484 rREEDOM or WILL. renewing the willand affections, and sufficient to produce such a glorious change in them as the scripture describes and makes necessary to the salvation of sinners ? Though the will of man be still a free agent here, yet the grace of God has all the glory in this work of conversion, inasmuch as thefirst work on the mind is entirely owing to grace, and without it the corrupt will would feel nosuch change. But I enter no further into this subject here. SECT. VI.Objections answered. The chief objections which are raised against this scheme, are these that follow : I. It is granted in this scheme, that where- soever there is a superior fitness of things, the will of ,a wise being is generally, if not universally determineded or guided in its choice by this superior fitness : But where no such superior fitness appears to the understanding, there indeed the under- standing, cannot represent one thing as fitter than another, nor determine the choice of thewill ; but then it maybe said, a thou- sand other things may determine it, without allowing the will suclt a self- determining power. As in the instance given, sup- pose two cakes to be proposed to a hungry man, though they are both equal and alike, yet his will may be determined by some situation of one cake in point of light, and reflection of lights or colours, or by its nearness to the right-hand of the man, or some minute imperceptible motions or impressions made on the body of the man, either on his eyes, on his smell, on hisbrain or imagination, or some accidental turn of the nerves of his arm or hand, or something in the air or circumjacent bodies, or some attending circumstances ; any of these may determine his will; or determine his hand to take one of these cakes rather than the other, without making the will such a self-determining power as this scheme supposes. Answer I. If the will do not determine itself, then it must be determined to chase one of these cakes by suasion, or by me- chanists : Ifby suasion, then it must he by some motive derived from a superior fitness for one of them to be chosen : Butthis is contrary to the original supposition that they are both equal, -and that the senses 'Or the understanding find no difference. If it be by mechanism that the man is led to chuse one of the cakes, then it is a mere action of the animal or brutal part, and not the choice of the man ; and thus the will does nothing, or has no share in it, or at most only choses afterward what the hand hath first chosen, which is contrary to obvious experience. If a pa- rallel case was proposed in the world of spirits, in which there is no mechanism, such a spirit would remain for ever undetermined any way, though it were a matter of importance' to the welfare of that spirit to be determined some one way ; and the will of that spiritcould not possibly chuse what was so very necessary to
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