The more spiritual successes that Edwards experienced, the more he seemed to intentionally infuse his sermons with language deemed to move a person’s emotional center—their souls—to spiritually and physically respond.

The way we saw things, it didn’t matter that God had created the heavens and the earth—he did not want us excited about living here. A good fundamentalist worth his weight in guilt was quick...

Edwards’s God was glorious, full of beauty, and seemingly uninterested in making people feel insecure. Edwards was a mystic, a man who didn’t simply write or preach about God, he experienced him.