N05663:177
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 so it is in the third and last St•p, It's determining to touch that individual Spot which actually does prevail in the Mind's View. The Mind is not indifferent concerning this; but is influenced by a prevailing Inducement and Reason; which is, that this is a Prosecution of the preceding Determination, which appeared requisite, and was •ix'd before in the second Step.
And so it is in the third and last St•p, It's determining to touch that individual Spot which actually does prevail in the Mind's View. The Mind is not indifferent concerning this; but is influenced by a prevailing Inducement and Reason; which is, that this is a Prosecution of the preceeding Determination, wh•ch appeared requisite, and was •ix'd before in the second Step.
Accident will ever serve a Man, without hindering him a Moment, in such a Case. It will always be so among a Number of Objects in View, one will prevail in the Eye, or in Idea beyond others. When we have our Eyes open in the clear Sun-shine, many Objects strike the Eye at once, and innumerable Images may be at once painted in it by the Rays of Light; but the Attention of the Mind is not equal to several of them at once; or if it be, it don't continue so for any Time. And so it is with Respect to the Ideas o• the Mind in general: Several Ideas are not in equal Strength in the Mind's View and Notice at once; or at least, don't remain so for any sensible Continuance. There is nothing in the World more constantly varying, than the Ideas of the Mind: They don't remain precisely in the same State for the least perceivable Space of Time: as is evident by this, That all perceivable Time is judged and perceived by the Mind only by th• Succession or the successive Changes of it's own Ideas. Therefore while the •iews or Perceptions of the Mnd […] precisely in the same State, there is no perceivable Space or Length of Time, […] no sensible Succession at all.