ESSAYS ON LIBERTY AND NECESSITY; IN WHICH THE TRUE NATURE OF LIBERTY IS STATED AND DEFENDED; AND THE PRINCIPAL ARGUMENTS USED BY MR. EDWARDS, AND OTHERS, FOR NECESSITY, ARE CONSIDERED. IN TWO PARTS. PART SECOND

Newbedford, Massachusetts: John Spooner, 1795. 96pp + errata. Stitched, contemporary plain wrappers, untrimmed, margin-foxed. Good+.

This is West's "reply to the views of Jonathan Edwards...that divine prescience does not imply the necessity of future events; that self-determination is consistent with moral agency; that the Deity's permission of sin is proof for the self-governing power of men; and that volition is an effect which has a cause. Of all the replies to Edwards's Freedom of the Will, West's was most thorough and most persuasive. He helped to widen the rift that had already appeared between Calvinist and Arminian." DAB.
The first part, which was reprinted by Spooner in 1795 [Evans 29873], had earlier issued from Boston in 1793. NUC, Evans, and Shipton, record the two 1795 items as separate imprints; this one is rare.
FIRST EDITION. Evans 29874. 657 NUC 0207653 [1]. XX DAB 12.