N05663:281
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.
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, 1 Kings xiii.1,—6, 32. This Prophecy was also in Effect a Prediction of the moral Conduct of the People, in upholding their Schismatical and Idolatrous Worship 'till that Time, and the Idolatry of those Priests of the high Places, which it is foretold Josiah should offer upon that Altar of Bethel.—Micaiah foretold the foolish and sinful Conduct of Ahab, in refusing to hearken to the Word of the Lord by him, and choosing rather to hearken to the false Prophets, in going to Ramoth-Gilead to his Ruin, 1 Kings xxi.20,—22.— The moral Conduct of Hazael was foretold, •n that Cruelty he should be guilty of; on which Hazael says, What, is thy Servant a Dog, that he should do this Thing! The Prophet speaks of the Event as what he knew, and not what he conjectured.