N05663:463
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.
2. By Sincerity is meant, not merely a Reality of Will and Endeavour of some Sort or other, and from some Consideration or other, but a virtuous Sincerity. That is, that in the Performance of those particular Acts that are the Matter of Virtue or Duty, there be not only the Matter, but the Form and Essence of Virtue, consisting in the Aim that governs the Act, and the Principle exercised in it. There is not only the Reality of the Act, that is as it were the Body of the Duty; but also the Soul, which should properly belong to such a ⟨p. 176⟩Body. In this Sense, a Man is said to be sincere, when he acts with a pure Intention; not from sinister Views, or bye-Ends: He not only in Reality desires and seeks the Thing to be done, or Qualification to be obtained, for some End or other; But he wills the Thing directly and properly, as neither forced nor bribed; the Virtue of the Thing is properly the Object of the Will.
2. By Sincerity is meant, not meerly a Reality of Will and Endeavour of some Sort or other, and from some Consideration or other, but a vertuous Sincerity. That is, that in the Performance of those particular Acts that are the Matter of Vertue or Duty, there be not only the Matter, but the Form and Essence of Vertue, consisting in the Aim that governs the Act, and the Principle exercised in it. There is not only the Reality of the Act, that is as it were the Body of the Duty; but also the Soul, which should properly belong to such a ⟨p. 176⟩Body. In this Sense, a Man is said to be sincere, when he acts with a pure Intention; not from sinister Views, or bye-Ends: He not only in Reality desires and seeks the Thing to be done, or Qualification to be obtain'd, for some End or other; But he wills the Thing directly and properly, as neither forced nor bribed; the Vertue of the Thing is properly the Object of the Will.
In the former Sense, a Man is said to be sincere, in Opposition to a mere Pretence, and Show of the particular Thing to be done or exhibited, without any real Desire or Endeavour at all. In the latter Sense, a Man is said to be sincere, in Opposition to that Show of Virtue there is in merely doing the Matter of Duty, without the Reality of the Virtue it self in the Soul, and the Essence of it, which there is a Show of. A Man may be sincere in the former Sense, and yet in the latter be in the Sight of God, who searches the Heart, a vile Hypocrite.