and directly subversive of, what they strenuously affirm and earnestly contend for. By a man having a power of determining his own will, they plainly mean a power of determining his will as he pleases, or as he chooses; which supposes that the mind has a choice, prior to its going about to confirm any action or determination to it. And if they mean that they determine even the original or prime choice by their own pleasure or choice, as the thing that causes and directs it; I scruple not most boldly to affirm, that they speak they know not what, and that of which they have no manner of idea; because no such contradictory notion can come into, or have a moment's subsistence in the mind of any man living, as an original or first choice being caused or brought into being, by choice. After all, they say, they have no higher or other conception of liberty, than that vulgar notion of it, which I contend for, viz. a man's having power or opportunity to do as he chooses: or if they had a notion that every act of choice was determined by choice, yet it would destroy their notion of the contingence of choice; for then no one act of choice would arise contingently, or from a state of indifference, but every individual act, in all the series, would arise from foregoing bias or preference, and from a cause predetermining and fixing its existence, which introduces at once such a chain of causes and effects, each preceding link decisively fixing the following, as they would by all means avoid.

And such kind of delusion and self-contradiction as this, does not arise in men's minds by nature: it is not owing to any natural feeling which God has strongly fixed in the mind and nature of man; but to false philosophy, and strong prejudice, from a deceitful abuse of words. It is artificial; not in the sense of the Author of the Essays, supposing it to be a deceitful artifice of God; but artificial as opposed to natural, and as owing to an artificial deceitful management of terms, to darken and confound the mind. Men have no such thing when they first begin to exercise reason; but must have a great deal of time to blind themselves with metaphysical confusion, before they can embrace and rest in such definitions of liberty as are given, and imagine they understand them.

On the whole I humbly conceive, that whosoever will give himself the trouble of weighing what I have offered to consideration in my Inquiry, must be sensible that such a moral necessity of men's actions as I maintain, is not at all inconsistent with any liberty that any creature has, or can have, as a free, accountable, moral agent, and subject of moral government; and that this moral necessity is so far from being inconsistent with praise and blame and the benefit and use of men's own care and labour, that, on the contrary, it implies the very ground and reason why men's

actions are to be ascribed to them as their own, in such a manner as to infer desert, praise, and blame, approbation and remorse of conscience, reward and punishment; and that it establishes the moral system of the universe and God's moral government in every respect, with the proper use of motives, exhortations, commands, counsels, promises, and threatenings; and the use and benefit of endeavours, care and industry. There is therefore no need that the strict philosophic truth should be at all concealed; nor is there any danger in contemplation and profound discovery in these things. So far from this, that the truth in this matter is of vast importance, and extremely needful to be known; and the more clearly and perfectly the real fact is known, and the more constantly it is in view, the better. More particularly, that the clear and full knowledge of that which is the true system of the universe in these respects, would greatly establish the doctrines which teach the true Christian scheme of Divine administration in the city of God, and the gospel of Jesus Christ in its most important articles. Indeed these things never can be well established, and the opposite errors-so subversive of the whole gospel, which at this day so greatly and generally prevail-be well confuted, or the arguments by which they are maintained answered, till these points are settled. While this is not done, it is to me beyond doubt, that the friends of those great gospel truths will but poorly maintain their controversy with the adversaries of those truths; they will be obliged often to shuffle, hide, and turn their backs; and the latter will have a strong fort from whence they never can be driven, and weapons to use from which those whom they oppose will find no shield to screen themselves: and they will always puzzle, confound, and keep under the friends of sound doctrine, and glory and vaunt themselves in their advantage over them; and carry their affairs with a high hand, as they have done already for a long time past.

I conclude, Sir, with asking your pardon for troubling you with so much in vindication of myself from the imputation of advancing a scheme of necessity, like that of the author of the Essays on the principles of Morality and Natural Religion. Considering that what I have said is not only in vindication of myself, but as I think, one of the most important articles of moral philosophy and religion; I trust in what I know of your candour that you will excuse

Your obliged friend and brother,
J. EDWARDS.

STOCKBRIDGE, JULY 25th, 1757.

THE

GREAT CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

OF

ORIGINAL SIN

DEFENDED;

EVIDENCES OF ITS TRUTH

PRODUCED,

AND

ARGUMENTS TO THE CONTRARY ANSWERED.

CONTAINING, IN PARTICULAR,

A REPLY TO THE OBJECTIONS

ОР

DR. JOHN TAYLOR,

IN HIS BOOK, ENTITLED

"THE SCRIPTURE-DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN PROPOSED TO FREE AND CANDID EXAMINATION, &c."

Matt. ix. 12. They that be whole, need not a Physician; but they that are sick.

-Et hæc non tantum ad Peccatores referenda est; quia in omnibus Maledictionibus primi Hominis, omnes ejus Generationes conveniunt.-R. Sal. Ĵarchi.

Propter Concupiscentiam, innatam Cordi humano, dicitur, In Iniquitate genitus sum, atque Sensu est, quod a Nativitate implantatum Cordi sit humano Jetzer harang, Figmentum malum.

-Ad Mores Natura recurrit
Damnatos, fixa et mutari nescia.-
-Dociles imitandis

Turpibus et pravis omnes sumus.-Ju

Aben-Ezra.

CONTAINING A

BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THIS BOOK AND ITS AUTHOR,

BY THE FIRST EDITOR.

THE Reverend Author of the following piece was removed by death before its publication. But ere his decease the copy was finished and brought to the press and a number of sheets passed his own review. They who were acquainted with the author or know his just character, and have any taste for the serious theme, will want nothing to be said in recommendation of the ensuing tract, but only that Mr. EDWARDS wrote it.

Several valuable pieces on this subject have lately been published upon the same side of the question. But he had no notice of so much as the very first of them, till he had wholly concluded what he had in view nor has it been thought that any thing already printed should supersede this work; being designed on a more extensive plan -comprising a variety of arguments and answers to many objections that fell not in the way of the other worthy writers-and the whole done with a care of familiar method and language as well as clear reasoning, accommodated very much to common capacities. It must be a sensible pleasure to every friend of truth, that so masterly a hand undertook a reply to Dr. TAYLOR; notwithstanding the various answers already given him both at home and abroad.

Since it it has been thought unfit that this posthumous book should go unattended with a respectful memorial of the author, it is hoped the reader will candidly accept the following :*

As he lived cheerfully resigned in all things to the will of Heaven, so he died, or rather, as the Scripture emphatically expresses it in relation to the saint in Christ Jesus, he fell asleep without the least appearance of pain and with great calm of mind. Indeed when he first perceived the symptoms upon him to be mortal, he is said to have been a little perplexed for a while about the meaning of this mysterious conduct of Providence, in calling him out from his beloved privacy to a public scene of action and influence; and then so suddenly, just upon his entrance into it, translating him from thence, in such a way, by mortality! However, he quickly got believing and composing views of the wisdom and goodness of God in this surprising event and readily yielded to the Sovereign Disposal of Heaven, with the most placid submission. Amidst the joy of faith, he departed this world to go and see JESUS whom his soul loved; to be with him, to behold his glory, and rejoice in his kingdom.

* As we have given a full Memoir in the first volume, those particulars which were contained in this brief account, and which are more fully and accurately narrated there, are omitted in order to avoid needless repetitions.