Jonathan Edwards powerful essay, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (DATE), claims that those who are not reborn into the Puritan way dwell on the brink of damnation and at any moment can be dropped by God into the horrors of Hell. Edwards supports his claim with violent, fiery imagery of the fate that awaits sinners at the hands of God if they are not reborn into the Puritan way. He wrote this piece with the intended purpose of convincing the people within his congregation to turn away from sin and repent to God to be reborn again in order to avoid the hell fire death he deemed they would suffer otherwise. Edwards was writing in the time of the Enlightenment, when people had begun to rely less upon religion and more on science, in accordance,
Foreboding and dreadful describe the tone of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. Edwards makes the tone very clear by saying “The God that holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire” (154). He tries to convey the wrath of god that will come upon them if they do not devoted themselves to Christ by saying “Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon souls, all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God.” (154).
Everyone has someone in their life that they know to be very strict and rule oriented, or Puritanical. Many of the legalistic aspects of our American culture have their genesis in the Puritans. In the sermon of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, written by Jonathan Edwards, a famous preacher for this sermon, and the “Speech to the General Court in 1645,” by John Winthrop, a Massachusetts Bay governor for 20 years, it is highly illustrated that Puritan society had wanted order. Their society had revolved around being very strict and legalistic about religion. This is based on giving God one’s free will, trusting that he will bring them salvation and ultimately converting to the Puritan protestant belief system.
Starting in his younger years, Edwards struggled with accepting the Calvinist sovereignty of God. Various circumstances throughout Edward’s own personal life led to him later believing in the sovereignty of God. Jonathan Edwards is known greatly as a key figure in what has come to be called the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s. Fleeing from his grandfather’s original perspective by not continuing his practice of open communion, there was a struggle to maintain that relationship. Edward’s believed that physical objects are only collections of sensible ideas, which gives good reasoning for his strong religious belief system.
In 1741, Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan preacher of that time, had one thing on his mind: to convert sinners, on the road to hell, to salvation. It just so happened to be, that his way of doing that was to preach the reality to them and scare them to the point of conversion. Sermons of this time were preached to persuade people to be converted and to me it seemed that Edwards just had a special way of doing it. Just as people are being influenced by rhetoric appeals today Edwards used the same method on his congregation. In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Jonathan Edwards positively affected his readers using pathos, logos, and ethos, while trying to convince the unconverted members of his sermon to be born again.
Many authors like to use figurative language when portraying feelings and emotions in their writings. Using figurative language conveys an image in the reader’s mind, providing them with a better understanding. Both authors, Jonathan Edwards, in his story, “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God,” and Dekanawida, in his story, “The Iroquois Constitution,” use figurative speech. However, they use this technic to bring different emotions into play. There are many similarities and differences between both of the writings.
Johnathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is arguably the most famous sermon every preached. Being of a Puritan background, Edwards, focuses on the afterlife, but unlike other writers during his time he uses a “fire and brimstone” approach to convey his belief of sin equaling condemnation to hell. The most important point Edward’s tries to communicate to his audience is God’s ability to cast wicked men into hell at any given moment. This topic is important during his time and even today, because people stray from the path laid out within the bible to obtain eternal life in heaven.
The main idea of the sermon given by Johnathon Edwards “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is that of all of people will be let go by god into destruction. He gives an example about how the Israelites did not know of god. It is because of this their people had to endure the pain and tribulations that they did. The main idea revolving on the idea of the wrath of god, and that everyone is going to hell. The focus never strays from this theme. He consistently pounds away the idea that god can whenever he wants strike men down wherever they stand.
“Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards is probably one the most profound sermons given during the time of the Great Awakening. During this message Edwards uses a very straight attack approach towards the congregation such as “ for most of them destruction came suddenly when they least expected it and they were saying peace and safety but now they see that the themes they trusted to give them peace and give them safety were nothing but thin air and empty shadows, God is holding you over the pit of hell as someone holds a spider or some repulsive insect over a fire and he upholds you and is dreadfully provoked. Oh sinner think seriously about the terrible danger you are in.”, which is a severe attack on one's spirality? There
Jonathan Edwards author of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Nathaniel Hawthorne author of “The Minister's Black Veil” wrote about the Puritans’ religion. Both texts include information about sins. Both texts also share and express different feelings towards the Puritan religion. The two texts will be compared by details, tone, and figurative language. While I would characterize Jonathan Edwards’ text as powerful and harsh, the character of Parson Hooper changes the reader’s understanding of Puritan ideals of religion by showing readers everyone sins.
"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathan Edwards implies how the wrath of God is mighty and powerful than anyone as he speaks from the sermon. He stresses this by using devices such as simile, personification, and imagery to persuade his audience by striking fear on them.
When putting an eyeglass to christianity one cannot help but see the impactful dread that is puritan society. Amongst many text are two that stand out. “Sinners in the hands of an angry god” by jonathan edwards and ”The Minister's Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Both seek to drive a stress on the evils of secrecy but the more effective of these two is “The Minister's Black Veil, who's staying power makes it hard to forget
Edwards first portrays this message in his sermon when he writes “The bow of god’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow of your heart, and strains the bow [. . .]” (99). Edwards compares God's wrath to a bow to show how much God’s wrath can do. God’s target is the human race’s sin and selfishness, and the target is a big target that would be hard to miss. What can the human race do to make this target smaller? The only thing they have to do is repent and purify their lives through the Puritan faith. Edwards continues with this message when he writes “That world of misery, that lake of brimstone, is extended abroad under you” (100).Edwards emphasizes that at any moment drop the human race into hell like stone into a lake. This lake of hell forever changes and grows larger and larger around the human race’s sin. Finally, Edwards shows his theme when he writes, “You are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours,” (100). Edwards explains that the reason that the human race walk down the road to hell is because of their time. To see the theme of sinners and their wrathful god fully one had to look at all three literary devices not just
In today’s world, cultures are separated by religion. Some people are polytheistic, some are Buddhist, and others are Jewish. The religion that Jonathan Edwards belonged to was Christianity, in which he preached sermons, often begging people to repent of their sins. While his sermon that was called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was a bit aggressive, he made several great points, which made it a wonderfully persuasive talk. “Jonathan Edwards is America's most penetrating, rigorous, and subtle theologian, as well as its most literarily accomplished and influential.” (Schwarz). Edwards used three methods, which were using powerful words,
Puritan literature and Rationalist literature are two contrasting types of writing that served different purposes. One example of Puritan literature is the Sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. This was written by Jonathan Edwards and preached by him in Enfield Connecticut on July 8th, 1741. The sermon focused on us humans and how we are bound to fall into destruction if we do not seek God and save ourselves. An example of Rationalist literature is The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. The part of this text that I will focus on is the chapter on his plan for attaining moral perfection. This chapter talks about Benjamin Franklins plan for attaining moral perfection and what he learned through it. The role of the author in Puritan literature
Edward most famous line “The God that holds you over a fire pit of hell, much as one hold a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire… he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire” is probably one of the most convincing lines. Even though it is a metaphor it is still terrifying and he is using this metaphor to convince people to convert to Christianity. An Edward talk about God has so many unsearchable ways to take wicked men out of the world and send them to hell. Since wicked men are referred to as unconverted men, many people convert in fear of not being saved.