Jonathan Edwards Selected Shor
68. I would ask, how it is possible for us to come by virtue at first, according to Arminian principles, or how we come by our first virtue? Is it natural? Is there some virtuous disposition with which we come into the world? But how is that virtue? That which men bring into the world is necessary, and what men had no opportunity to prevent, and it is not at all from our free will. How then can there be any virtue in it according to their principles? Or is our first virtue wholly from the influence of the Spirit of God without any endeavor or effort of ours, to be partly the cause of it? This to be sure cannot be, by their principles, for, according to them, that which is not at all from us, or that we are not the causes of, is no virtue of ours. Is it wholly from our endeavors without any assistance at all of the Spirit? This is contrary to what they pretend to hold, for they assert that without divine assistance there can be no virtue. (Stebbing, pages 27, 28. and pages 20, 21. and other places.) If they say it is partly from the influence of the Spirit of God, and partly from our own endeavors, I would inquire whether those endeavors that our first virtue partly arises from, be good endeavors, and at all virtuous. If the answer be in the affirmative, this contradicts the supposition. For I am now inquiring what the first virtue is. The first virtue we have, certainly does not arise from virtuous endeavors preceding the first virtue. For that is to suppose virtue before the first virtue. If the answer be that they are no good endeavors, they have nothing at all of the nature of the exercise of any good disposition, or any good aim and intention, or any virtuous sincerity, then I ask, what tendency can such efforts of the mind, as are wholly empty of all goodness, have to produce true moral goodness in the heart?
Can an action that in principles and ends has no degree of moral good, have a tendency to beget a habit of acting from good principles