39 Jonathan Edwards Quotes

The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.

To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here.

Grace is but Glory begun, and Glory is but Grace perfected.

Resolved to live with all my might while I do live, and as I shall wish I had done ten thousand ages hence.

The true spirit of prayer is no other than God's own Spirit dwelling in the hearts of the saints. And as this spirit comes from God, so doth it naturally tend to God in holy breathings and pantings. It naturally leads to God, to converse with him by prayer.

Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts: the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seem to impart a quiet to the mind.

The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other is by music.

I make it my rule, to lay hold of light and embrace it, wherever I see it, though held forth by a child or an enemy.

Every saint in heaven is as a flower in the 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.

Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil's reach as humility.

A true love of God must begin with a delight in his holiness.

There are two sorts of hypocrites: ones that are deceived with their outward morality and external religion; and the others are those that are deceived with false discoveries and elevation; which often cry down works, and men's own righteousness.

By Christ's purchasing redemption, two things are intended: his satisfaction and his merit; the one pays our debt, and so satisfies; the other procures our title, and so merits. The satisfaction of Christ is to free us from misery; the merit of Christ is to purchase happiness for us.

Family education and order are some of the chief means of grace; if these are duly maintained, all the means of grace are likely to prosper and become effectual.

The weakness of human nature has always appeared in times of great revivals of religion, by a disposition to run into extremes, especially in these three things: enthusiasm, superstition, and intemperate zeal.

We cannot believe that the church of God is already possessed of all that light which God intends to give it; nor that all Satan's lurking places have already been found out.

A man of a right spirit is not a man of narrow and private views, but is greatly interested and concerned for the good of the community, to which he belongs, and particularly of the city or village in which he resides, and for the true welfare of the society of which he is a member.

The surest way to know our gold is to look upon it and examine it in God's furnace, where he tries it that we may see what it is. If we have a mind to know whether a building stands strong or no, we must look upon it when the wind blows. If we would know whether a staff be strong, or a rotten, broken reed, we must observe it when it is leaned on and weight is borne upon it. If we would weigh ourselves justly we must weigh ourselves in God's scales that he makes use of to weigh us.

Some persons are always ready to level those above them down to themselves, while they are never willing to level those below them up to their own position. But he that is under the influence of true humility will avoid both these extremes. On the one hand, he will be willing that all should rise just so far as their diligence and worth of character entitle them to; and on the other hand, he will be willing that his superiors should be known and acknowledged in their place, and have rendered to them all the honors that are their due.

Prophecy and miracles argue the imperfection of the state of the church, rather than its perfection. For they are means designed by God as a stay or support, or as a leading string to the church in its infancy, rather than as means adapted to it in its full growth.

I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a cause.

If there be ground for you to trust in your own righteousness, then, all that Christ did to purchase salvation and all that God did to prepare the way for it is in vain.

Sincere friendship towards God, in all who believe him to be properly an intelligent, willing being, does most apparently, directly, and strongly incline to prayer; and it no less disposes the heart strongly to desire to have our infinitely glorious.

Love is the sum of all virtue, and love disposes us to good.

As grace is first from God, so it is continually from him, as much as light is all day long from the sun, as well as at first dawn or at sun-rising.

True liberty consists only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will.

Such is man's nature, that he is very inactive and lazy unless he is influenced by some affection, either love or hatred, desire, hope, fear, or some other. These affections we see to be the springs that set men agoing, in all the affairs of life, and engage them in all their pursuits: these are the things that put men forward, and carry them along.

Real pain can alone cure us of imaginary ills.

Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.

In efficacious grace we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some and we do the rest. But God does all, and we do all. God produces all, we act all. For that is what produces, viz. our own acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are in different respects, wholly passive and wholly active.

Resolved, never to do anything which I would be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life.

Many pray with their lips for that for which their hearts have no desire.

The devil can counterfeit all the saving operations and graces of the Spirit of God.

Find preachers of David Brainerd's spirit, and nothing can stand before them. Let us be followers of him, as he was of Christ, in absolute self-devotion, in total deadness to the world, and in fervent love to God and man.

Temples have their images; and we see what influence they have always had over a great part of mankind. But, in truth, the ideas and images in men's minds are the invisible powers that constantly govern them; and to these they all pay universally a ready submission.

Preach abroad. It is the cooping yourselves up in rooms that has dampened the work of God, which never was and never will be carried out to any purpose without going into the highways and hedges and compelling men and women to come in.

We have no strict demonstration of anything, except mathematical truths, but by metaphysics. We can have no proof that is properly demonstrative, of any one position relating to the being and nature of God, his creation of the world, the dependence of all things on him, the nature of bodies and spirits, the nature of our own souls, or any of the great truths of morality and natural religion, but what is metaphysical.

The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted.