God's will explains creation as an existent fact; man's will explains all his volitions. When we proceed to inquire after the characteristics of creation, we bring in the idea of infinite wisdom and goodness. But when we inquire _why_ God's will obeyed infinite wisdom and goodness, we must either represent his will as necessitated by infinite wisdom and goodness, and take with this all the consequences of an absolute necessity; or we must be content to stop short, with will itself as a first cause, not necessary, but contingent, which, explaining all effects, neither requires nor admits of any explanation itself. When we proceed to inquire after the characteristics of human volition, we bring in the idea of right and wrong; we look at the relations of the reason and the sensitivity. But when we inquire _why_ the will now obeys reason, and now passion; and why this passion, or that passion; we must either represent the will as necessitated, and take all the consequences of a necessitated will, or we must stop short here likewise, with the will itself as a first cause, not necessary, but contingent, which, in explaining its own volitions, neither requires nor admits of any explanation itself, other than as a finite and dependent will it requires to be referred to the infinite will in order to account for the fact of its existence. Edwards, while he burdens the question of the will's determination with monstrous consequences, relieves it of no one difficulty. He lays down, indeed, a uniform law of determination; but there is a last inquiry which he does not presume to answer. The determination of the will, or the volition, is always as the most agreeable, and is the sense of the most agreeable. But while the will is granted to be one simple power or capacity, there arise from it an indefinite variety of volitions; and volitions at one time directly opposed to volitions at another time. The question now arises, how this one simple capacity of volition comes to produce such various volitions? It is said in reply, that whatever may be the volition, it is at the time the sense of the most agreeable: but that it is always the sense of the most agreeable, respects only its relation to the will itself; the volition, intrinsically considered, is at one time right, at another wrong; at one time rational, at another foolish. The volition really varies, although, relatively to the will, it always puts on the characteristic of the most agreeable. The question therefore returns, how this simple capacity determines such a variety of volitions, always however representing them to itself as the most agreeable? There are three ways of answering this. _First_, we may suppose the _state_ of the will or sensitivity to remain unchanged, and the different volitions to be effected by the different arrangements and conditions of the objects relatively to it. _Secondly_, we may suppose the arrangements and conditions of the objects to remain unchanged, and