A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of…

I have been the longer in the Proof of this Matter, it being a Thing denied by some of the greatest Arminians, by Episcopius in particular; and because I look upon it as a Point clearly and absolutely determining the Controversy between Calvinists and Arminians, concerning the Necessity of such a Freedom of Will as is insisted on by the latter, in order to moral Agency, Virtue, Command or Prohibition, Promise or Threatening, Reward or Punishment, Praise or Dispraise, Merit or Demerit. I now therefore proceed,

I have been the longer in the Proof of this Matter, it being a Thing denied by some of the greatest Arminians, by Episcopius in particular; and because I look upon it as a Point clearly and absolutely determining the Controversy between Calvinists and Arminians, concerning the Necessity of such a Freedom of Will as is insisted on by the latter, in order to moral Agency, Vertue, Command or Prohibition, Promise or Threatning, Reward or Punishment, Praise or Dispraise, Merit or Demerit. I now therefore proceed,

II. To consider whether CHRIST, in his holy Behaviour on Earth, was not thus a moral Agent, subject to Commands, Premises, &c.—

Dr. Whitby very often speaks of what he calls a Freedom ad utrumlibet, without Necessity, as requisite to Law and Commands; and speaks of Necessity as entirely inconsistent with Injunctions and Prohibitions. But yet we read of Christ's being the Subject of the Commands of his Father, Joh. x.18. and xv.10. And Christ tells us, that every Thing that He said, or did, was in Compliance with Commandments he had received of the Father; Joh. xii.49, 50. & xiv.31. And we often read of Christ's Obedience to his Father's Commands,