Jonathan Edwards Selected Shor
begin to be better, for repentance consists in a change of the mind and heart. So that it is not men's repentance that first gives rise to their having a better heart, and therefore it cannot be any tendency in them to make their hearts better, that gives rise to it. The heart can have no tendency to make itself better, till it begins to have a better tendency, for therein consists its badness, viz. its having no good tendency or inclination. And to begin to have a good tendency, or, which is the same thing, a tendency and inclination to be better, is the same thing as to begin already to be better. And therefore the heart's inclination to be good, cannot be the thing that first gives rise to its being made good. For its inclination to be better is the same thing with its becoming better.
42. It there be any immediate influence or action of the Spirit of God at all on any created beings, in any part of the universe since the days of the apostles, it is physical. If it be in exciting ideas of motives, or in any respect assisting or promoting any effect, still it is physical, and every whit as much so, as if we suppose the temper and nature of the heart is immediately changed. And it is as near akin to a miracle. If the latter be miraculous, so is the former.
43. Who ever supposed that the term irresistible was properly used with respect to that power by which an infant is brought into being; meaning, irresistible by the infant? Or who ever speaks of a man's walking out of a sound sleep irresistibly, meaning that he cannot resist awaking? Or who says that Adam was formed out of the dust of the earth irresistibly? See what I have said of the use of such terms as irresistible, unfrustrable, etc. in my Inquiry about Liberty.