Jonathan Edwards Rhetorical Analysis

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A religious revival swept through America during the 1730s, particularly in Puritan New England. Religious fervor, the reason the colonists moved to the Americas so they could get away from the religiously oppressive king, had been on the decline for some time, and after the Salem Witch trials, religion was viewed as being somewhat oppressive. Powerful sermons were used to convert people back to being astutely religious. Jonathan Edwards was a particularly influential speaker at time. He was known for his condemnation of non-followers of Christ, and was a very influential speaker at the time. In his sermon, Edwards condemns sinners and calls for them to repent so that they may be saved from the wrath of an angry God. Edwards makes this argument …show more content…

He says "Your wickedness makes you, as it were, heavy as lead, and to rend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell, and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink, and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf; and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you, and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock". By comparing humans to spiders, Edwards comments both on the frailty of human nature, and the human dependence on God, whom he believes to be unmerciful and wrathful. Humanity's dependence on God being merciful is a trend throughout the sermon. Another metaphor Edwards makes is that "The wrath of God is like great waters that are damned for the present: they increase more until more and more and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given". In other words, God's wrath has been slowly building, and as more and more of man's sins accumulate, so does his wrath. Eventually, his wrath will overflow and burst out, leaving the sinners at the mercy of a very vengeful God. Here, Edwards makes an appeal to the heart, hoping members of the congregation will be influenced by his descriptions of what is in store for them as he describes humanity's weakness and their …show more content…

Edwards plays on the pathos of the crowd making them feel anxiety, fear, and nervousness about being sent to hell and makes them scared of what God could do if they make Him angry. Edwards main point here is that God is just barely holding back his wrath and if the people of New England did not repent and go back to living a pious lifestyle then a Noah's Ark type event could happen soon. Edwards also uses his ethos to make his sermon more effective since Edwards was a well known and respected preacher from his time, meaning he would be an authority figure on the subject. Edwards came from a long line of preachers and was respected and known in the community around him. Along with his use of ethos and pathos Edwards does employ logos. The logos he uses is that one will go to Hell if they don't do good things and are bad people. Normally a person is able to deduce this without being told so, but Edwards spins it in a way to put the most fear into the

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