In a classic sermon on Romans 9 and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, Jonathan Edwards said this:

‎‎‎When God is here spoken of as hardening some of the children of men, it is not to be understood that God by any positive efficiency hardens any man’s heart. There is no positive act in God, as though he put forth any power to harden the heart. To suppose any such thing would be to make God the immediate author of sin. God is said to harden men in two ways: by withholding the powerful influences of his Spirit, without which their hearts will remain hardened, and grow harder and harder; in this sense he hardens them, as he leaves them to hardness. And again, by ordering those things in his providence which, through the abuse of their corruption, become the occasion of their hardening.

from Jonathan Edwards' sermon God's Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men

A Puritan Prayer from The Valley of Vision:

Look unto the things of this world,—wives, children, possessions, estates, power, friends, and honour; how amiable are they! how desirable unto the thoughts of the most of men! But he who hath obtained a view of the glory of Christ, will, in the midst of them all, say, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none on earth that I desire besides thee,” Ps. 73:25; “For who in the heaven can be compared unto the LORD? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the LORD?” Ps. 89:6.

from The Glory of Christ, John Owen

Let your occasional thoughts of Christ be many, and multiplied every day. He is not far from us; we may make a speedy address unto him at any time.

from The Glory of Christ, John Owen

If you would have peace, make war with sin.

from A Body of Divinity, Thomas Watson

From his sermon Safety, Fullness, and Sweet Refreshment, to be Found in Christ, Jonathan Edwards comments on the excellency of Christ in light of Isaiah 55:1-2;

The excellency of Christ is such, that the discovery of it is exceedingly contenting and satisfying to the soul. The inquiry of the soul is after that which is most excellent. The carnal soul imagines that earthly things are excellent; one thinks riches most excellent, another has the highest esteem of honour, and to another carnal pleasure appears the most excellent; but the soul cannot find contentment in any of these things, because it soon finds an end to their excellency.

Worldly men imagine, that there is true excellency and true happiness in those things which they are pursuing. They think that if they could but obtain them, they should be happy; and when they obtain them, and cannot find happiness, they look for happiness in something else, and are still upon the pursuit.

But Christ Jesus has true excellency, and so great excellency, that when they come to see it they look no further, but the mind rests there. It sees a transcendent glory and an ineffable sweetness in him; it sees that till now it has been pursuing shadows, but that now it has found the substance; that before it had been seeking happiness in the stream, but that now it has found the ocean. The excellency of Christ is an object adequate to the natural cravings of the soul, and is sufficient to fill the capacity. It is an infinite excellency, such an one as the mind desires, in which it can find no bounds; and the more the mind is used to it, the more excellent it appears. Every new discovery makes this beauty appear more ravishing, and the mind sees no end; here is room enough for the mind to go deeper and deeper, and never come to the bottom. The soul is exceedingly ravished when it first looks on this beauty, and it is never weary of it. The mind never has any satiety, but Christ’s excellency is always fresh and new, and tends as much to delight, after it has been seen a thousand or ten thousand years, as when it was seen the first moment. The excellency of Christ is an object suited to the superior faculties of man, it is suited to entertain the faculty of reason and understanding, and there is nothing so worthy about which the understanding can be employed as this excellency; no other object is so great, noble, and exalted.

This excellency of Jesus Christ is the suitable food of the rational soul. The soul that comes to Christ, feeds upon this, and lives upon it; it is that bread which came down from heaven, of which he that eats shall not die; it is angels’ food, it is that wine and milk that is given without money, and without price. This is that fatness in which the believing soul delights itself; here the longing soul may be satisfied, and the hungry soul may be filled with goodness. The delight and contentment that is to be found here, passeth understanding, and is unspeakable and full of glory. It is impossible for those who have tasted of this fountain, and know the sweetness of it, ever to forsake it. The soul has found the river of water of life, and it desires no other drink; it has found the tree of life, and it desires no other fruit.

In one of his most popular works, The Life and Diary of David Brainerd, Jonathan Edwards gives an account of what David Brainerd said on his deathbed:

My heaven is to please God, and glorify him, and to give all to him, and to be wholly devoted to his glory: that is the heaven I long for; that is my religion, and that is my happiness, and always was ever since I suppose I had any true religion: and all those that are of that religion shall meet me in heaven.—I do not go to heaven to be advanced, but to give honour to God. It is no matter where I shall be stationed in heaven, whether I have a high or low seat there; but to love, and please, and glorify God is all. Had I a thousand souls, if they were worth any thing, I would give them all to God; but I have nothing to give, when all is done.

David Brainerd (1718-1747) was an early American missionary to the American Indians. His work was a major driving force and inspiration to the domestic and foreign missionary movement of the late eighteenth and through the nineteenth century. Christians all over the world continue to be inspired by his life of self-denial, his sincere and strenuous labor on behalf of others, and his devotion to prayer.

Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.

from The Mortification of Sin, John Owen

Keep thy heart in continual awe of the majesty of God.

from The Mortification of Sin, John Owen

The merit of the death of Christ being to them as an ointment in a box, that hath neither virtue nor power to act or reach out its own application unto particulars, being only set out in the gospel to the view of all, that those who will, by their own strength, lay hold on it and apply it to themselves may be healed.

from The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, John Owen