N05663:138
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
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.
I am the more careful thus to explain my Meaning, that I may cut off Occasion, from any that might seek Occasion to •avil and object against some Things which I may say concerning the Dependence of all Things which come to pass, on some Cause, and their Connection with their Cause.
I am the more careful thus to explain my Meaning, that I may cut off Occasion, from any that might seek Occasion to •avil and object against some Things which I may say concerning the Dependance of all Things which come to pass, on some Cause, and their Connection with their Cause.
Having thus explained what I mean by Cause, I assert, that Nothing ever comes to pass without a Cause. What is Self-existent must be from Eternity, and must be unchangeable: But as to all Things that begin to be, they are not Self-existent, and therefore must have some Foundation of their Existence without themselves. — That whatsoever begins to be, which before was not, must have a Cause why it then begins to exist, seems to be the first Dictate of the common and natural Sense which God hath implanted in the Minds of all Mankind, and the main Foundation of all our Reasonings about the Existence of Things, past, present, or to come.
Having thus explain'd what I mean by Cause, I assert, that Nothing ever comes to pass without a Cause. What is Self-existent must be from Eternity, and must be unchangeable: But as to all Things that begin to be, they are not Self-existent, and therefore must have some Foundation of their Existence without themselves. — That whatsoever begins to be, which before was not, must have a Cause why it then begins to exist, seems to be the first Dictate of the common and natural Sense which God hath implanted in the Minds of all Mankind, and the main Foundation of all our Reasonings about the Existence of Things, past, present, or to come.