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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
Part 4: Wherein the chief Grounds of the Reasonings of Arminians, in Support and Defence of the…
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.
PART IV. Wherein the chief Grounds of the Reasonings of Arminians, in Support and Defence of the forementioned Notions of Liberty, moral Agency, &c. and against the opposite Doctrine, are considered.
PART IV. Wherein the chief Grounds of the Reasonings of Arminians, in Support and Defence of the foremention'd Notions of Liberty, moral Agency, &c. and against the opposite Doctrine, are considered.
SECTION I. The Essence of the Virtue and Vice of Dispositions of the Heart, and Acts of the Will, lies not in their Cause, but their Nature.
SECTION I. The Essence of the Vertue and Vice of Dispositions of the Heart, and Acts of the Will, lies not in their Cause, but their Nature.
ONE main Foundation of the Reasons, which are brought to establish the forementioned Notions of Liberty, Virtue, Vice, &c. is a Supposition, that the Virtuousness of the Dispositions or Acts of the Will consists not in the Nature of these Dispositions or Acts, but wholly in the Origin or Cause of them: so that if the Disposition of the Mind or Act of the Will be never so good, yet if the Cause of the Disposition or Act be not our Virtue, there is nothing virtuous or praise-worthy in it; and on the contrary, if the Will in it's Inclination or Acts be never ⟨p. 193⟩so bad, yet unless it arises from something that is our Vice or Fault, there is Nothing vicious or blame-worthy in it. Hence their grand Objection and pretended Demonstration, or Self-Evidence, against any Virtue and Commendableness, or Vice and Blame-worthiness, of those Habits or Acts of the Will, which are not from some virtuous or vicious Determination of the Will it self.