N05663:327
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.
3. 'Tis also very manifest, that▪ those Things which are indissolubly connected with other Things that are necessary; are Themselves necessary. As that Proposition whose Truth is necessarily connected with another Proposition, which is necessarily true, is itself necessarily true. To say otherwise, would be a Contradiction; it would be in Effect to say, that the Connection was indissoluble, and yet was not so, but might be broken. If That, whose Existence is indissolubly connected with something whose Existence is now necessary, is it self not necessary, then it may possibly not exist, notwithstanding that indissoluble Connection of it's Existence.— Whether the Absurdity be not glaring, let the Reader judge.
3. 'Tis also very manifest, that▪ those Things which are indissolubly connected with other Things that are necessary; are Themselves necessary. As that Proposition whose Truth is necessarily connected with another Proposition, which is necessarily true, is itself necessarily true. To say otherwise, would be a Contradiction; it would be in Effect to say, that the Connection was indissoluble, and yet was not so, but might be broken. If That, whose Existence is indissolubly connected with something whose Existence is now necessary, is it self not necessary, then it may possibly not exist, notwithstanding that indissoluble Connection of it's Existence.— Whether the Absurdity ben't glaring, let the Reader judge.
4. 'Tis no less evident, that if there be a full, certain and infallible Foreknowledge of the future Existence of the Volitions of moral Agents, then there is a certain infallible and indissoluble Connection between those Events and that Foreknowledge; and that therefore, by the preceding Observations, those Events are necessary Events; being infallibly and indissolubly connected with that whose Existence already is, and so is now necessary, and can't but have been.
4. 'Tis no less evident, that if there be a full, certain and infallible Foreknowledge of the future Existence of the Volitions of moral Agents, then there is a certain infallible and indissoluble Connection between those Events and that Foreknowledge; and that therefore, by the preceeding Observations, those Events are necessary Events; being infallibly and indissolubly connected with that whose Existence already is, and so is now necessary, and can't but have been.