100 Quotes by Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards, an American preacher and theologian, played a pivotal role in the First Great Awakening, a spiritual revival that swept through the American colonies in the 18th century. Born in 1703, Edwards is best known for his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," delivered in 1741, which vividly depicted the precarious state of humanity in the face of divine judgment. His powerful oratory style and passionate delivery evoked deep emotional responses in his listeners, contributing to the Awakening's fervor. Edwards' theological works, including "A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections," examined the nature of genuine religious experiences and provided intellectual support for the revival's emotional fervency. His emphasis on personal conversion and the necessity of the "new birth" underscored his belief in the transformative power of religious faith. Edwards' contributions extended beyond his own time, influencing generations of theologians, religious leaders, and thinkers. His legacy endures as a key figure in American religious history, whose teachings continue to shape discussions on spirituality, faith, and human nature.
Jonathan Edwards Quotes
He who has Christ has all he needs and needs no more. (Meaning)
He that lives a prayerless life, lives without God in the world. (Meaning)
Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs. (Meaning)
Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected. (Meaning)
Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering. (Meaning)
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.
You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.
Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.
When God is about to do a mighty new thing He always sets His people praying.
God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied.
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.
How can you expect to dwell with God forever, if you so neglect and forsake him here?
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.
A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God's power that he is upheld and provided for, and that he needs God's wisdom to lead and guide him, and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.
Spiritual delight in God arises chiefly from his beauty and perfection, not from the blessings he gives us.
The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied.
Remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was, and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan's whole building, and is the most difficultly rooted out, and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts, and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility.
He that lives a prayerless life, lives without God in the world.
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.
Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it.
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.
The smallest sin is an act of Cosmic Treason against a Holy God.
Nature is God's greatest evangelist.
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.
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!
The seeking of the kingdom of God is the chief business of the Christian life
He, whose heart is fixed, trusting in Christ, need not be afraid.
The foundation of the Christian's peace is everlasting; it is what no time, no change can destroy. It will remain when the body dies; it will remain when the mountains depart and the hills shall be removed, and when the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll. The fountain of His comfort shall never be diminished, and the stream shall never be dried. His comfort and joy is a living spring in the soul, a well of water springing up to everlasting life.
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
Of all the knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves, are the most important.
He who has Christ has all he needs and needs no more.
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.
Christ gives peace to the most sinful and miserable that come to Him. He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds.
Truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God.
He who does not know Him, knows nothing else as it truly is.
Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil's reach as humility.
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.
Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life.
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.
Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.
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.
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.
Christ is the true light of the world; it is through him alone that true wisdom is imparted to the mind.
The door of God’s mercy is thrown wide open, and Christ stands in the door and says to sinners ‘Come.’
To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here.
There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness
Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering.
Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other is by music.
Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church.
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.
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.
If you long to be more like Christ, then act like Him, and walk as He walked.
Jesus Christ is both the only price and sacrifice by which eternal redemption is obtained for believers.
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 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.
Who will deny that true religion consists, in a great measure, in vigorous and lively actings of the inclination and will of the soul, or the fervent exercises of the heart? That religion which God requires, and will accept, does not consist in weak, dull, and lifeless, wishes, raising us but a little above a state of indifference.
A sinner is not justified before God (coram Deo) apart from the righteousness of Christ apprehended by faith.
We are dependent on the power of God to convert us and give faith in Jesus Christ and the new nature.
He that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only, without affection, never is engaged in the business of religion.
We must view humility as one of the most essential things that characterizes true Christianity.
Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected.
God is glorified not only by His glory being seen, but by its being rejoiced in.
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.
Holiness appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm nature; which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness and ravishment to the soul.
Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.
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.
The pleasures of humility are really the most refined, inward, and exquisite delights in the world.
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.
Resolved, to ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have done better.
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.
Love is no ingredient in a merely speculative faith, but it is the life and soul of a practical faith.
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.
Intend to live in continual mortification, and never to expect or desire any worldly ease or pleasure.
Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings.
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.
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 seems to impart a quiet to the mind.
Resolved, never to do anything out of revenge.
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.
The godly are designed for unknown and inconceivable happiness.
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?
The view of the misery of the damned will double the ardour of the love and gratitude of the saints of heaven.
You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell.
Resolved, never henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God's.
Godliness is more easily feigned in words than in actions
Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.
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.
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.
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.
The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted.
There is no way that Christians, in a private capacity, can do so much to promote the work of God and advance the kingdom of Christ as by prayer.
That the reason why they are not fallen already and do not fall now is only that God's appointed time is not come. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.
If there be ground for you to trust, as you do, in your own righteousness, then all that Christ did to purchase salvation, and all that God did from the fall of man to prepare the way for it, is in vain. Consider what greater folly could you have devised to charge upon God than this, that all those things were done so needlessly; when, instead of all this, He might only have called you forth, and committed the business to you, which you think you can do so easily.
Assurance is not to be obtained so much by self-examination as by action
Wicked people will on the day of judgment see all there is to see of Jesus Christ, except His beauty and loveliness
Teachers and learners are correlates, one of which was never intended to be without the other.
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider... abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.
Envy is a spirit of dissatisfaction or opposition to the prosperity or happiness of other people.
A man who knows that he lives in sin against God will not be inclined to come daily into the presence of God.
Trust in God and ye need not fear.
He that sees the beauty of holiness or true moral good, sees the greatest and most important thing in the world.
The devil can counterfeit all the saving operations and graces of the Spirit of God.
I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a cause.
Since holiness is the main thing that excites, draws, and governs all gracious affections, it is no wonder that all such affections tend to holiness. That which men love, they desire to have and to be united to, and possessed of. That beauty which men delight in, they desire to be adorned with. Those acts which men delight in, they necessarily incline to do.
"Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and switfly
descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to
uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a fallen rock."
One requirement to be used as a leader in a movement of revival: They must have the Spirit of God upon them.
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.
As God delights in his own beauty, he must necessarily delight in the creature's holiness which is a conformity to and participation of it, as truly as [the] brightness of a jewel, held in the sun's beams, is a participation or derivation of the sun's brightness, though immensely less in degree.
The ingenerating of a principle of grace in the soul seems in Scripture to be compared to the conceiving of Christ in the womb... And the conception of Christ in the womb of the blessed virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost, seems to be a designed resemblance of the conception of Christ in the soul of a believer by the power of the same Holy Ghost.
When God is about to do a great work, He pours out a spirit of supplication.
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.
Grace is the seed of glory, the dawning of glory in the heart, and therefore grace is the earnest of the future inheritance.
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.
True virtue never appears so lovely as when it is most oppressed; and the divine excellency of real Christianity is never exhibited with such advantage as when under the greatest trials; then it is that true faith appears much more precious than gold, and upon this account is "found to praise and honour and glory.
Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.
Christian practice is that evidence which confirms every other indication of true godliness.
We are dependent on God's power through every step of our redemption.
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.
Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules. And family education and order are some of the chief means of grace. If these fail, all other means are likely to prove ineffectual. If these are duly maintained, all the means of grace will be likely to prosper and be successful.
There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God
Being sensible that I am unable to do any thing without God's help, I do humbly entreat Him, by His grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to His will, for Christ's sake.
From love arises hatred of those things which are contrary to what we love, or which oppose and thwart us in those things that we delight in.
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.
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.
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.
Every Christian that goes before us from this world is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven.
Salvation is so great a thing, so glorious an attainment, that 'tis worth the while for a man to do his utmost every day during his whole life in the use of all proper means that he may attain.
Resolved, never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.
Resolved to live with all my might while I do live, and as I shall wish I had done ten thousand years hence.
I know not how to express better, what my sins appear to me to be, than by heaping infinite upon infinite, and multiplying infinite by infinite. When I look into my heart and take a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell.
All the fruits of the Spirit which we are to lay weight upon as evidential of grace, are summed up in charity, or Christian love; because this is the sum of all grace. And the only way, therefore, in which any can know their good estate, is by discerning the exercises of this divine charity in their hearts; for without charity, let men have what gifts you please, they are nothing.
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.
Whether God has decreed all things that ever come to pass or not, all that own the being of a God, own that He knows all things beforehand. Now, it is self-evident that if He knows all things beforehand, He either doth approve of them or doth not approve of them; that is, He either is willing they should be, or He is not willing they should be. But to will that they should be is to decree them.
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.
Religion, in its purity, is not so much a pursuit as a temper; or rather it is a temper, leading to the pursuit of all that is high and holy. Its foundation is faith; its action, works; its temper, holiness; its aim, obedience to God in improvement of self, and benevolence to men.
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.
I resolve to live with all my might while I do live. I resolve never to lose one moment of time and to improve my use of time in the most profitable way I possibly can. I resolve never to do anything I wouldn't do, if it were the last hour of my life.
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.
The material universe exists only in the mind.
Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can.
If the case be such indeed, that all mankind are by nature in a state of total ruin, then, doubtless,the great salvation by Christ stands in direct relation to this ruin, as the remedy to the disease.
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.
Nothing is more certain than that there must be an unmade and unlimited being.
Real pain can alone cure us of imaginary ills.
A greater absurdity cannot be thought of than a morose, hardhearted, covetous, proud, malicious Christian.
― Jonathan Edwards Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
