[Jonathan] Edwards bases this distinction on the difference between two ways of knowing. On the one hand, there is knowledge that is merely speculative, notional, a mere cognitive awareness of some truth. On the other hand, there is what Edwards calls “the sense of the heart” in which one recognizes the beauty or amiableness or sweetness of that truth and feels pleasure and delight in it. It is the difference between knowing or believing that God is holy and having a “sense” of or enjoying His holiness. “There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness.” Thus “when the heart is sensible of the beauty and amiableness of a thing, it necessarily feels pleasure in the apprehension.”
Sam Storms