N05663:25
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.
IT may possibly be thought, that there is no great Need of going about to define or describe the Will; this Word being generally as well understood as any other Words we can use to explain it: And so perhaps it would be, had not Philosophers, Metaphysicians and Polemic Divines brought the Matter into Obscurity by the Things they have said of it. But since it is so, I think it may be of some Use, and will tend to the greater Clearness in the following Discourse, to say a few Things concerning it.
And therefore I observe, that the Will (without any metaphysical Refining) is plainly, That by which the Mind ch•ses any Thing. The Faculty of the Will is that Faculty or Power or Principle of Mind by which it is capable of choosing: An Act of the Will is the same as an Act of Choosing or Choice.
And therefore I observe, that the Will (without any metaphysical Refining) is plainly, That by which the Mind ch•ses any Thing. The Faculty of the Will is that Faculty or Power or Principle of Mind by which it is capable of chusing: An Act of the Will is the same as an Act of Chusing or Choice.
If any think 'tis a more perfect Definition of the Will, to say, that it is that by which the Soul either chooses or refuses; I am content with it: tho' I think that 'tis enough to say, It's that by which the Soul chooses: For in every Act of Will whatsoever, the Mind chooses one Thing rather than another; it chooses something rather than the Contrary, or rather than the Want or Non-Existence of that Thing. So in every Act of Refusal, the Mind chooses the Absence of the Thing refused; The Positive and the Negative are set before the Mind for it's Choice, and it chooses the Negative; and the Mind's making it's Choice in that Case is properly the Act of the Will: The Will's determining between the two is a voluntary determining; but that is the same Thing as making a Choice. So that whatever Names we call the Act of the Will by, Choosing, Refusing, Approving, Disapproving, Liking, Disliking, Embracing, Rejecting, Determining, Directing, Commanding, Forbidding, Inclining or being averse, a being pleased or displeased with; all may be reduced to this of Choosing. For the Soul to act voluntarily, is evermore to act electively.