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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.
And this Dictate of common Sense equally respects Substances and Modes, or Things and the Manner and Circumstances of Things. Thus, if we see a Body which has hitherto been at Rest, start out of a State or Rest, and begin to move, we do as naturally and necessarily suppose there is some Cause or Reason of this new Mode of Existence, as of the Existence of a Body it self which had hitherto not existed. And so if a Body, which had hitherto moved in a certain Direction, should suddenly change the Direction of its Motion; or if it should put off it's old Figure, and take a new one; or change it's Colour: the Beginning of these new M•des is a new Event, and the Mind of Mankind necessarily supposes that there is some Cause or Reason of them.
And this Dictate of common Sense equally respects Substances and Modes, or Things and the Manner and Circumstances of Things. Thus, if we see a Body which has hitherto been at Rest, start out of a State or Rest, and begin to move, we do as naturally and necessarily suppose there is some Cause or Reason of this new Mode of Existence, as of the Existence of a Body it self which had hitherto not existed. And so if a Body, which had hitherto moved in a certain Direction, should suddenly change the Direction of its Motion; or if it should put off it's old Figure, and take a new one; or change it's Colour: the Beginning of these new M•des is a new Event, and the Mind of Mankind n••essarily supposes that there is some Cause or Reason of them.
If this grand Principle of common Sense be taken away, all Arguing from Effects to Causes ceaseth, and so all Knowledge of any Existence, besides what we have by the most direct and immediate Intuition. Particularly all our Proof of the Being of God ceases: We argue his Being from our own Being, and the Being of other Things, which we are sensible once were not, but have begun to be; and from the Being of the World, with all it's constituent Parts, and the Manner of their Existence; all which we see plainly are not necessary in their own Nature, and so not Self-existent, and therefore must have a Cause. But if Things, not in themselves necessary, may begin to be without a Cause, all this arguing i vain.