t or wrong, either agreeable or disagreeable
to the nature of things. If man had at first the highest relish of things
excellent and beautiful, a disposition to have the quickest and highest
delight in those things which were most worthy of it, then his
dispositions were morally right and amiable, and never can be excellent in
a higher sense. But if he had a disposition to love most those things that
were inferior and less worthy, then his dispositions were vicious. And it
is evident there can be no medium between these."

It is thus that Edwards seeks and finds virtue in the emotion, and not in
the voluntary element of man's nature. The natural concreated disposition
of Adam, he supposes, was morally right in the highest sense of the word,
because he was so made as to relish and delight in the glorious
perfections of the divine nature. Our first answer to this is, that it is
contradicted by the reason and moral judgment of mankind in general, and,
in particular, by the reason and moral judgment of Edwards himself.

It is agreeable to the voice of human reason, that nothing can be _our
virtue_, in the true sense of the word, which was planted in us by the act
of creation, and in regard to the production of which we possessed no
knowledge, exercised no agency, and gave no consent. And if we listen to
the language of Edwards, when the peculiarities of his system are out of
the question, we shall find that this moral judgment was as agreeable to
him as it is to the rest of mankind. For example: human nature is created
with a disposition to be grateful for favours; and this disposition,
according to Edwards, must either be agreeable or disagreeable to the
nature of things, that is, it must be either morally right or wrong in the
highest sense of the word. There can be no medium between these two--it
must partake of the nature of virtue or of vice. Now, which of the terms
of this alternative does Edwards adopt? Does he pronounce this natural
disposition our virtue or our vice? We do not know what Edwards would have
said, if this question had been propounded to him in connexion with the
argument now under consideration; but we do know what he has said of it in
other portions of his works. This natural concreated disposition is, says
he, neither our virtue nor our vice! "That ingratitude, or the want of
natural affection," says he, "shows a high degree of depravity, does not
prove that all gratitude and natural affection posses