Jonathan Edwards Quotes
You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.
Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.
The material universe exists only in the mind.
No degree of speculative knowledge of religion is any certain sign of true piety.
Trust in God and ye need not fear.
The beauty of the world consists wholly of sweet mutual consents, either within itself or with the supreme being.
If you seek in the spirit of selfishness, to grasp all as your own, you shall lose all, and be driven out of the world, at last, naked and forlorn, to everlasting poverty and contempt.
Real pain can alone cure us of imaginary ills.
Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can.
To live with all my might, while I do live.
To mark all that I say in conversation, merely to beget in others, a good opinion of myself, and examine it.
Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.
Nothing is more certain than that there must be an unmade and unlimited being.
One of these grand defects, as I humbly conceive, is this, that children are habituated to learning without understanding.
A greater absurdity cannot be thought of than a morose, hardhearted, covetous, proud, malicious Christian.
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
Resolved to live with all my might while I do live, and as I shall wish I had done ten thousand years hence.
Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
Men will trust in God no further than they know Him; and they cannot be in the exercise of faith in Him one ace further than they have a sight of His fulness and faithfulness in exercise.
The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted.
Consider that as a principle of love is the main principle in the heart of a real Christian, so the labor of love, is the main business of the Christian life.
The end of the creation is that the creation might glorify [God]. Now what is glorifying God, but a rejoicing at that glory he has displayed?
true weanedness from the world don’t consist in being beat off from the world by the affliction of it, but a being drawn off by the sight of something better.
We are dependent on God’s power through every step of our redemption.
Love is no ingredient in a merely speculative faith, but it is the life and soul of a practical faith.
Grace is the seed of glory, the dawning of glory in the heart, and therefore grace is the earnest of the future inheritance.
You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell.
He, whose heart is fixed, trusting in Christ, need not be afraid.
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.
Nature is God’s greatest evangelist.
There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God
Resolved, never to do anything out of revenge.
Assurance is not to be obtained so much by self-examination as by action
When God is about to do a great work, He pours out a spirit of supplication.
Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
A sinner is not justified before God (coram Deo) apart from the righteousness of Christ apprehended by faith.
Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected.
Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life.
Teachers and learners are correlates, one of which was never intended to be without the other.
Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.
I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a cause.
Every Christian that goes before us from this world is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven.
We are dependent on the power of God to convert us and give faith in Jesus Christ and the new nature.
If we make a great show of respect and love to God, in the outward actions, while there is no sincerity in the heart, it is but hypocrisy and practical lying unto the Holy One.
Wicked people will on the day of judgment see all there is to see of Jesus Christ, except His beauty and loveliness
Jesus Christ is both the only price and sacrifice by which eternal redemption is obtained for believers.
The door of God’s mercy is thrown wide open, and Christ stands in the door and says to sinners ‘Come.’
Christ gives peace to the most sinful and miserable that come to Him. He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds.
Envy is a spirit of dissatisfaction or opposition to the prosperity or happiness of other people.
Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil’s reach as humility.
The pleasures of humility are really the most refined, inward, and exquisite delights in the world.
God is glorified not only by His glory being seen, but by its being rejoiced in.
Love is the sum of all virtue, and love disposes us to good.
Godliness is more easily feigned in words than in actions
Some other Jonathan Edwards Quotes
He that sees the beauty of holiness or true moral good ,sees the greatest and most important thing in the world.
The seeking of the kingdom of God is the chief business of the Christian life
Christ is the true light of the world; it is through him alone that true wisdom is imparted to the mind.
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.
Truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God.
Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.
When God is about to bestow some great blessing on His church, it is often His manner, in the first place, so to order things in His providence as to show His church their great need of it, and to bring them into distress for want of it, and so put them upon crying earnestly to Him for it.
We have seen that the Son of God created the world for this very end, to communicate Himself in an image of His own excellency. … When we behold the light and brightness of the sun, the golden edges of an evening cloud, or the beauteous (rain)bow, we behold the adumbrations of His glory and goodness; and in the blue sky, of his mildness and gentleness.
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 not, 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.
The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other is by music.
Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering.
The godly are designed for unknown and inconceivable happiness.
Of all the knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves, are the most important.
The smallest sin is an act of Cosmic Treason against a Holy God.
True boldness for Christ transcends all, it is indifference to the displeasure of either friends or foes. Boldness enables Christians to forsake all rather than Christ, and to prefer to offend all rather than to offend Him.
There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness
Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.
He who has Christ has all he needs and needs no more.
All the graces of Christianity always go together. They so go together that where there is one, there are all, and where one is wanting, all are wanting. Where there is faith, there are love, and hope, and humility; and where there is love, there is also trust; and where there is a holy trust in God, there is love to God; and where there is a gracious hope, there also is a holy fear of God.
To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here.
Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it.
A man who knows that he lives in sin against God will not be inclined to come daily into the presence of God.
Seek not to grow in knowledge chiefly for the sake of applause, and to enable you to dispute with others; but seek it for the benefit of your souls.
He that lives a prayerless life, lives without God in the world.
Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings.
A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble broken-hearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble broken-hearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behaviour.
By the grace of God we will never pluck unripe fruit. We will never press people to decision, because we’ll lead them to damnation and not salvation.
We must view humility as one of the most essential things that characterizes true Christianity.
A true love for God must begin with a delight in His holiness, and not with a delight in any other attribute; for no other attribute is truly lovely without this.
They who truly come to God for mercy, come as beggars, and not as creditors: they come for mere mercy, for sovereign grace, and not for anything that is due
I go out to preach with two propositions in mind. First, every person ought to give his life to Christ. Second, whether or not anyone else gives him his life, I will give him mine.
If I murmur in the least at affliction, if I am in any way uncharitable, if I revenge my own case, if I do anything purely to please myself or omit anything because it is a great denial, if I trust myself, if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me, or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God’s.
Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church.
Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.
The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied.
Spiritual delight in God arises chiefly from his beauty and perfection, not from the blessings he gives us.
Resolved, never henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God’s.
The Spirit of God is given to the true saints to dwell in them as his proper lasting abode to dwell in them and to influence their hearts as a principle of new nature or as a divine supernatural spring of life and action.
A true and faithful Christian does not make holy living an accidental thing. It is his great concern. As the business of the soldier is to fight, so the business of the Christian is to be like Christ.
How can you expect to dwell with God forever, if you so neglect and forsake him here?
When God is about to do a mighty new thing He always sets His people praying.
He who does not know Him, knows nothing else as it truly is.
Intend to live in continual mortification, and never to expect or desire any worldly ease or pleasure.
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.
It is God’s will through His wonderful grace, that the prayers of His saints should be one of the great principal means of carrying on the designs of Christ’s kingdom in the world. When God has something very great to accomplish for His church, it is His will that there should precede it the extraordinary prayers of His people; as is manifest by Ezekiel 36:37. and it is revealed that, when God is about to accomplish great things for His church, He will begin by remarkably pouring out the spirit of grace and supplication
All truth is given by revelation, either general or special, and it must be received by reason. Reason is the God-given means for discovering the truth that God discloses, whether in his world or his Word. While God wants to reach the heart with truth, he does not bypass the mind.
The devil can counterfeit all the saving operations and graces of the Spirit of God.
You all have by you a large treasure of divine knowledge, in that you have the Bible in your hands; therefore be not contented in possessing but little of this treasure.
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.
The view of the misery of the damned will double the ardour of the love and gratitude of the saints of heaven.
Those who are in a state of salvation are to attribute it to sovereign grace alone, and to give all the praise to Him who maketh them to differ from others.
It is not by telling people about ourselves that we demonstrate our Christianity. Words are cheap. It is by costly, self-denying Christian practice that we show the reality of our faith.
True salvation always produces an abiding change of nature in a true convert. Therefore, whenever holiness of life does not accompany a confession of conversion, it must be understood that this individual is not a Christian.
If you long to be more like Christ, then act like Him, and walk as He walked.
When I am giving the relation of a thing, remember to abstain from altering either in the matter or manner of speaking, so much, as that, if every one, afterwards, should alter as much, it would at last come to be properly false.
I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: Resolved, That I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age.
I claim no right to myself, no right to this understanding, this will, these affections that are in me. Neither do I have any right to this body or its members, no right to this tongue, to these hands, feet, ears or eyes. I have given myself clear away and not retained anything of my own.
Among the many acts of gratitude we owe to God, it may be accounted one to study and contemplate the perfections and beauties of His work of creation. Every new discovery must necessarily raise in us a fresh sense of the greatness, wisdom, and power of God.
In all your course, walk with God and follow Christ as a little, poor, helpless child, taking hold of Christ’s hand, keeping your eye on the mark of the wounds on his hands and side, whence came the blood that cleanses you from sin and hiding your nakedness under the skirt of the white shining robe of his righteousness.
Christ is like a river in another respect. A river is continually flowing, there are fresh supplies of water coming from the fountain-head continually, so that a man may live by it, and be supplied with water all his life. So Christ is an ever-flowing fountain; he is continually supplying his people, and the fountain is not spent. They who live upon Christ, may have fresh supplies from him to all eternity; they may have an increase of blessedness that is new, and new still, and which never will come to an end.
There are people who love those who agree with them and admire them, but have no time for those who oppose and dislike them. A Christian’s love must be universal!
That there should absolutely be nothing at all is utterly impossible. The mind, let it stretch its conceptions ever so far, can never so much as bring itself to conceive of a state of perfect nothing.
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, and tlak much of free grace, but at the same time make a righteousness of their discoveries and of their humiliation, and exalt themselves to heaven with them.
God’s purpose for my life was that I have a passion for God’s glory and that I have a passion for my joy in that glory, and that these two are one passion.
He that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only, without affection, never is engaged in the business of religion.