Quotes from Jonathan Edwards

He had an uncommon thirst for knowledge, in the pursuit of which he spared no cost nor pains.

Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. But my first conviction was not so.

There is no comfort, I find, in any enjoyment, without enjoying God, and being engaged in his service.

Those who are backslidden are much more hardened in their sin than they were before. They are like iron which being once heated and cooled again becomes much harder than before.

First, All the good that they have is in and through Christ; he is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. All the good of the fallen and redeemed creature is concerned in these four things, and cannot be better distributed than into them; but Christ is each of them to us, and we have none of them any otherwise than in him.

No, rather let me die this moment, than be left to bring dishonour on God's holy name.—I

To those whose eyes may fall on these lines, may I not be excused saying, 'See to it that you honour your father and your mother, not only that your days may be long in the land, but that you may not, in after years, be disturbed by useless longings to have back again the precious ones who so ceaselessly and unselfishly toiled with heart and brain for your profoundest well-being.

now I saw it was so far from any goodness in me to own myself spiritually dead and destitute of all goodness that, on the contrary, my mouth would be forever stopped by it; and it looked as dreadful to me to see myself and the relation I stood in to God—I a sinner and criminal, and He a great Judge and Sovereign—as it would be to a poor trembling creature to venture off some high precipice.

There is mercy enough in God to admit an innumerable multitude into heaven. There is mercy enough for all, and there is merit enough in Christ to purchase heavenly happiness for millions of millions, for all men that ever were, are or shall be. And there is a sufficiency in the fountain of heaven's happiness to supply and fill and satisfy all: and there is in all respects enough for the happiness of all.

Wisdom was a thing that the Greeks admired; but Christ is the true light of the world, it is through him alone that true wisdom is imparted to the mind.

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.

at New Haven with the valedictory. In his Sophomore year he made the acquaintance of Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding—a work which left a permanent impress on his thinking. He read it, he says, with a far higher pleasure "than the most greedy miser finds when gathering up handfuls of silver and gold from some newly-discovered treasure.