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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.
6. If it be so, that God has not a Prescience of the future Actions of moral Agents, it will follow, that the Prophecies of Scripture in general are without Fore-knowledge. For Scripture-Prophecies, almost all of them, if not universally without any Exception, are either Predictions of the Actings and Behaviours of moral Agents, or of Events depending on them, or some Way connected with them; judicial Dispensations, Judgments on Men for their Wickedness, or Rewards of Virtue and Righteousness, remarkable Manifestations of Favour to the Righteous, or Manifestations of sovereign Mercy to Sinners, forgiving their Iniquities, and magnifying the Riches of divine Grace; or Dispensations of Providence, in some Respect or other, relating to the Conduct of the Subjects of God's moral Government, wisely adapted thereto; either providing for what should be in a future State of Things, through the Volitions and voluntary Actions of moral Agents, or consequent upon them, and regulated and ordered according to them. So that all Events that are foretold, are either moral Events, or other Events which are connected with, and accommodated to moral Events.
6. If it be so, that God has not a Prescience of the future Actions of moral Agents, it will follow, that the Prophecies of Scripture in general are without Fore-knowledge. For Scripture-Prophecies, almost all of them, if not universally without any Exception, are either Predictions of the Actings and Behaviours of moral Agents, or of Events depending on them, or some Way connected with them; judicial Dispensations, Judgments on Men for their Wickedness, or Rewards of Vertue and Righteousness, remarkable Manifestations of Favour to the Righteous, or Manifestations of sovereign Mercy to Sinners, forgiving their Iniquities, and magnifying the Riches of divine Grace; or Dispensations of Providence, in some Respect or other, relating to the Conduct of the Subjects of God's moral Government, wisely adapted thereto; either providing for what should be in a future State of Things, through the Volitions and voluntary Actions of moral Agents, or consequent upon them, and regulated and ordered according to them. So that all Events that are foretold, are either moral Events, or other Events which are connected with, and accommodated to moral Events.