N05663:218
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 IX. Of the Connection of the Acts of the Will with the Dictates of the Understanding.
IT is manifest, that the Acts of the Will are none of them contingent in such a Sense as to be without all Necessity, or so as not to be necessary with a Necessity of Consequence and Connection; because every Act of the Will is some Way connected with the Understanding, and is as the greatest apparent Good is, in the Manner which has already been explained; namely, that the Soul always wills or chooses that which, in the present View of the Mind, considered in the whole of that View, and all that belongs to it, appears most agreeable. Because, as was observed before, No•hing is more evident than that, when Men act voluntarily, and do what they please, then they do what appears most agreeable to them; and to say otherwise, would ⟨p. 77⟩be as much as to affirm, that Men don't choose what appears to suit them best, or what seems most pleasing to them; or that they don't choose what they prefer. Which brings the Matter to a Contradiction.
IT is manifest, that the Acts of the Will are none of them contingent in such a Sense as to be without all Necessity, or so as not to be necessary with a Necessity of Consequence and Connection; because every Act of the Will is some Way connected with the Understanding, and is as the greatest apparent Good is, in the Manner which has already been explained; namely, that the Soul always wills or chuses that which, in the present View of the Mind, considered in the whole of that View, and all that belongs to it, appears most agreable. Because, as was observed before, Nohing is more evident than that, when Men act voluntarily, and do what they please, then they do what appears most agreable to them; and to say otherwise, would