N05663:406
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.
If these Things are true, in Dr. Whitby's Sense of Necessity, they will prove all such to be blameless, who are given up of God to Sin, in what they commit after they are thus given up.— That there is suc• a Thing as Men's being judicially given up to Sin, is c•rtain, if the Scripture rightly informs us; such a Thing being often there spoken of: as in Psal. lxxxi.12. So I gave them up to their own Hearts Lust, and they walked in their own Counsels. Act. vii.42. Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the Host of Heaven. Rom. i.24. Wherefore, God also gave them up to Uncleanness, through the Lusts of their own Hearts, to dishonour their own Bodies between Themselves. Ver. 26. For this Cause God gave them up to vile Affections. Ver. 28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their Knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate Mind, to do th•se Things that are not convenient.
'Tis needless to stand particularly to inquire, what God's giving Men up to their own Heart's Lusts signifies: It is sufficient to observe, that hereby is certainly meant God's so ordering or disposing Things, in some Respect or other, either by doing or forbearing to do, as that the Consequence should be Men's continuing in their Sins. So much as Men are given up to, so much is the Consequence of their being given up; whether that be less or more. If God don't order Things so, by Action or Permission, that Sin will be the Consequence, then the Event proves that they are not given up to that Consequence. If Good be the Consequence, instead of Evil, then God's Mercy is to be acknowledged in that Good; which Mercy must be contrary to God's Judgment in giving up to Evil. If the Event must prove that they are given up to Evil as the Consequence, then the Persons who are the Subjects of this Judgment, must be the Subjects of such an Event, and so the Event is necessary.