Resolved, when I am most conscious of provocations to ill nature and anger, that I will strive most to feel and act good-naturedly; yea, at such times, to manifest good nature, though I think that in other respects it would be disadvantageous, and so as would be imprudent at other times.https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-resolutions-of-jonathan-edwards
Those who know true joy in the midst of suffering are those who recognize that, in this life, our suffering is never as great or as serious as our sins. Humility: True Greatness (Chapter 11)
Whether God has decreed all things that ever come to pass or not, all that own the being of a God, own that He knows all things beforehand. Now, it is self-evident that if He knows all things beforehand, He either doth approve of them or doth not approve of them; that is, He either is willing they should be, or He is not willing they should be. But to will that they should be is to decree them.
Do you wonder about the trials in your life? Well let me just let you know the purpose of them is to cut away everything in your life, so that Jesus does become your life, and it's worth it.
Sickness, and losses, and crosses, and anxieties, and disappointments seem absolutely needful to keep us humble, watchful, and spiritual minded. Holiness (Chapter 6)
There is that of God to be seen in such a day as cannot be seen in another. His power in holding up some, his wrath in leaving of others; his making of shrubs to stand, and his suffering of cedars to fall; his infatuating of the counsels of men, and his making of the devil to outwit himself; his giving of his presence to his people, and his leaving of his foes in the dark; his discovering [disclosing] the uprightness of the hearts of his sanctified ones, and laying open the hypocrisy of others, is a working of spiritual wonders in the day of his wrath, and of the whirlwind and storm.... We are apt to overshoot, in the days that are calm, and to think ourselves far higher, and more strong than we find we be, when the trying day is upon us.... We could not live without such turnings of the hand of God upon us. We should be overgrown with flesh, if we had not our seasonable winters. It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no fruit, because there is no winter there.
God is a perfectly happy Being, in the most absolute and highest sense possible; in strict propriety of speech, there is no such thing as any pain, grief or trouble in God.
If true religion lies much in the affections, we may infer, that such a way of preaching the word . . . as has a tendency deeply to affect the hearts of those who attend . . . is much to be desired.Religious Affections
God hath appointed . . . preaching . . . as a fit means . . . to stir up the pure minds of the saints, quicken their affections by often bringing the great things of religion to their remembrance, setting them in their proper colours, though they know them, and have been fully instructed in them.