N05663:117
A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of…
A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of will, which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, virtue and vice, reward and punishment, praise and blame. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the church in Stockbridge. ; [One line from Romans]A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of will, which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, vertue and vice, reward and punishment, praise and blame. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the church in Stockbridge. ; [One line from Romans]
printed by S. Kneeland, 1754
Part 2 › Section 2: Several supposed Ways of evading the foregoing Reasoning, considered.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
SECTION II. Several supposed Ways of evading the foregoing Reasoning, considered.
IF to evade the Force of what has been observed, it should be said, that when the Arminians speak of the Will's determining it's own Acts, they don't mean that the Will determines it's Acts by any preceding Act, or that one Act of the Will determines another; but only that the Faculty or Power of Will, or the Soul in the Use of that Power, determines it's own Volitions; and that it does it without any Act going before the Act determined; such an Evasion would be full of the most gross Absurdity.—I confess, it is an Evasion of my own inventing; and I don't know but I should wrong the Arminians, in supposing that any of them would make use of it. But it being as good a […] as I can invent, I would observe upon it a few Things.
IF to evade the Force of what has been observed, it should be said, that when the Arminians speak of the Will's determining it's own Acts, they don't mean that the Will determines it's Acts by any preceeding Act, or that one Act of the Will determines another; but only that the Faculty or Power of Will, or the Soul in the Use of that Power, determines it's own Volitions; and that it does it without any Act going before the Act determined; such an Evasion would be full of the most gross Absurdity.—I confess, it is an Evasion of my own inventing; and I don't know but I should wrong the Arminians, in supposing that any of them would make use of it. But it being as good a 〈…〉 as I can invent, I would observe upon it a few Things.