N07809:319
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.
WHAT is commonly called love of complacence, presupposes beauty.—For it is no other than delight in beauty; or complacence in the person or Being beloved for his beauty.
IF virtue be the beauty of an intelligent Being, and virtue consists in love, then it is a plain inconsistence, to suppose that virtue primarily consists in any love to its object for its beauty; either in a love of complacence, which is delight in a Being for his beauty, or in a love of benevolence, that has the beauty of its object for its foundation. For that would be to suppose, that the beauty of intelligent Beings primarily consists in love to beauty; or, that their virtue first of all consists in their love to virtue. Which is an inconsistence, and going in a circle. Because it makes virtue, or beauty of mind, the foundation or first motive of that love wherein virtue originally consists, or wherein the very first virtue consists; or, it supposes the first virtue to be the consequence and effect of virtue. So that virtue is originally the foundation and exciting cause of the very beginning or first Being of virtue, Which makes the first virtue, both the ground, and the consequence, both cause and effect of itself. Doubtless virtue primarily consists in something else besides any effect or consequence of virtue. If virtue consists primarily in love to virtue, then virtue, the thing loved, is the love of virtue; so that virtue must consist in the love of the love of virtue. And if it be inquired, what that virtue is, which virtue consists in the love of ⟨p. 121⟩the love of, it must be answered, 'tis the love of virtue. So that there must be the love of the love of the virtue, and so on in infinitum. For there is no end of going back in a circle. We never come to any beginning, or foundation. For 'tis without beginning and hangs on nothing.
THEREFORE, if the essence of virtue or beauty of mind lies in loe, or a disposition to love, it must primarily consist in something different both from complacence, which is a delight in beauty, and also from any benevolence that has the beauty of its object for its foundation. Because 'tis absurd, to say that virtue is primarily and first of all the consequence of itself. For this makes virtue primarily prior to itself.