Edwards replied to this objection, characteristically, not with abstruse speculation about the "imputation" of Adam's sin to his progeny but with observations of ordinary human practice. In one of his sermons, "The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners," he pointed out that men commonly speak of a corrupt disposition as something that aggravates an offense instead of mitigating it. "How common is it for persons, when they look on themselves greatly injured by another, to inveigh against him, and aggravate his baseness, by saying, 'He is a man of a most perverse spirit: he is naturally of a selfish, niggardly, or proud and haughty temper: he is one of a base and vile disposition.' " In his treatise on original sin, Edwards elaborated this line of argument. The logical and dialectical but empirically falsifiable objection that "hardheartedness," "obstinacy," and "perverseness"—traits attributed to mankind by the doctrine of original sin—somehow denied man's "moral agency" rested on a confusion of sin with the crimes for which individuals might be held accountable in a court of law. Because no one had ever stood trial for obstinacy and hard-heartedness, people could not see that these qualities defined man's habitual disposition to God and therefore expressed the very essence of what was meant by original sin.

Rebellion against God, Edwards argued, was simply the normal condition of human existence. Men found it galling to be reminded of their dependence on a higher power. They found it difficult, moreover, to acknowledge the justice and goodness of this higher power when the world was so obviously full of evil. To put it another way, they found it impossible (unless their hearts were softened by grace) to reconcile their expectations of worldly success and happiness, so often undone by events, with the idea of a just, loving, and all-powerful creator. Unable to conceive of a God who did not regard human happiness as the be-all and end-all of creation, they could not accept the central paradox of Christian faith, as Edwards saw it: that the secret of happiness lay in renouncing the right to be happy.

Edwards's theology rested on careful observation of what happened to people—himself first of all—who renounced their claims on the universe.

The appearance of everything was altered; there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost every thing. God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity

-248-