The above causes, conspiring with some instances of false logic, which have been overlooked amid so much that is really conclusive, and also with a number of unsound, yet plausible, devices to reconcile the scheme of moral necessity with the reality of virtue and free-agency, have, in the minds of many, rendered the work of President Edwards both an acceptable and an unanswerable production. Such, at least, is the conclusion to which I have been constrained to come; but whether this conclusion be correct or not, it is not for me to determine. Time alone can show, whether the foundation of his system, like that of truth, is immutable, or whether, like many which have been laid by the master spirits of other ages, it is destined to pass away, though not to be forgotten. In the above enumeration of causes I have not alluded to those of a theological nature; because they have been but partial in their operation. And besides, I have not wished to refer to this subject at all, except in so far as, is necessary to indicate wherein I conceive the errors of the Inquiry to consist, and thereby to point out the course which I intend to pursue in the following discussion. SECTION I. OF THE POINT IN CONTROVERSY. IT is worse than a waste of time, it is a grievous offence against the cause of truth, to undertake to refute an author without having taken pains to understand exactly what he teaches. In every discussion, the first thing to be settled is the point in dispute; and if this be omitted, the controversy must needs degenerate into a mere idle logomachy. It seldom happens that any thing affords so much satisfaction, or throws so much light on a controversy, as to have the point at issue clearly made up, and _constantly borne in mind_. What then, is the precise doctrine of the Inquiry which I intend to oppose? The great question is, says Edwards, what determines the will. It is taken for granted, on all sides, that the will is determined; and the only point is, or rather has been, as to what determines it. It is determined by the strongest motive, says one; it is not determined by the strongest motive, says another. But although the issue is thus made up in general terms, it is very far from being settled with any tolerable degree of clearness and precision; ample room is still left for all that loose and declamatory kind of warfare in which so many controversialists delight to indulge.