N05663:527
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.
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.
And if the Word Action is arbitrarily used by some Men otherwise, to suit some Scheme of Metaphysicks 〈…〉 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 demonstr••e 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 agreable 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.