N05663:175
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.
2. There is no great Difficulty in showing, in such Instances as are alleged, not only that it must needs be so, that the Mind must be influenced in it's Choice by something that has a preponderating Influence upon it, but also how it is so. A little Attention to our own Experience, and a distinct Consideration of the Acts of our own Minds in such Cases, will be sufficient to clear up the Matter.
2. There is no great Difficulty in shewing, in such Instances as are alledged, not only that it must needs be so, that the Mind must be influenced in it's Choice by something that has a preponderating Influence upon it, but also how it is so. A little Attention to our own Experience, and a distinct Consideration of the Acts of our own Minds in such Cases, will be sufficient to clear up the Matter.
Thus, supposing I have a Chess-board before me; and because I am required by a Superior, or desired by a Friend, or to make some Experiment concerning my own Ability and Liberty, or on some other Consideration, I am determined to touch some one of the Spots or Squares on the Board with my Finger; not being limited or directed in the first Proposal, or my own first Purpose, which is general, to any one in particular; and there being nothing in the Squares in themselves considered, that recommends any one of all the sixty four, more than another: In this Case, my Mind determines to give it self up to what is vulgarly called Accident, ‡by determining to touch that Square which happens to be most in View, which my Eye is especially upon at that Moment, or which happens to be then most in my Mind, or which I shall be directed to by some other such-like Accident. Here are several Steps of the Mind's proceeding (tho' all may be done as it were in a Moment) the first Step is it's general Determination that it will touch one of the Squares. The next Step is another general Determination to give it self up to Accident, in some certain Way; as to touch that which shall be most in the Eye or Mind at that Time, or to some other such-like Accident. The third and last Step is a particular Determination to touch a certain individual Spot, even that Square, which, by that Sort of Accident the Mind