N05663:640
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.
SECTION IX. Concerning that Objection against the Doctrine which has been maintained, that it makes GOD the Author of Sin.
SECTION IX. Concerning that Objection against the Doctrine which has been maintain'd, that it makes GOD the Author of Sin.
'TIS urged by Arminians, that the Doctrine of the Necessity of Men's Volitions, or their necessary Connection with antecedent Events and Circumstances, makes the first Cause, and supreme Orderer of all Things, the Author of Sin; in that he has so constituted the State and Course of Things, that sinful Volitions become necessary, in Consequence of his Disposal. Dr. Whitby, in his Discourse on the Freedom of the Will, *cites one of the Ancients, as on his Side, declaring that this Opinion of the Necessity of the Will absolves Sinners, as doing nothing of their own Accord which was Evil, and would cast all the Blame of all the Wickedness committed in the World, upon God, and upon his Providence, if that were admitted by the Assertors of this Fate; whether he himself did necessitate them to do these Things, or ordered Matters so that they should be constrained to do them by some other Cause. And the Doctor says in another Place, ‡In the Nature of the Thing, and in the Opinion of Philosophers, Causa deficious, in rebus necessariis, ad Causam per se efficientem reducenda est. In Things necessary, the deficient Cause must be reduced to the efficient. And in this Case the Reason is evident; because the not doing what is required, or not avoiding what is forbidden, being a Defect, must follow from the Position of the necessary Cause of that Deficiency.
'TIS urged by Arminians, that the Doctrine of the Necessity of Men's Volitions, or their necessary Connection with antecedent Events and Circumstances, makes the first Cause, and supreme Orderer of all Things, the Author of Sin; in that he has so constituted the State and Course of Things, that sinful Volitions become necessary, in Consequence of his Disposal. Dr. Whitby, in his Discourse on the Freedom of the Will,