Jonathan Edwards Quotes on God
Jonathan Edwards, the leading theologian of colonial New England, made the majesty and sovereignty of God the centre of his thought, and the quotes gathered here show its two faces. Edwards is famous for the terrifying imagery of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, where divine wrath burns against the unrepentant and the sinner is a worm, a mere nothing, wholly dependent on a God he has offended. Yet the same theology gives love a decisive place, for love is the active, working principle in all true faith, its very soul. His private Resolutions show him submitting every part of life, including prayer itself, to God's will. Drawn from his sermons and devotional writings, these passages present a God of overwhelming holiness before whom the fitting responses are awe, repentance, and love.
Quotes
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Attributed to Jonathan Edwards:
“Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected.”
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“Love is the active, working principle in all true faith. It is its very soul, without which it is dead. "Faith works by love."”
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895) | p. 396. -
“Every Christian that goes before us from this world is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven.”
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895) | p. 304. -
“Resolved, to confess frankly to myself all that which I find in myself, either infirmity or sin; and, if it be what concerns religion, also to confess the whole case to God, and implore needed help.”
Seventy Resolutions(1722-1723) | No. 68. -
“Holy practice is the most decisive evidence of the reality of our repentance. "Bring forth fruits meet for repentance."”
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895) | p. 509. -
“A little, wretched, despicable creature; a worm, a mere nothing, and less than nothing; a vile insect that has risen up in contempt against the majesty of Heaven and earth.”
The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners (1734). -
“Resolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept.”
Seventy Resolutions(1722-1723) | No. 29. -
“Edwards later writes in this sermon... "The entire active uniting of the soul, or the whole of what is called coming to Christ, and receiving of him, is called faith in Scripture..."”
Justification By Faith Alone (1738) -
“The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow.”
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741)