Jonathan Edwards Quotes

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

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?

We are to consider, that though Christ is greatly exalted, yet he is exalted, not as a private person for himself only, but as his people's head; he is exalted in their name, and upon their account, as the first fruits, and as representing the whole harvest. He is not exalted that he may be at a greater distance from them, but that they may be exalted with him.

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

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

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.

There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.