Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God By Jonathan Edwards

Jonathon Edwards maintains his audience’s attention by creating intense and meaningful similes. Edwards uses these similes as a way for his audience to understand the points he is making and adds dramatic imagery and piercing words to get the audience to consider what he is saying. The first simile he uses says this, “…they were always exposed to destruction; as one that stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall” (Edwards 1). Edwards includes this quote in his sermon to provoke the readers thought. The point he is trying to make is that God’s people are exposed to destruction which is a hard to imagine so he breaks it down for his audience by saying that just as they are exposed to destruction if you walk in a slippery place you will also fall. The next memorable simile Edwards uses says this, “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire…” (6). Here Edwards compares his congregation to a “loathsome insect”. Edwards does this to try and describe how God views them. He continues his claim by comparing God’s wrath on them burning like fire, which would probably spark fear in the hearts of the people that they may repent. This simile helped further Edward’s main point, that hell is inevitable. One last simile Edwards uses is this, “Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards

Pastors have used the “fire and brimstone” method for centuries, scaring congregations into obedience with the threat of being sent to an indescribably painful realm after death, usually referred to as “hell”. Pastor John Edwards took this method to a new extreme; he terrified some people so much that they went as far as to commit suicide during his sermons. One particular sermon combines some of the principles of Puritan faith, as well as his personal opinions, with what is commonly considered the most vivid description of hell ever written. His sermon represents the Puritan belief system in some respects, but not all, which can be seen by identifying and comparing the main points of the sermon and other similarities in his sermon to known Puritan values. John Edwards actually gives hope to his congregation with his views, while Puritanical views are even harsher.

Jonathan Edwards, a famous preacher in pre-colonial times, composed a sermon that was driven to alert and inject neo Puritanical fear into an eighteenth century congregation. This Bible based and serious audience sought after religious instruction and enlightenment. Through the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Edwards offers a very harsh interpretation to humankind. Edwards utilizes various rhetorical techniques to evoke an emotional response in his audience and to persuade the members of his congregation that their wicked actions will awaken a very ruthless and merciless God.

and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf...”. “Sink” “descend” and “plunge” all have the same meaning. Restating the sinking of people would force the audience to depict a picture of themselves sinking in a dim and endless gulf where nothing else exists. It evokes a profound terrifying emotion in the audience’s heart. The phrases “have no compassion upon you”, “ not forbear the executions of his wrath”, “no moderation or mercy”, “have no regard to your welfare”, and “be at all careful lest you should suffer too much in any other sense” are all restating the same idea that God would not lighten his hand. Although these descriptions contradict the image of God transmitted through Bible, they were meant to make people be afraid of the Almighty God and worship him. Restatement stirs the audience’s emotion in a way that the audience would think of different aspects of one single

They help create Edwards’s view on providence. Edwards wrote, “you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than ever a rebel did his prince.” In the first part of the quote, hyperbole makes God appear to have an intense passionate repulsion towards humans. The fact that His is also capitalized also subtly shows God’s importance. Edwards does not dare to mention God in lowercase words and undermine his greatness in any way. At the same time, Edwards makes sure to keep clear contrast between God and humankind. The same first part of the quote is a metaphor that compares humans to a snake. More importantly, Edwards claims God thinks humans are more repulsive than the worst snake in the world. In the second sentence of the quote, sinners and rebels are compared in a continued metaphor. Once more, humans are seen by God as worse than what they are compared to. In addition, using the word infinitely also continues hyperbole and adds effect. Edwards also wrote you again. It adds to keeping the sermon personal and interactive. Throughout the text, Edwards also makes several allusions to the bible. In one of these, he states, “Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eyes shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them (217).” As an

Christianity has several different variations on the theme of immortality. These variations are related to the many different denominations under the umbrella of Christianity. In general, liberal Christians accept the idea that the authors of the bible held different beliefs involving heaven and hell. Some of the oldest biblical writings described an underground cavern in which all people regardless of their deeds spent eternity in after death. The books within the New Testament more commonly described hell as a place of

    Hell is said to be the worst place to ever exist, and it is greatly feared about on earth and in the minds of people. “Hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them and swallow them up,” this illustrates personification in giving the flames of hell the live ability to hold and swallow us. It portrays how we will be consumed by our own sins if we do not act on them to better ourselves. If we let our sins pile up they will weigh us down and we will eventually be brought down to hell to pay for our wrong doings.

Figurative language is another important factor for the story. In the story, he talked about wickedness in a person’s body. “Your wickedness makes you as it were as heavy as lead.” This will make you think that the amount of wickedness in one’s body is equivalent to the weight of lead. This might persuade people to go be “reborn” since they would want to get rid of most of that wickedness. Another example is the comparison of a person to a spider. “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider.” Edwards use this to say that we’re no different than spiders in God’s eyes. We could be squished or dropped to our doom in a mater of seconds. Edwards also compared God’s wrath to the great waters. “The wrath of God is like great waters that are damned for the present, they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given, and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and

“There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God." -- By the mere pleasure of God, I mean hissovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else but God's mere will had in the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment.”

While writing the constitution the founding fathers said “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” When they said this they

Such as "Your wickedness makes you as it were very heavy lead, and to tend downwards with great wieght and pressure towards to hell."(P4) In this text he use wickedness and compares it to lead and how heavy it is. He does this to show how his audiences bad doings are like weights that bring them to hell. The use of simile gives the speech more meaning to how their bad doings or sins can make them go to hell. Lastly, Jonathan Edwards integrate in his speech personification.

He mentions that “Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel… it is not so with God… they are easily broken in pieces”(1). The earthly prince represents Edwards and the rebel symbolizes his desire to transgress. He suggests that since he has been able to overcome the hardest obstacle- human desire- he is just like God. When he positions himself on the same level as God, he establishes his command and authority over the audience. Edwards energizes them too by exclaiming “What would not those poor damned hopeless souls give for one day’s opportunity such as you now enjoy!”(12). Edwards draws his audience’s attention how fortunate they were to have someone as caring as him to keep them away from condemnation to eternal suffering. He compels them to appreciate what he is offering; what he wants from them in return is conversion to Christianity or renewing their relationship with God. With these modes of persuasion, Edwards is also able to convey his fervor with different forms of parallelism to bring ideas to

His assertion is that people “will know certainly that [they] must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and confliction with this almighty merciless vengeance,” and after what feels like forever of this suffering, they realize that it is just the beginning of an eternity of punishment. He uses this method to draw out his description, so when the audience thinks it is about to end, they are met with more description. This could be to show how his depiction of Hell is similar to what he believes it would be like. He also drags out the description of God’s wrath towards mankind. He claims that God holds mankind as one would hold “some loathsome insect over the fire,” that his “wrath towards [people] burns like fire; he looks upon [them] as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.” This use of asyndeton emphasizes that God views mankind with contempt and disdain. However, he still holds them away from Hell’s gates until he deems them unworthy of his

The concept of hell can be viewed as three distinct underworld concepts in the Old and New

The above quote is the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States. In no part does our constitution mention a “separation of church and state.” What it does mention is that Congress is forbidden to tamper with the religious beliefs and practices of its people.