“What was distinct about the religious life of New England? It was a passion for God. Call it a delight in God; call it conversion; call it charity; call it religious affection; it all amounted to the same thing, a passionate love for God.
When all is said about the sermons of Jonathan Edwards, they have a sacred passion about them.
His sermons are intellectually brilliant, morally perceptive, theologically challenging– all of this, to be sure — but above all they have a passionate holiness about them which brings us to delight in God.
For Edwards, it was this delighting in God which was worship.”
–Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church: Moderatism, Pietism, and Awakening, Volume 5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 5: 293.
