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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
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.
1. That it derogates no more from the Goodness of God, to suppose the Exercise of the Benevolence of his Nature to be determined by Wisdom, than to suppose it determined by Chance, and that his Favours are bestowed altogether at Random, his Will being determined by nothing but perfect Accident, without any End or Design whatsoever; which must be the Case, as has been demonstrated, if Volition be not determined by a prevailing Motive. That which is owing to perfect Contingence, wherein neither previous Inducement, nor antecedent Choice has any Hand, is not owing more to Goodness or Benevolence, than that which is owing to the Influence of a wise End.
1. That it derogates no more from the Goodness of God, to suppose the Exercise of the Benevolence of his Nature to be determin'd by Wisdom, than to suppose it determined by Chance, and that his Favours are bestowed altogether at Random, his Will being determin'd by nothing but perfect Accident, without any End or Design whatsoever; which must be the Case, as has been demonstrated, if Volition be not determined by a prevailing Motive. That which is owing to perfect Contingence, wherein neither previous Inducement, nor antecedent Choice has any Hand, is not owing more to Goodness or Benevolence, than that which is owing to the Influence of a wise End.
2. 'Tis acknowledged, that if the Motive that determines the Will of God, in the Choice of the Objects of his Favours, be any moral Quality in the Object, recommending that Object to his Benevolence above others, his choosing that Object is not so great a Manifestation of the Freeness and Sovereignty of his Grace, as if it were otherwise. But there is no Necessity of supposing this, in order to our supposing that he has some ⟨p. 250⟩wise End in View, in determining to bestow his Favours on one Person rather than another. We are to distinguish between the Merit of the Object of God's Favour, or a moral Qualification of the Object attracting that Favour and recommending to it, and the natural Fitness of such a Determination of the Act of God's Goodness, to answer some wise Design of his own, some End in the View of God's Omniscience.— 'Tis God's own Act, that is the proper and immediate Object of his Volition.