N05663:487
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.
AS Arminian Notions of that Liberty, which is essential to Virtue or Vice, are inconsistent with common Sense, in their being inconsistent with all virtuous or vicious Habits and Dispositions; so they are no less so in their Inconsistency with all Influence of Motives in moral Actions.
AS Arminian Notions of that Liberty, which is essential to Vertue or Vice, are inconsistent with common Sense, in their being inconsistent with all vertuous or vicious Habits and Dispositions; so they are no less so in their Inconsistency with all Influence of Motives in moral Actions.
'Tis equally against those Notions of Liberty of Will, whether there be, previous to the Act of Choice, a Preponderancy of the Inclination, or a Preponderancy of those Circumstances, which have a Tendency to move the Inclination. And indeed it comes to just the same Thing: To say, the Circumstances of the Mind are such as tend to sway and turn it's Inclination one Way, is the same Thing as to say, the Inclination of the Mind, as under such Circumstances, tends that Way.
Or if any think it most proper to say, that Motives do alter the Inclination, and give a new Bias to the Mind; it will not alter the Case, as to the present Argument. For if Motives operate by giving the Mind an Inclination, then they operate by destroying the Mind's Indifference, and laying it under a Bias. But to do this, is to destroy the Arminian Freedom: It is not to leave the Will to it's own Self-determination, but to bring it into Subjection to the Power of something extrinsic, which operates upon it, sways and determines it, previous to it's own Determination. So that what is done from Motive, can't be either virtuous or vicious—And besides, if the Acts of the Will are excited by Motives, those Motives are the Causes of those Acts of the Will: which makes the Acts of the Will necessary; as Effects necessarily follow the Efficiency of the Cause. And if the Influence and Power of the Motive causes the Volition, then the Influence of the Motive determines Volition, and Volition don't determine it self; and so is not free, in the Sense of Arminians (as has been largely shown already) and consequently can be neither virtuous nor vicious.