Quotes from Jonathan Edwards

But yet it is evident that religion consists so much in affection, as that without holy affection there is no true religion; and no light in the understanding is good which does not produce holy affection in the heart: no habit or principle in the heart is good which has no such exercise; and no external fruit is good which does not proceed from such exercises.

Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of.

The harder the heart is, the more dead is it in sin, and the more unable to exert good affections and acts.

it is for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell...

Tis a more glorious effect of power to make that holy that was so depraved and under dominion of sin, than to confirm holiness on that which before had nothing of the contrary.

If a sight of Christ's outward glory might give a rational assurance of His divinity, why might not an apprehension of He is spiritual glory do so too?

If there be such a distinguishing excellency in divine things, tis rational to suppose that there may be such a thing as seeing it.

Why should not He had made all things, still having something immediately to do with the things that He has made? Where lies the great difficulty, if we own the being of a God, that He created all things out of nothing, I'll be allowing something immediate influence of God on creation still?

If we take reason strictly, the perceiving of spiritual beauty and excellence no more belongs to reason than it belongs to the sense of feeling to perceive colors or to the power of seeing to perceive the sweetness of food.

There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. . . . So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the lat- ter only by seeing the countenance.

Their hearts shall be full of love. That which was in the heart on earth as but a grain of mustard-seed, shall be as a great tree in heaven. The soul that in this world had only a little spark of divine love in it, in heaven shall be, as it were, turned into a bright and ardent flame, like the sun in its fullest brightness, when it has no spot upon it.

Every saint in heaven is as a flower in that garden of God, and holy love is the fragrance and sweet odor that they all send forth, and with which they fill the bowers of that paradise above. Every soul there, is as a note in some concert of delightful music, that sweetly harmonizes with every other note, and all together blend in the most rapturous strains in praising God and the Lamb forever.

This glorious Person came down from heaven to be 'the Light of the world,' that by him the beauty of the Deity might shine forth, in the brightest and fullest manner, to the children of men.

He who has no religious affection, is in a state of spiritual death, and is wholly destitute of the powerful, quickening, saving influences of the Spirit of God upon his heart.

How can God be happy and decree calamity? Consider that he has the capacity to view the world through two lenses. Through the narrow one he is grieved and angered at sin and pain. Through the wide one he sees evil in relation to its eternal purposes. Reality is like a mosaic. The parts may be ugly in themselves, but the whole is beautiful.

Oh, that God would purge away my dross, and take away my tin, and refine me seven times.

A people are not made for rulers, but rulers for a people.

One great law for all who would be truly led by God's Pillar of cloud and fire, is to take no step at the bidding of self-will or without the clear moving of the heavenly Guide. Though the direction be new and the way seem beset with difficulty, there is never any risk, provided we are only led of God. Each new advance needs separate and special authority from Him, and yesterday's guidance is not sufficient for to-day.

The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other, is by music. When I would form in my mind an idea of a society in the highest degree happy, I think of them as expressing their love, their joy, and the inward concord and harmony and spiritual beauty of their souls by sweetly singing to each other.

True virtue never looks so lovely as when it is most oppressed, and the divine excellence of real Christianity is never demonstrated as clearly as when it faces trials.

The example of Jesus Christ is the only perfect example that ever existed in human nature. It is therefore, a rule by which to try all other examples; and the dispositions, frames and practices of others, must be commended and followed no further than they were followers of Christ.

Evangelical faith has the gospel of Christ for its foundation;

One part of that divine fullness which is communicated is the divine knowledge. That communicated knowledge, which must be supposed to pertain to God's last end in creating the world, is the creature's knowledge of HIM. For this is the end of all other knowledge, and even the faculty of understanding would be vain without it.

There is no such thing as excess in our taking of this spiritual food. There is no such virtue as temperance in spiritual feasting.