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

But the Word is never used in vulgar Speech in that Sense which Arminian Divines use it in, namely, for the self-determinate Exercise of the Will, or an Exertion of the Soul that arises without any necessary Connection with any Thing foregoing. If a Man does something voluntarily, or as the Effect of his Choice, then in the most proper Sense, and as the Word is most originally and commonly used, he is said to act: But whether that Choice or Volition be self-determined, or no, whether it be connected with foregoing habitual Bias, whether it be the certain Effect of the strongest Motive, or some extrinsic Cause, never comes into Consideration in the Meaning of the Word.

But the Word is never used in vulgar Speech in that Sense which Arminian Divines use it in, namely, for the self-determinate Exercise of the Will, or an Exertion of the Soul that arises without any necessary Connection with any Thing foregoing. If a Man does something voluntarily, or as the Effect of his Choice, then in the most proper Sense, and as the Word is most originally and commonly used, he is said to act: But whether that Choice or Volition be self-determined, or no, whether it be connected with foregoing habitual Bias, whether it be the certain Effect of the strongest Motive, or some extrinsick Cause, never comes into Consideration in the Meaning of the Word.

And if the Word Action is arbitrarily used by some Men otherwise, to suit some Scheme of Metaphysics […] Morality, no Argument can reasonably be founded on such […] of this Term, to prove any Thing but their own Pleasure. For Divines and Philosophers strenuously to urge such Arguments, as tho' they were sufficient to support and demonstrate a whole Scheme of moral Philosophy and Divinity, is certainly to erect a mighty Edifice on the Sand, or rather on a Shadow. And tho' it may now perhaps, thro' Custom, have become natural for 'em to use the Word in this Sense (if that may be called a ⟨p. 203⟩Sense or Meaning, which is so inconsistent with it self) yet this don't prove that it is agreeable to the natural Notions Men have of Things, or that there can be any Thing in the Creation that should answer such a Meaning. And tho' they appeal to Experience, yet the Truth is, that Men are so far from experiencing any such Thing, that it is impossible for 'em to have any Conception of it.