Jonathan Edwards born in a Puritan household in 1703, was a revered American revivalist preacher and profound philosopher.
He completed his education at Yale, studying diverse philosophical and theological concepts and vindicating his beliefs by synthesizing Protestant theology with contemporary philosophies.
As a pastor in Northampton, Massachusetts, Edwards was instrumental in the First Great Awakening, gaining international fame with his passionate sermons emphasizing the sovereignty of God, the depravity of humankind and the necessity of a “New Birth” conversion.
His notable works include “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God.” Dismissed from Northampton church in 1750, he moved to a mission post in Stockbridge where he penned major works addressing prevailing theological controversies.
Edwards later became president of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, where he died in 1758 following complications from a smallpox inoculation.
Related: John Piper Quotes from the Famous Theologian and Pastor and Soren Kierkegaard Quotes from Top Danish Theologian
I have curated the top quotes from Jonathan Edwards in this article.
Best Jonathan Edwards Quotes
Trust in God and ye need not fear. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
The smallest sin is an act of Cosmic Treason against a Holy God. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil’s reach as humility. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
He who has Christ has all he needs and needs no more. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
He who does not know Him, knows nothing else as it truly is. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
The seeking of the kingdom of God is the chief business of the Christian life. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Famous Jonathan Edwards Quotes
Oh, that God would purge away my dross, and take away my sin, and refine me seven times. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
The pleasures of humility are really the most refined, inward, and exquisite delights in the world. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Christ is the true light of the world; it is through him alone that true wisdom is imparted to the mind. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Great Jonathan Edwards Quotes
Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Greatest concern is not for your health or temporal welfare, but for the good of your soul. Though. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
When God is about to do a mighty new thing He always sets His people praying. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Christ gives peace to the most sinful and miserable that come to Him. He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Of all the knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves, are the most important. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Nothing is more certain than that there must be an unmade and unlimited being. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
The view of the misery of the damned will double the ardour of the love and gratitude of the saints of heaven. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Top Jonathan Edwards Quotes
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
How can you expect to dwell with God forever, if you so neglect and forsake him here? ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other is by music. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
All earthly desires are but streams, but God is the ocean. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Powerful Jonathan Edwards Quotes
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
The devil can counterfeit all the saving operations and graces of the Spirit of God. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
A greater absurdity cannot be thought of than a morose, hardhearted, covetous, proud, malicious Christian. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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 fullness and faithfulness in exercise. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Godliness is more easily feigned in words than in actions. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Resolved, never to do anything out of revenge. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Popular Jonathan Edwards Quotes
The harder the heart is, the more dead is it in sin, and the more unable to exert good affections and acts. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Resolved, never henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God’s. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a cause. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Love is the sum of all virtue, and love disposes us to good. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Inspiring Jonathan Edwards Quotes
The door of God’s mercy is thrown wide open, and Christ stands in the door and says to sinners ‘Come.’ ~ Jonathan Edwards.
And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that, have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell: yea, I say unto you, Fear him. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Nature is God’s greatest evangelist. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
He, whose heart is fixed, trusting in Christ, need not be afraid. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
We must view humility as one of the most essential things that characterizes true Christianity. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
One of these grand defects, as I humbly conceive, is this, that children are habituated to learning without understanding. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
It’s all about training and rhythm and getting it right on the day. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Inspirational Jonathan Edwards Quotes
Intend to live in continual mortification, and never to expect or desire any worldly ease or pleasure. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Spiritual delight in God arises chiefly from his beauty and perfection, not from the blessings he gives us. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
If you long to be more like Christ, then act like Him, and walk as He walked. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Every Christian that goes before us from this world is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Christians are spoken of as those that have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
The bodies of those that made such a noise and tumult when alive, when dead, lie as quietly among the graves of their neighbors as any others. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Positive Jonathan Edwards Quotes
The godly are designed for unknown and inconceivable happiness. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Being sensible that I am unable to do anything 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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Nothing sets a Christian so much out of the devil’s reach than humility. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Love is no ingredient in a merely speculative faith, but it is the life and soul of a practical faith. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Thought-Provoking Jonathan Edwards Quotes
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
O! one hour with God infinitely exceeds all the pleasures and delights of this lower world. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Wicked people will on the day of judgment see all there is to see of Jesus Christ, except His beauty and loveliness. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Christian practice is that evidence which confirms every other indication of true godliness. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
The material universe exists only in the mind. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Envy is a spirit of dissatisfaction or opposition to the prosperity or happiness of other people. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Profound Jonathan Edwards Quotes
We are dependent on God’s power through every step of our redemption. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
He that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only, without affection, never is engaged in the business of religion. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
God is glorified not only by His glory being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
The present state is short and transitory, but our state in the other world is everlasting. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
He that lives a prayerless life, lives without God in the world. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Real pain can alone cure us of imaginary ills. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
The beauty of the world consists wholly of sweet mutual consents, either within itself or with the supreme being. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
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. ~ Jonathan Edwards.
So these were the 107 top Jonathan Edwards quotes and sayings.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Ragnar Lothbrok quotes and Kourtney Kardashian quotes.
