N05663:267
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.
3. This Author not only speaks of Motives as the Ground and Reason of Action, by prevailing Influence; but expressly of their Influence as prevailing FOR THE PRODUCTION of an Action, in the same P. 317: which makes the Inconsistency still more palpable and notorious. The Production of an Effect is certainly the Causing of an Effect; and productive Influence is causal Influence, if any Thing is; And that which has this Influence prevalently, so as thereby to become the Ground of another Thing, is a Cause of that Thing, if there be any such Thing as a Cause. This Influence, Mr. Chubb says, Motives have to produce an Action▪ and yet he says, 'tis absurd and a Contradiction, to say they are Causes.
3. This Author not only speaks of Motives as the Ground and Reason of Action, by prevailing Influence; but expresly of their Influence as prevailing FOR THE PRODUCTION of an Action, in the same P. 317: which makes the Inconsistency still more palpable and notorious. The Production of an Effect is certainly the Causing of an Effect; and productive Influence is causal Inf•uence, if any Thing is; And that which has this Influence prevalently, so as thereby to become the Ground of another Thing, is a Cause of that Thing, if there be any such Thing as a Cause. This Influence, Mr. Chubb says, Motives have to produce an Action▪ and yet he says, 'tis absurd and a Contradiction, to say they are Causes.
4. In the same Page, He once and again speaks of Motives as disposing the Agent to Action, by their Influence. His ⟨p. 97⟩Words are these: As Motive, which takes Place in the Understanding, and is the Product of Intelligence, is NECESSARY to Action, that is, to the EXERTION of the active Faculty, because that Faculty would not be exerted without some PREVIOUS REASON to DISPOSE the Mind to Action; so from hence it plainly appears, that when a Man is said to be disposed to one Action rather than another, this properly signifies the PREVAILING INFLUENCE that one Motive has upon a Man FOR THE PRODUCTION of an Action, or for the being at Rest, before all other Motives, for the Production of the contrary. For as Motive is the Ground and Reason of any Action, so the Motive that prevails, DISPOSES the Agent to the Performance of that Action.