Section 5. Concerning the notion of liberty and of moral agency. The plain and obvious meaning of the words freedom and liberty, in common speech, is the power, opportunity, or advantage that anyone has to do as he pleases. Or in other words, his being free from hindrance or impediment in the way of doing or conducting in any respect as he wills. 108 And the contrary to liberty, whatever name we call that by, is a person's being hindered or unable to conduct as he will, or being necessitated to do otherwise. If this which I have mentioned be the meaning of the word liberty, in the ordinary use of language, as I trust that none that has ever learned to talk, and is unprecedented, will deny, then it will follow that impropriety of speech, neither liberty, nor its contrary, can properly be ascribed to any being or thing, but that which has such a faculty, power or property, as is called will. For that which is possessed of no will, cannot have any power or opportunity of doing according to its will, nor be necessitated to act contrary to its will, nor be restrained from acting agreeably to it. and therefore to talk of liberty, or the contrary, as belonging to the very will itself, is not to speak good sense. If we judge of sense, and nonsense, by the original and proper signification of words. For the will itself is not an agent that has a will the power of choosing, itself, has not a power of choosing. That which has the power of volition is the man, or the soul, and not the power of volition itself. and he that has the liberty of doing according to his will, is the agent who is possessed of the will, and not the will which he is possessed of. We say with propriety that a bird let loose has power and liberty to fly, but not that the bird's power of flying has a power-arid liberty of flying. To be free is the property of an agent who is possessed of powers and faculties, as much as to be cunning, valiant, bountiful, or zealous. But these qualities are the properties of persons and not the properties of properties. There are two things contrary to what is called liberty in common speech. One is constraint, otherwise called force, compulsion, and co-action, which is a person's being necessitated to do a thing contrary to his will. The other is restraint, which is his being hindered and not having power to do according to his will. but that which has no will, cannot be the subject of these things. I need say the less on this head, Mr. Locke having set the same thing forth, with so great clearness, in his essay on the human understanding. But one thing more I would observe concerning what is vulgarly called liberty, namely, that power and opportunity for one to do and conduct as he will, or according to his choice, is all that is meant by it. without taking into the meaning of the word anything of the cause of that choice, or at all considering how the person came to have such a volition, whether it was caused by some external motive or internal habitual bias, whether it was determined by some internal antecedent volition, or whether it happened without a cause, whether it was necessarily connected with something foregoing or not connected, Let the person come by his choice anyhow, yet, if he is able, and there is nothing in the way to hinder his pursuing and executing his will, the man is perfectly free, according to the primary and common notion of freedom. What has been said may be sufficient to show what is meant by liberty, according to the common notions of mankind, and in the usual and primary acceptation of the word but the word, as used by Armenians, Pelagians, and others, who oppose the Calvinists, has an entirely different signification. These several things belong to their notion of liberty 1. that it consists in a self-determining power in the will, or a certain sovereignty the will has over itself, in its own acts, whereby it determines its own volitions. So as not to be dependent, in its determinations, on any cause without itself, nor determined by anything prior to its own acts. 2. Indifference belongs to liberty in their notion of it, or that the mind, previous to the act of volition, be an equilibrio. 3. Contingence is another thing that belongs and is essential to it. Not in the common acceptation of the word, as that has been already explained, but as opposed to all necessity, or any fixed and certain connection with some previous ground or reason of its existence. They suppose the essence of liberty so much to consist in these things, that unless the will of man be free in this sense, he has no real freedom, how much so ever, he may be at liberty to act according to his will. A moral agent is a being that is capable of those actions that have a moral quality, and which can properly be denominated good or evil in a moral sense, virtuous or vicious, commendable or faulty to moral agency belongs a moral faculty, or sense of moral good and evil, or of such a thing as desert or worthiness, of praise or blame, reward or punishments. and a capacity which an agent has of being influenced in his actions by moral inducements or motives, exhibited to the view of understanding and reason, to engage to a conduct agreeable to the moral faculty. The sun is very excellent and beneficial in its action and influence on the earth, in warming and causing it to bring forth its fruit. But it is not a moral agent its action, though good, is not virtuous or meritorious. That fire that breaks out in a city, and consumes great part of it, is very mischievous in its operation. But is not a moral agent what it does is not faulty or sinful, or deserving of any punishment. The brute creatures are not moral agents the actions of some of them are very profitable and pleasant. Others are very hurtful yet seeing they have no moral faculty, or sense of desert, and do not act from choice guided by understanding, or with a capacity of reasoning and reflecting, but only from instinct, and are not capable of being influenced by moral inducements. Their actions are not properly sinful or virtuous, nor are they properly the subjects of any such moral treatment for what they do, as moral agents are for their faults or good deeds. Here it may be noted, that there is a circumstantial difference between the moral agency of a ruler and a subject. I call it circumstantial, because it lies only in the difference of moral inducements, by which they are capable of being influenced, arising from the difference of circumstances. A ruler, acting in that capacity only, is not capable of being influenced by a moral law, and its sanctions of threatenings and promises, rewards and punishments, as the subject is. though both may be influenced by a knowledge of moral good and evil. And therefore the moral agency of the supreme being, who acts only in the capacity of a ruler towards his creatures, and never as a subject, differs in that respect from the moral agency of created intelligent beings. God's actions, and particularly those which he exerts as a moral governor, have moral qualifications, and are morally good in the highest degree. They are most perfectly holy and righteous, and we must conceive of him as influence, in the highest degree, by that which, above all others, is properly a moral inducement. Namely, the moral good which he sees in such and such things and therefore he is, in the most proper sense, a moral agent, the source of all moral ability and agency, the fountain and rule of all virtue and moral good. Though by reason of his being supreme over all, it is not possible he should be under the influence of law or command, promises or threatenings, rewards or punishments, counsels or warnings. The essential qualities of a moral agent are in God, in the greatest possible perfection, such as understanding to perceive the difference between moral good and evil, a capacity of discerning that moral worthiness and demerit, by which some things are praiseworthy, others deserving of blame and punishment. And also a capacity of choice, and choice guided by understanding, and the power of acting according to his choice or pleasure, and being capable of doing those things which are in the highest sense praiseworthy. And herein does very much consist that image of God wherein He made man, which we read of, Genesis 1 26, 27. Chapter 9 by which God distinguished man from the beasts, namely, in those faculties and principles of nature whereby he is capable of moral agency. Herein very much consists the natural image of God. Whereas the spiritual and moral image wherein man was made at first consisted in that moral excellency with which he was endowed. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's revival book. Swrb makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes, and videos at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email at swrb.com, by phone at 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096, or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton, that's E-D-M-O-N-T-O-N, Alberta, abbreviated capital A, capital B, Canada, T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Calvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart. From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since He condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying his word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The Prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.