N07809:431
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.
and yet without seeing the true beauty of it. Yea, if men's consciences were fully ⟨p. 165⟩enlightened, if they were delivered from being confined to a private sphere, and brought to view and consider things in general, and delivered from being stupefied by sensual objects and appetites, as they will be at the day of judgment, they would approve nothing but true virtue, nothing but general benevolence, and those affections and actions that are consistent with it, and subordinate to it. For they must see that consent to Being in general, and supreme respect to the Being of Beings, is most just; and that every thing which is inconsistent with it, and interferes with it, or flows from the want of it, is unjust, and deserves the opposition of universal existence.
and yet without seeing the true beauty of it. Yea, if men's consciences were fully ⟨p. 165⟩enlightned, if they were delivered from being confined to a private sphere, and brought to view and consider things in general, and deliver'd from being stupefy'd by sensual objects and appetites, as they will be at the day of judgment, they would approve nothing but true virtue, nothing but general benevolence, and those affections and actions that are consistent with it, and subordinate to it. For they must see that consent to Being in general, and supreme respect to the Being of Beings, is most just; and that every thing which is inconsistent with it, and interferes with it, or flows from the want of it, is unjust, and deserves the opposition of universal existence.
THUS has God established and ordered, that this principle of natural conscience, which though it implies no such thing as actual benevolence to Being in general, nor any delight in such a principle, simply considered, and so implies no truly spiritual sense or virtuous taste, yet should approve and condemn the same things that are approved and condemned by a spiritual sense or virtuous taste.