ct must proceed
from a virtuous disposition or principle; and hence, according to the
logic of Edwards, a sinful disposition or principle must have preceded the
first sinful act; that an antecedent sinful disposition or principle could
not have been introduced by the act of the creature, and consequently it
must have been planted in the bosom of the first man by the act of the
Creator. This argument, we say, just as clearly shows that sin is
impossible, or that it must have been concreated with man, as it shows the
same thing in relation to virtue. If we maintain his argument, then, we
must either deny the possibility of moral evil or make God the author of
it.

After having laid down principles from which the impossibility of moral
evil may be demonstrated, it was too late for Edwards to undertake to
account for the origin of sin. According to his philosophy, it can have no
existence; and hence we are not to look into that philosophy for any very
clear account of how it took its rise in the world. Indeed, this point is
hurried over by Edwards in a most hasty and superficial manner, in which
he seems conscious of no little embarrassment. In his great work on the
will he devotes one page and a half to this subject; and the greater part
of this small space is filled up with the retort upon the Arminians, that
their scheme is encumbered with as great difficulties as his own! He lets
the truth drop in one place, however, that "the abiding principle and
habit of sin" was "first introduced by an evil act of the creature."(92)
Is it possible? How could there be an evil act which did not proceed from
an antecedent evil principle or disposition? What becomes of the great
common notion of mankind, on which his demonstration is erected? But we
must allow the author to contradict himself, since he has now come around
to the truth, that an evil act of the creature may and must have preceded
the existence of moral evil in the world. If an intelligent creature,
however, as it came from the hand of God, can introduce a "principle of
sin by a sinful act," why should it be thought impossible for such a
creature to introduce a principle of virtue by a virtuous act?

The truth is, that a virtuous act does not require an antecedent virtuous
disposition or principle to account for its existence; nor does a vicious
act require an antecedent vicious principle to account for its existence.
In relation to the rise of good and evil in the world,