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The strength and weakness of human reason
The strength and weakness of human reason Author:Isaac Watts Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Log. Yes, pray, Sophronius, let us have your Thoughts upon ir, and perhaps they may introduce fome further Converfation, to elucidate this Argument yet more perf... more »ectly. Sophro. If I muft give my Sentiment in this Matter, about the Sufficiency of Reafon toperfuade Men to Religion, and inforce upon them the Practice of Virtue, I muft determine the Point much after the fame Manner as I concluded the Debate of Yefterday, about the Sufficiency of Reafon to guide us into the Articles of Religion; and that fhall be done in thefe few Propofitions: I. In natural, corporeal, and neceflary Agents, that Caufe or Principle can only be properly call'd fufficient to produce the Effect, which doth and will actually and certainly produce it, where all other external Things are found which are naturally neceflary to this particular Effect. So an Acorn is faid to be fufficient to produce an Oak, when it is planted in a proper Soil, and has the neceflary outward Advantages of Rain and Sun,e. So a Clock is fufficient to fhew the Hours of the Day, when all the Weights, and Wheels, and Springs of Movement, and Mechanical Parts of that Engine are rightly formed, and fituated, and adjufted. But in fpiritual, and voluntary, and moral Agents, a Caufe or Principle may be pronounced juffident, in the Nature of Things, to produce the Effect, where the Effect is not actually produced, fuppofing that the Motives areare fuch as may and ought to influence the Will, to produce the Effect. Wherefoever the Obligations to Duty are juft and ftrong, and appear fo to the attentive Mind, and according to the Rules of Reafon ought to perfuade the Will to chufe the Good, and refufe the Evil, there thefe Obligations may be call'd fufficient naturally to reform the Man, tho' the Will may be led aftray by a thoufand ot...« less