N07809:313
Two dissertations, I. Concerning the end for which God created the world. II. The…
Two dissertations, I. Concerning the end for which God created the world. II. The nature of true virtue. / by the late Reverend, learned and pious Jonathan Edwards, A.M. president of the College in New-Jersey.
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland, 1765
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
THE things which were before observed of the nature of true virtue, naturally lead us to such a notion of it. If it has its seat in the heart, and is the general goodness and beauty of the disposition and exercise of that, in the most comprehensive view, considered with regard to its universal tendency, and as related to every thing that it stands in connection with; what can it consist in, but a consent and good-will to Being in general?—Beauty does not consist in discord and dissent, but in consent and agreement. And if every intelligent Being is some way related to Being in general, and is a part of the universal system of existence; and so stands in connection with the whole; what can its general and true beauty be, but its union and consent with the great whole.
IF any such thing can be supposed as an union of heart to some particular Being, or number of Beings, disposing it to benevolence to a private circle or system of Beings, which are but a small part of the whole; not implying a tendency to an union with the great system, and not at all inconsistent with enmity towards Being in general; this I suppose not to be of the nature of true virtue: although' it may in some respects be good, and may appear beautiful in a confined and contracted view of things.—But of this more afterwards.
IF any such thing can be supposed as an union of heart to some particular Being, or number of Beings, disposing it to benevolence to a private circle or system of Beings, which are but a small part of the whole; not implying a tendency to an union with the great system, and not at all inconsistent with enmity towards Being in general; this I suppose not to be of the nature of true virtue: altho' it may in some respects be good, and may appear beautiful in a confined and contracted view of things.—But of this more afterwards.
IT is abundantly plain by the holy scriptures, and generally allowed, not only by christian divines, but by the more considerable deists, that virtue most essentially consists in love. And I suppose, it is owned by the most considerable writers, to consist in general love of benevolence, or kind affection: tho', it seems to me, the meaning of some in this affair is not sufficiently explained; which perhaps occasions some error or confusion in discourses on this subject.