Back February 1

Due to a January filled with wonderful things for which I am grateful, no blogging this month. I sign off with this remarkably clarifying and perspective-returning reminder from the gangly sinner who knew God so well three hundred years ago in a small Massachussetts town.

The future world was designed to be our settled and everlasting abode. Here it was intended that we should be fixed, and here alone is a lasting habitation, and a lasting inheritance, and enjoyments to be had. We are designed for this future world. . . .

There we shall serve God perfectly. We shall glorify him in an exalted manner, and to the utmost of the powers and capacity of our nature. Then we shall perfectly give up ourselves to God; then will our hearts be wholly a pure and holy offering to God, offered all in the flame of divine love.

In heaven alone is attainment of our highest good. God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper happiness, and 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 accommodations here: better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops; but God is the ocean.

Praise the Lord.

--Jonathan Edwards, 'The Christian Pilgrim,' in Sermons and Discourses 1730-1733, Vol 17 in The Works of Jonathan Edwards (ed. Mark Valeri; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 437-38