N05663:280
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.
Therefore, how many, how great, and how extensive soever the Consequences of the Volitions of moral Agents may be; tho' they should extend to an Alteration of the State of Things through the Universe, and should be continued in a Series of successive Events to all Eternity, and should in the Progress of Things branch forth into an infinite Number of Series, each of them going on in an endless Line or Chain of Events; God must be as ignorant of all these Consequences, as He is of the Volition whence they first take their Rise: All these Events, and the whole State of Things depending on them, how important, extensive and vast soever, must be hid from him.
These Positions being such as I suppose none will deny, I now proceed to observe the following Things.
1. Men's moral Conduct and Qualities, their Virtues and Vices, their Wickedness and good Practice, Things rewardable and punishable, have often been foretold by God.— Pharaoh's moral Conduct, in refusing to obey God's Command, in letting his People go, was foretold. God says to Moses, Exod. iii.19. I am sure, that the King of Egypt will not let you go. Here God professes not only to guess at, but to know Pharaoh's future Disobedience. In Chap. vii.4. God says, But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; that I may lay mine Hand upon Egypt, &c. And Chap. ix.30. Moses says to Pharaoh, As for thee, and thy Servants, I KNOW that y• will not fear the Lord. See also Chap. xi.9. — The moral Conduct of Josiah, by Name, in his zealously exerting himself in Opposition to Idolatry, in particular Acts of his, was foretold ⟨p. 100⟩above three Hundred Years before he was born, and the Prophecy sealed by a Miracle, and renewed and confirmed by the Words of a second Prophet, as what surely would not fail,