N05663:159
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.
SECTION V. Showing, that if the Things asserted in these Evasions should be supposed to be true, they are altogether impertinent, and can't help the Cause of Arminian Liberty; And how (this being the State of the Case) Arminian Writers are obliged to talk inconsistently.
SECTION V. Shewing, that if the Things asserted in these Evasions should be supposed to be true, they are altogether impertinent, and can't help the Cause of Arminian Liberty; And how (this being the State of the Case) Arminian Writers are obliged to talk inconsistently.
WHAT was last observed in the preceding Section may show, not only that the active Nature of the Soul can't be a Reason why any Act of the Will is, or why it is in this Manner, rather than another; but also that if it could be so, and it could be proved that Volitions are contingent Events, in that Sense, that their Being and Manner of Being is not fixed or determined by any Cause, or any Thing antecedent; it would not at all serve the Purpose of Arminians, to establish the Freedom of the Will, according to their Notion of it's Freedom, as consisting in the Will's Determination of it's self; whi•• supposes every free Act of the Will to be determined […] Act of the Will going before to determine it; in as •••ch as for the Will to determine a Thing, is the same as for the Soul to determine a Thing by Willing; and there is no Way that the Will can determine an Act of the Will, than by willing that Act of the Will, or, which is the same Thing, choosing it. So that here must be two Acts of the Will in the Case, one going before another, one conversant about the other, and the latter the Object of the former, and chosen by the former. ⟨p. 52⟩If the Will don't cause and determine the Act by Choice, it don't cause or determine it at all; for that which is not determined by Choice, is not determined voluntarily or willingly: And to say, that the Will determines something which the Soul don't determine willingly, is as much as to say, that something is done by the Will, which the Soul don't do with it's Will.