A Puritan at Heart

God tries the graces of his people by persecutions, that the truth and power of his grace in them may appear to his own glory, both before men, angels, and devils. One end is that by such a discovery of the truth and strength of their faith and love, he may as it were triumph over Satan; and make him to see what a victory is obtained over him, by so rescuing those souls that were once his captives from his power; and convince him of the real success of his design of redeeming and sanctifying souls–notwithstanding all that he had done to [them], whereby he thought he had utterly ruined mankind, and put t hem past the possibility of a cure. For this end God tried Job. God gloried in Job as a perfect and upright man that did good and eschewed evil [Job 1:8]. Satan don’t own the truth of it but charges that Job was a hypocrite, and his service mercenary. But God’s tries Job with grievous affliction for Satan’s conviction. So it is in the church in general, their trials being for Satan’s conviction. [Jonathan Edwards]

The devil has driven the pendulum far beyond its proper point of rest; and when he has carried it to the utmost length that he can, and it begins by its own weight to swing back, he probably will set in, and drive it with the utmost fury the other way; and so give us no rest; and if possible prevent our settling in a proper medium. What a poor, blind, weak and miserable creature is man, at his best estate! We are like poor helpless sheep; the devil is far too subtle for us What is our strength! What is our wisdom! How ready are we to go astray! How easily are we drawn aside into innumerable snares, while in the mean time we are bold and confident, and doubt but not we are right and and safe! We are foolish sheep in the midst of subtle of serpents and cruel wolves, and do not know it. Oh how unfit we are to be left to ourselves! And how much do we stand in need of the wisdom, the power, the condescenion, patience, forgiveness, and gentleness of our good Shepherd! [Johnathan Edwards]

The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accomodation here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but the streams, but God is the ocean. [Johnathan Edwards]

It is the manner of God before He bestows any signal mercy on the people, first to prepare them for it. [Johnathan Edwards]

Resulting from true and genuine conversions:

 

A new birth, or regeneration

 

 

A new transcendental perspective in daily life that focuses on God’s glory.

 

 

A love for the loveliness of divine things.

 

 

A "new taste" that combines "heat with light"; understanding is essential but insufficient by itself.

 

 

A deep conviction of an immediate sense of divinity and total control of self by the truths of the gospel.

 

 

An evangelical rather than legal illumination.

 

A radical change of nature that results in conversion.

 

 

A genuine love for and meekness towards others.

 

 

A Christian tenderness towards others.

 

 

A kind of symmetry or proportion of all the foregoing affections.

 

 

A desire for a growing relationship with God.

 

 

A gracious love that manifests itself in behaviour. [Jonathan Edwards]

As the affections not only necessarily belong to the human nature, but are a very great part of it, so (inasmuch as by regeneration persons are renewed in the whole man) holy affections not only necessarily belong to true religion, but are a very great part of such religion. And as true religion is practical, and God hath so constituted the human nature, that the affections are very much the springs of men’s actions, this also shows, that true religion must consist very much in the affections. [Johnathan Edwards]

God hath made it our duty, by his institution, to set apart this day for a special seeking of his grace and blessing. From which we may argue, that he will be especially ready to confer his grace on those who thus seek it.… The sabbath day is an accepted time, a day of salvation, a time wherein God especially loves to be sought, and loves to be found.… [Johnathan Edwards]

 

It is the duty and glory of a Christian to rejoice in the Lord every day, but especially on the Lord’s Day.… To fast on the Lord’s Day, saith Ignatius, is to kill Christ; but to rejoice in the Lord this day, and to rejoice in all the duties of the day … this is to crown Christ, this is to lift up Christ. [Johnathan Edwards]

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. [Johnathon Edwards]

Trust in God and you need not fear.[Johnathan Edwards]

Indeed the saints in themselves have no excellence as they are in and of themselves…. They are in themselves filthy, vile creatures and see themselves to be so. they have an excellence and a glory in them because they have Christ dwelling in them…. Tis some. thing of God. This holy heavenly spark is put into the soul in con version, and God maintains it there. All the power of hell cannot put it out…. Though it be small … ’tis a powerful thing. It has influence on the heart to govern that, and brings forth holy fruits in the life, and won’t cease to prevail ’til it has consumed all the corruption that is left in the heart and ’til it has turned the whole soul, as it were, into a pure, holy and heavenly flame. Jonathan Edwards

Indeed the saints in themselves have no excellence as they are in and of themselves…. They are in themselves filthy, vile creatures and see themselves to be so. they have an excellence and a glory in them because they have Christ dwelling in them…. Tis some. thing of God. This holy heavenly spark is put into the soul in con version, and God maintains it there. All the power of hell cannot put it out…. Though it be small … ’tis a powerful thing. It has influence on the heart to govern that, and brings forth holy fruits in the life, and won’t cease to prevail ’til it has consumed all the corruption that is left in the heart and ’til it has turned the whole soul, as it were, into a pure, holy and heavenly flame. Jonathan Edwards

What tranquillity will there be in heaven! Who can express the fullness and blessedness of this peace! What a calm is this! How sweet and holy and joyous! What a haven of rest to enter, after having passed through the storms and tempests of this world, in which pride and selfishness and envy and malice and scorn and contempt and contention and vice are as waves of a restless ocean, always rolling, and often dashed about in violence and fury! What a Canaan of rest to come to, after going through this waste and howling wilderness, full of snares and pitfalls and poisonous serpents, where no rest could be found. [Johnathon Edwards]

Whenever religion revives remarkably, till we have learned well to distinguish between true and false religion, between saving affections and experiences, and those manifold fair shows, and glistering appearances, by which they are counterfeited; the consequences of which, when they are not distinguished, are often inexpressibly dreadful. By this means, the devil gratifies himself, by bringing it to pass, that that should be offered to God, by multitudes, under a notion of a pleasing acceptable service to him, that is indeed above all things abominable to him. By this means he deceives great multitudes about the state of their souls; making them think they are something, when they are nothing; and so eternally undoes them; and not only so, but establishes many in a strong confidence of their eminent holiness, who are in God’s sight some of the vilest of hypocrites. By this means, he many ways damps and wounds religion in the hearts of the saints, obscures and deforms it by corrupt mixtures, causes their religious affections woefully to degenerate, and sometimes, for a considerable time, to be like the manna that bred worms and stank; and dreadfully ensnares and confounds the minds of others of the saints and brings them into great difficulties and temptation, and entangles them in a wilderness, out of which they can by no means extricate themselves. By this means, Satan mightily encourages the hearts of open enemies of religion, and strengthens their hands, and fills them with weapons, and makes strong their fortresses; when, at the same time, religion and the church of God lie exposed to them, as a city without walls. By this means, he brings it to pass, that men work wickedness under a notion of doing God service, and so sin without restraint, yea with earnest forwardness and zeal, any with all their might. By this means he brings in even the friends of religion, insensibly to themselves, to do the work of enemies, by destroying religion in a far more effectual manner than open enemies can do, under a notion of advancing it. By this means the devil scatters the flock of Christ, and sets them one against another, and that with great heat of spirit, under a nation of zeal for God; and religion, by degrees degenerates into vain jangling; and during the strife, Satan leads both parties far out of the right way, driving each to great extremes, one on the right hand, and the other on the left, according as he finds they are most inclined, or most easily moved and swayed, till the right path in the middle is almost wholly neglected. [Johnathan Edwards]

The cup of bitterness was now represented as just at hand. He had not only a more clear and lively view of it than before; but it was now set directly before him, that he might without delay take it up and drink it; for then, within that same hour, Judas was to come with his band of men, and he was then to deliver up himself into their hands to the end that he might drink this cup the next day; unless indeed he refused to take it, and so made his escape from that place where Judas would come; which he had opportunity enough to do if he had been so minded. Having thus shown what those terrible views and apprehensions were which Christ had in the time of his agony; I shall endeavour to show,\r\n\r\nII. That the conflict which the soul of Christ then endured was occasioned by those views and apprehensions. The sorrow and distress which his soul then suffered, arose from that lively, and full, and immediate view which he had then given him of that cup of wrath; by which God the Father did as it were set the cup down before him, for him to take it and drink it. Some have inquired, what was the occasion of that distress and agony, and many speculations there have been about it, but the account which the Scripture itself gives us is sufficiently full in this matter, and does not leave room for speculation or doubt. The thing that Christ’’s mind was so full of at that time was, without doubt, the same with that which his mouth was so full of: it was the dread which his feeble human nature had of that dreadful cup, which was vastly more terrible than Nebuchadnezzar’’s fiery furnace. He had then a near view of that furnace of wrath, into which he was to be cast; he was brought to the mouth of the furnace that he might look into it, and stand and view its raging flames, and see the glowings of its heat, that he might know where he was going and what he was about to suffer. This was the thing that filled his soul with sorrow and darkness, this terrible sight as it were overwhelmed him. For what was that human nature of Christ to such mighty wrath as this? it was in itself, without the supports of God, but a feeble worm of the dust, a thing that was crushed before the moth, none of God’’s children ever had such a cup set before them, as this first being of every creature had. 2. From what Christ himself says of it, who was not wont to magnify things beyond the truth. He says, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death." Matt. 26:38. What language can more strongly express the most extreme degree of sorrow? His soul was not only "sorrowful," but "exceeding sorrowful;" and not only so, but because that did not fully express the degree of his sorrow, he adds, "even unto death;" which seems to intimate that the very pains and sorrows of hell, of eternal death, had got hold upon him. The Hebrews were wont to express the utmost degree of sorrow that any creature could be liable to by the phrase, the shadow of death. Christ had now, as it were, the shadow of death brought over his soul by the near view which he had of that bitter cup that was now set before him. Hence we may learn how dreadful Christ’’s last sufferings were. We learn it from the dreadful effect which the bare foresight of them had upon him in his agony. His last sufferings were so dreadful, that the view which Christ had of them before overwhelmed him and amazed him, as it is said he began to be sore amazed. The very sight of these last sufferings was so very dreadful as to sink his soul down into the dark shadow of death; yea, so dreadful was it, that in the sore conflict which his nature had with it, he was all in a sweat of blood, his body all over was covered with clotted blood, and not only his body, but the very ground under him with the blood that fell from him, which had been forced through his pores through the violence of his agony. And if only the foresight of the cup was so dreadful, how dreadful was the cup itself, how far beyond all that can be uttered or conceived! [Johnathon Edwards]

Death is not only no death for them, but is a kind of translation to a more glorious life, and is turned into a kind of resurrection from the dead. Death is a happy change to them, and a change that is by far more like a resurrection than a death. It is a change from a state of much sin and sorrow, and darkness, to a state of perfect light, and holiness and joy. When a saint dies, he awakes as it were, out of sleep. This life is a dull, lifeless state; there is but a little Spiritual life, and a great deal of deadness; there is but a little sight and a great deal of darkness; there is but a little sense and a great deal of stupidity and senselessness. But when a godly man dies, all this deadness and darkness, and stupidity and senselessness are gone forever, and he enters immediately into a state of perfect life, and perfect light, and activity and joyfulness. [Johnathon Edwards]