N05663:276
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
Part 2 › Section 11: The Evidence of GOD's certain Foreknowledge of the Volitions of moral Agents.
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.
One would think, it should be wholly needless to enter on such an Argument with any that profess themselves Christians: But so it is; God's certain Foreknowledge of the free Acts of moral Agents, is denied by some that pretend to believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God; and especially of late. I therefore shall consider the Evidence of such a Prescience in the most High, as fully as the designed Limits of this Essay will admit of; supposing my self herein to have to do with such as own the Truth of the Bible.
ARG. I. My first Argument shall be taken from God's Prediction of such Events. Here I would in the first Place lay down these two Things as Axiom,.
(1.) If God don't foreknow, He can't foretell such Events; that is, He can't peremptorily and certainly foretell them. If God has no more than an uncertain Guess concerning Events of this Kind, then He can declare no more than an uncertain Guess. Positively to foretell, is to profess to foreknow, or to declare positive Foreknowledge.
(1.) If God don't foreknow, He can't foretell such Events; that is, He can't peremptorily and certainly foretell them. If God has no more than an uncertain Guess concerning Events of this Kind, then He can declare no more than an uncertain Guess. Positively to foretell, is to profess to foreknow, or to declare positive Foreknowlege.