A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of…

(1.) If all that is meant, be, that the determining Act is not before the Act determined in Order of Time, it will not help the Case at all, tho' it should be allowed. If it be before ⟨p. 38⟩the determined Act in the Order of Nature, being the Cause or Ground of it's Existence, this as much proves it to be distinct from it, and independent on it, as if it were before in the Order of Time. As the Cause of the particular Motion of a natural Body in a certain Direction, may have no Distance as to Time, yet can't be the same with the Motion effected by it, but must be as distinct from it, as any other Cause, that is before it's Effect in the Order of Time: as the Architect is distinct from the House which he builds, or the Father distinct from the Son which he begets. And if the Act of the Will determining be distinct from the Act determined, and before it in the Order of Nature, then we can go back from one to another, 'till we come to the first in the Series, which has no Act of the Will before it in the Order of Nature, determining it; and consequently is an Act not determined by the Will, and so not a free Act, in this Notion of Freedom. And this being the Act which determines all the Rest, none of them are free Acts. As when there is a Chain of many Links, the first of which only is taken hold of and drawn by Hand; all the rest may follow and be moved at the same Instant, without any Distance of Time; but yet the Motion of one Link is before that of another in the Order of Nature; the last is moved by the next, and that by the next, and so 'till we come to the first; which not being moved by any other, but by something distinct from the whole Chain, this as much proves that no Part is moved by any Self-moving Power in the Chain, as if the Motion of one Link followed that of another in the Order of Time.

(1.) If all that is meant, be, that the determining Act is not before the Act determined in Order of Time, it will not help the Case at all, tho' it should be allowed. If it be before ⟨p. 38⟩the determin'd Act in the Order of Nature, being the Cause or Ground of it's Existence, this as much proves it to be distinct from it, and independent on it, as if it were before in the Order of Time. As the Cause of the particular Motion of a natural Body in a certain Direction, may have no Distance as to Time, yet can't be the same with the Motion effected by it, but must be as distinct from it, as any other Cause, that is before it's Effect in the Order of Time: as the Architect is distinct from the House which he builds, or the Father distinct from the Son which he begets. And if the Act of the Will determining be distinct from the Act determined, and before it in the Order of Nature, then we can go back from one to another, 'till we come to the first in the Series, which has no Act of the Will before it in the Order of Nature, determining it; and consequently is an Act not determined by the Will, and so not a free Act, in this Notion of Freedom. And this being the Act which determines all the Rest, none of them are free Acts. As when there is a Chain of many Links, the first of which only is taken hold of and drawn by Hand; all the rest may follow and be moved at the same Instant, without any Distance of Time; but yet the Motion of one Link is before that of another in the Order of Nature; the last is moved by the next, and that by the next, and so 'till we come to the first; which not being moved by any other, but by something distinct from the whole Chain, this as much proves that no Part is moved by any Self-moving Power in the Chain, as if the Motion of one Link followed that of another in the Order of Time.