Jonathan Edwards Selected Shor (continued)
The former is that which is of greatest importance or consequence in the controversy with Arminians (though the others are also very important), and this only is what I shall consider in this place, perhaps the others may be considered, God willing, in some other discourse.
37. Concerning what the Arminians say, that these are speculative points: all devotion greatly depends on a sense and acknowledgment of our dependence on God. But this is one of the very chief things belonging to our dependence on God: how much stress do the Scriptures lay on our dependence on God! All assistance of the Spirit of God whatsoever, that is by any present influence or effect of the Spirit, anything at all that a person that is converted from sin to God is the subject of, through any immediate influence of the Spirit of God upon him, or anything done by the Spirit since the completing and confirming the canon of the Scriptures, must be done by a physical operation, either on the soul or body.
The Holy Spirit of God does something to promote virtue in men's hearts, and to make them good beyond what the angels can do. But the angels can present motives, can excite ideas of the words of promises and threatenings, etc. and can persuade in this way by moral means: as is evident, because the devils in this way promote vice.
38. There is no objection made to God's producing any effects, or causing any events, by any immediate interposition, producing effects arbitrarily, or by the immediate efforts of his will, but what lies equally against his ordering it so, that any effects should be produced by the immediate interposition of men's will, to produce effects otherwise than the established laws of nature would have produced without men's arbitrary interposition.
I beg the reader's attention to the following quotations — "That otherwise, the world cannot be the object of inquiry and science, and far less of imitation by arts: since imitation necessarily presupposes a certain, determinate object, or fixed ascertainable relations and connections of things; and that, upon the contrary supposition, the world must be absolutely unintelligible. Nature, in order to be understood by us, must always speak the same language to us. It must therefore steadfastly observe the same general laws in its operations, or work uniformly, and according to stated, invariable methods and rules. Those terms, order, beauty, general good, etc. plainly include, in their meaning, analogy; and constancy, uniformity amidst variety; or in other words, the regular observance of general settled laws, in the make and economy, production, and operations or effects, of any object to which they are ascribed. Wherever order, fixed connections, or general laws and unity of design take place, there is certainty in the nature of such objects, and so knowledge may be acquired. But where these do not obtain, there can be nothing but unconnected independent parts. All must be disorder and confusion, and consequently such a loose disjointed heap of things must be an inexplicable chaos. In one word, science, prudence, government, imitation, and art, necessarily suppose the prevalence of general laws throughout all the objects in nature to which they reach. No being can know itself, project or pursue any scheme, or lay down any maxims for its conduct, but so far as its own constitution is certain, and the connection of things relative to it are fixed and constant. For so far only are things ascertainable, and