N05663:143
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.
But if once this grand Principle of common Sense •e given up, that what is not necessary in it self, must have a Cause; and we begin to maintain, that Things may come into Existence, and begin to be, which heretofore have not been, of themselves, without any Cause; all our Means of ascending in our arguing from the Creature to the Creator, and all our Evidence of the Being of God, is cut off at one Blow. In this Case, we can't prove that there is a God, either from the Being of the World, and the Creatures in it, or from the Manner of their Being, their Order, Beauty and Use. For if Things may come into Existence without any Cause at all, then they doubtless may without any Cause answerable to the Effect. Our Minds do alike naturally suppose and determine both these Things; namely, that what begins to be has a Cause, and also that it has a Cause proportionable and agreeable to the Effect. The same Principle which leads us to determine, that there cannot be any Thing coming to pass without a Cause, leads us to determine that there cannot be more in the Effect than in the Cause.
But if once this grand Principle of common Sense •e given up, that what is not necessary in it self, must have a Cause; and we begin to maintain, that Things may come into Existence, and begin to be, which heretofore have not been, of themselves, without any Cause; all our Means of ascending in our arguing from the Creature to the Creator, and all our Evidence of the Being of God, is cut off at one Blow. In this Case, we can't prove that there is a God, either from the Being of the World, and the Creatures in it, or from the Manner of their Being, their Order, Beauty and Use. For if Things may come into Existence without any Cause at all, then they doubtless may without any Cause answerable to the Effect. Our Minds do alike naturally suppose and determine both these Things; namely, that what begins to be has a Cause, and also that it has a Cause proportionable and agreable to the Effect. The same Principle which leads us to determine, that there cannot be any Thing coming to pass without a Cause, leads us to determine that there cannot be more in the Effect than in the Cause.