the philosophy of
Edwards is radically defective; and no one can discuss that subject on the
principles of his philosophy without finding himself involved in
contradictions and absurdities. If his psychology had not been false, he
might have seen a clear and steady light where he has only beheld
difficulties and confusion. As we have already seen, and as we shall still
more fully see, Edwards confounds the power by which we _act_ with the
susceptibility through which we _feel_: the will with the emotive part of
our nature. Every one knows that we may feel without acting; and yet
feeling and acting, suffering and doing, are expressly and repeatedly
identified in his writings. Having merged the will in sensibility, he
regarded virtue and vice as phenomena of the latter, and as evolved from
its bosom by the operation of necessitating causes. Hence his views in
relation to the nature of moral good and evil, as well as in relation to
their origin, became unavoidably dark and confused.

If we only bear in mind the distinction between the will and the
sensibility, we may easily see how either holiness or sin might have taken
its rise in the bosom of the first man, without supposing that either a
holy or a sinful principle was planted there by the hand of the Creator.
If we will only carry the light of this distinction along with us, it will
be no more difficult to account for the rise of the first sin in the bosom
of a spotless creature of God, than to account for any other volition of
the human mind. The first man, by means of his intelligence, could
contemplate the perfection of his Creator, and, doing so, he could not but
feel an emotion of admiration and delight. But this _feeling_ was not his
virtue. It was the natural and the necessary result of the organization
which God had given him. He was also so constituted, that certain earthly
objects were agreeable to him, and excited his natural appetites and
desires. These appetites and desires were not sinful, nor was the
sensibility from whose bosom they were evolved: they were the spontaneous
workings of the nature which God had bestowed upon him. _But his will was
free._ He could turn his mind to God, or he could turn it to earth. He did
the latter, and there was no harm in this. But he listened to the voice of
the tempter; he fixed his mind on the forbidden fruit; he saw it was
pleasant to the eye; he imagined it was good for food, and greatly to be
desired to make one wis