AN ESSAY. 4(37 SCcD, III.The Will is a self-determining Pdwer. Let us see whether this doctrine of the self-determining power of the will may not be formed into a regular scheme, at- tended with various advantages, and guarded against the most formidable objections, in the followingmanner : Proposition I. In every spirit or thinking being, whether perfect or imperfect, finite or infinite, there are two suchprinciples or powers as may properly be distinguished by our conceptions, into the understanding and the will. These are by no means to be conceived as two real substances or proper distinct beings ; for it is one and the samespirit that both understands and wills : and yetwe have very clear and distinct ideasof these two principles or powers of agency in ourselves, viz. We have a power of perceiving and assenting to truth, and of seeing and taking no- tice of the fitness or unfitness, the goodness or evil of things; this is called the understanding, or sometimes the mind : And we have also a power of willing or chusing one thing, and refus- ing another, ofpreferring one thing before another, ofdetermining our choice to one thing rather than another; and this is called the will. As we are evidently and strongly consciousof these powers in ourselves, so we reasonablyascribe the same to other spirits, supposing them to be of a similar constitution : Aud we are taught also to form the same ideas of God, our Maker, whom the light of nature and scripture represent to us as a Spi- rit, and we are made after his image, as well as are his offspring: John iv. 24. Gen. i. 26. Acts xvii. 28. II. The eternal reason and nature of things seems to point out this practical truth to ús, or rather this rule of action, viz. that where a being is possessed of two such powers, one of them, viz. the understanding, which perceives the fitness or unfitness, good or evil of things, should he a director or guide to the other power which is active, viz the will, that it may regulate and de- termine its actions wisely, and chuse and refuse objects proposed to it according to the fitness or unfitness, good or evil which is discovered by the understanding : And that wheresoever greater degrees of fitness or goodnessare discovered by the understand- ing in any object, there also the will should determine its choice rather than to objects less fit, or less good. l II. But where there is no such superior fitness or goodness in things, or where it cannotbe discovered by the understanding, but the objectt which are proposed appear equally fit or good, there the will is left without a guide or director : And therefore it must make its own choice only by its own determination, it being properly a self-determining power. And in such cases the will does as it were make a good to itself by its own choice, that is, creates its own pleasure or delight in this self chosen good ; though it be not abstractly andin itself better, that is, fitter than eg2
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