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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 › Section 7: Concerning the Necessity of the Divine Will.
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.
If God's Will is steadily and surely determined in every Thing by supreme Wisdom, then it is in every Thing necessarily determined to that which is most wise. And certainly it would be a Disadvantage and Indignity, to be otherwise. For if the divine Will was not necessarily determined to that which in every Case is wisest and best, it must be subject to some Degree of undesigning Contingence; and so in the same Degree liable to Evil. To suppose the divine Will liable to be carried hither and thither at Random, by the uncertain Wind of blind Contingence, which is guided by no Wisdom, no Motive, no intelligent Dictate whatsoever, (if any such Thing were possible) would certainly argue a great Degree of Imperfection and Meanness, infinitely unworthy of the Deity.—If it be a Disadvantage, for the divine Will to be attended with this moral Necessity, then the more free from it, and the more left at Random, the greater Dignity and Advantage. And consequently to be perfectly free from the Direction of Understanding, and universally and entirely left to senseless unmeaning Contingence, to act absolutely at Random, would be the supreme Glory.
If God's Will is stead•ly and surely determined in every Thing by supreme Wisdom, then it is in every Thing necessarily determined to that which is most wise. And certainly it would be a Disadvantage and Indignity, to be otherwise. For if the divine Will was not necessarily determin'd to that which in every Case is wisest and best, it must be subject to some Degree of undesigning Contingence; and so in the same Degree liable to Evil. To suppose the divine Will liable to be carried hither and thither at Random, by the uncertain Wind of blind Contingence, which is guided by no Wisdom, no Motive, no intelligent Dictate whatsoever, (if any such Thing were possible) would certainly argue a great Degree of Imperfection and Meanness, infinitely unworthy of the Deity.—If it be a Disadvantage, for the divine Will to be attended with this moral Necessity, then the more free from it, and the more left at Random, the greater Dignity and Advantage. And consequently to be perfectly free from the Direction of Understanding, and universally and entirely left to senseless unmeaning Contingence, to act absolutely at Random, would be the supreme Glory.