N05663:363
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.
HAVING considered the first Thing that was proposed to be enquired into, relating to that Freedom of Will which Arminians maintain; namely, Whether any such Thing does, ever did, or ever can exist, or be conceived of; I come now to the second Thing proposed to be the Subject of Enquiry, viz. Whether any such Kind of Liberty be requisite to moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Praise and Blame, Reward and Punishment, &c.
HAVING considered the first Thing that was proposed to be enquired into, relating to that Freedom of Will which Arminians maintain; namely, Whether any such Thing does, ever did, or ever can exist, or be conceived of; I come now to the second Thing proposed to be the Subject of Enquiry, viz. Whether any such Kind of Liberty be requisite to moral Agency, Vertue and Vice, Praise and Blame, Reward and Punishment, &c.
I shall begin with some Consideration of the Virtue and Agency of the Supreme moral Agent, and Fountain of all Agency and Virtue.
I shall begin with some Consideration of the Vertue and Agency of the Supream moral Agent, and Fountain of all Agency and Vertue.
Dr. Whitby, in his Discourse on the five Points, P. 14. says, If all human Actions are necessary, Virtue and Vice must be empty Names; we being capable of Nothing that is ⟨p. 136⟩blame-worthy, or deserveth Praise; For who can blame a Person for doing only what he could not help, or judge that he deserveth Praise only for what he could not avoid? To the like Purpose he speaks in Places innumerable; especially in his Discourse on the Freedom of the Will; constantly maintaining, that a Freedom not only from Coaction, but Necessity, is absolutely requisite, in order to Actions being either worthy of Blame, or deserving of Praise. And to this agrees, as is well known, the current Doctrine of Arminian Writers; who in general hold, that there is no Virtue or Vice, Reward or Punishment, nothing to be commended or blamed, without this Freedom. And yet Dr. Whitby, P. 300, allows, that God is without this Freedom; And Arminians, so far as I have had Opportunity to observe, generally acknowledge, that God is necessarily holy, and his Will necessarily determined to that which is good.