N05663:268
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.
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.
Now, if Motives dispose the Mind to Action, then they cause the Mind to be disposed; and to cause the Mind to be disposed, is to cause it to be willing; and to cause it to be willing, is to cause it to will; and that is the same Thing as to be the Cause of an Act of the Will. And yet this same Mr. Chubb holds it to be absurd, to suppose Motive to be a Cause of the Act of the Will.
And if we compare these Things together, we have here again a whole Heap of Inconsistencies. Motives are the previous Ground and Reason of the Acts of the Will; yea, the necessary Ground & Reason of their Exertion, without which they will not be exerted, and cannot in the Nature of Things take Place; and they do excite these Acts of the Will, and do this by a prevailing Influence; yea, an Influence which prevails for the Production of the Act of the Will, and for the disposing of the Min• to it: And yet 'tis absurd, to suppose Motive to be a Cause of an Act of the Will, or that a Principle of Will is moved or caused to be exerted by it, or that it has any Causality in the Production of it, or any Causality to be the Cause of the Exertion of the Will.