively; but also because they are in some sort voluntary, and there is, at least implicitly, an elicit act of the will about them; in which respect they may come under the denomination of actual sins.

1. WHAT are we to understand by an action? Ans. AN action, in the common nation of it, is the application of the saculty to the object. In every agent we consider a power which is in it, and that seated in the faculties, and is in them a principle of operation, which is called the habit; and is that whereby it is sitted to serve to its end: and there is such a power in every faculty, and that various, according to the end and use of it. Hence, there is the intellectual power, and the visive power, &c Now whensoever this power is exerted by any faculty in the creature, that is property an action; and that is always by applying to an object. Now these actions are some natural, and some rational and spontaneous. Hence the distinction between natural and voluntary agents; and these latter are either elicit 〈…〉 imperate. Elicit are such as do immediately proceed from the will at the dictate and direction of the understanding, as chusing and refusing: imperate are, such as are performed by the other powers in man at the command of the will. These actions again are divided into thoughts, words and deeds: the former whereof are performed in and by the heart or inner man; the latter by the outward man or bodily members. And because these are all of them under the influence of the understanding and will, they are therefore called humane actions; and all such come under our present consideration. Here also we are to observe, under the head of actions we rank omissions; not only because they refer unto them negatively; but also because they are in some sort voluntary, and there is, at least implicitly, an elicit act of the will about them; in which respect they may come under the denomination of actual sins.