Quotes from Jonathan Edwards

Orpah and Ruth; who will represent to us two sorts of professors of religion: Orpah, that sort that indeed make a fair profession, and seem to set out well, but dure but for a while, and then turn back; Ruth, that sort that are sound and sincere, and therefore are steadfast and persevering in the way that they have set out in.

As all manner of excellencies meet in him, so there are concurring in him all manner of arguments and motives, to move you to choose him for your Savior, and every thing that tends to encourage poor sinners to come and put their trust in him: his fullness and all-sufficiency as a Savior gloriously appear in that variety of excellencies that has been spoken of.

Christ is man as well as God; he is a creature, as well as the Creator, and he is the most humble and lowly in heart of any creature in heaven or earth. This may well make the poor unworthy creature bold in coming to him. You need not hesitate one moment; but may run to him, and cast yourself upon him. You will certainly be graciously and meekly received by him. Though he is a lion, he will only be a lion to your enemies, but he will be a lamb to you.

Christians are spoken of as those "that have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them," Heb. 6:18

Be not high-minded because of thy privileges, but fear because of thy danger. The more thou hast committed unto thee, the more thou must account for. No people's account will be heavier than thine if thou do not walk worthy of the means of thy salvation. The Lord looks for more from thee than from other people: more zeal for God, more love to His truth, more justice and equity in thy ways. Thou shouldst be a special people, an only people—none like thee in all the earth.

When those that we have formerly been conversant with, are turning to God, and joining themselves to his people, it ought to be our firm resolution, that we will not leave them; but that their people shall be our people, and their God our God. It

It should be our firm and inflexible resolution in such a case that it shall be no parting, but that we will follow them, that their people shall be our people, and their God our God; and that for the following reasons: I. Because their God is a glorious God.

II. Their people are an excellent and happy people. God has renewed them, and instamped his own image upon them, and made them partakers of his holiness. They are more excellent than their neighbors, Prov. xii. 26.

III. Happiness is nowhere else to be had, but in their God, and with their people. There are that are called gods many, and lords many. Some make gods of their pleasures; some choose Mammon for their god; some make gods of their own supposed excellencies, or the outward advantages they have above their neighbors: some choose one thing for their god, and others another. But men can be happy in no other God but the God of Israel: he is the only fountain of happiness.

IV. When those that we have formerly been conversant with are turning to God, and to his people, their example ought to influence us. Their example should be looked upon as the call of God to us to do as they have done. God, when he changes the heart of one, calls upon another; especially does he loudly call on those that have been their friends and acquaintance.

Almost all the prosperity of a public society and civil community does, under God, depend on their rulers. They are like the main springs or wheels in a machine that keep every part in their due motion, and are in the body politic, as in the vitals in the body natural, and as the pillars and the foundation in a building.

I have sought the good, and not the hurt of our young people. I have desired their truest honor and happiness, and not their reproach; knowing that true virtue and religion tended not only to the glory and felicity of young people in another world, but their greatest peace and prosperity, and highest dignity and honor, in this world; and above all things to sweeten and render pleasant and delightful even the days of youth. But

V. Our resolutions to cleave to and follow those that are turning to God, and joining themselves to his people, ought to be fixed and strong, because of the great difficulty of it.

Our cleaving to them, and having their God for our God and their people for our people, depends on our resolution and choice; and that in two respects. 1. The firmness of resolution in using means in order to it, is the way to have means effectual. There are means appointed in order to our becoming some of the true Israel and having their God for our God; and the thorough use of these means is the way to have success; but not a slack or slighty use of them.

A choosing of their God and their people, with a full determination and with the whole soul, is the condition of an union with them. God gives every man his choice in this matter: as Orpah and Ruth had their choice, whether they would go with Naomi into the land of Israel, or stay in the land of Moab.

Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules. And family education and order are some of the chief of the means of grace.

To be justified, is to be approved of God as a proper subject of pardon, with a right to eternal life. Therefore, when it is said that we are justified by faith, what else can be understood by it, than that faith is that by which we are rendered approvable, fitly so, and indeed, as the case stands, proper subjects of this benefit?

He uses the world as if he used it not, 1 Cor. 7. 31.

Let me therefore earnestly exhort you, as you would seek your own future good hereafter, to watch against a contentious spirit.° If you would see good days, seek peace, and ensue it, 1 Pet. iii. 10, 11. Let the contention which has lately been about the terms of Christian communion, as it has been the greatest of your contentions, so be the last of them.

If we spend our lives in the pursuit of a temporal happiness; as riches or sensual pleasures; credit and esteem from men; delight in our children, and the prospect of seeing them well brought up, and well settled, &c.--All these things will be of little significancy to us. Death will blow up all our hopes, and will put an end to these enjoyments.

God is the fountain of all blessing and prosperity, and he will be sought to for his blessing. I would therefore advise you not only to be constant in secret and family prayer, and in the public worship of God in his house, but also often to assemble yourselves in private praying societies.

If you should happen to settle a minister who knows nothing truly of Christ and the way of salvation by him, nothing experimentally of the nature of vital religion; alas, how will you be exposed as sheep without a shepherd!

Licitis perimus omnes

The present state is short and transitory; but our state in the other world, is everlasting.