Jonathan Edwards And The Puritans

Puritans believe God has an influence on humans in our daily life. Edwards asserts, “His mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction” (81). This quote explains to us that God’s forgiveness holds us from, at any second, dropping down into the deep depths of hell. God observes our life and helps us every step of the way by pushing us as much as he can in the right direction. Edwards believes, “And yet it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment” (81). Edwards for the second time says something relatively about God’s hand and how He is the one who holds us and keeps us out of the fiery pits. This quote shows us how God’s pleasure keeps us from falling into a

Puritan writers were unique because of how they incorporated their beliefs into their works. For the Puritans, religion was an intimacy between them and the Lord, it was an individual feeling not controlled by anyone but themselves. Among many other ideologies, they believed in Divine Providence, meaning everything that happens in life, whether it be good or bad, was God’s will. Authors could tie this theme into their literature through their own experiences. The Puritan belief of Divine Providence is exemplified in the excerpts of William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation and Mary Rowlandson’s A Narrative of Her Captivity.

Religion and politics often times should not mix, and for the Puritan communities suffered a great amount from this. A preacher named Jonathan Edwards would give sermons that drove fear into listeners. His sermons were noted as “employing vivid imagery as a means of releasing the power of sensory psychology and, thereby, forcing his listeners to move from known and familiar conceptions to the sensory experiencing of otherworldly events” (White). By doing this the people who listened and followed his messages would become terrified, therefore causing “believers to welcome the joyful liberation of conversionary love.” (White) However, even though Edwards had a large influence in the Puritan system, his extreme rhetoric was not uncommon for religious

In Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an An Angry God,” shows an extreme viewpoint of God. According to Edwards, humanity is naturally infected with sin despite our efforts to overcome it. Throughout his sermon, Edwards goes on about how God shows such mercy in not throwing all humanity in the deepest depths of hell. As said by Edwards in his sermon, “ You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about

Jonathan Edwards, a negative and realistic man, focused on how God is a judgemental god and sinners will be put to a painful death, they should be fearful. He says in the first few lines of his speech, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, “So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit.” (Edwards, Pg. 23) Edwards implies that everyone deserves to be in hell and he goes on to say that God is an angry God and that no one had done anything to try to ease His anger. Edwards also played a large role in the Great Awakening. He wanted people to experience Christianity in an intense and emotional way. In his speech, he said, “O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell.” (Edwards, Pg. 26) Edward’s speech was opportunity knocking at everyone’s doors. He influenced people to want to be saved in a way that made many fearful of what could happen to them if they weren’t saved or a child of God. Edwards believed that God set the world in motion, but was not active in everyone’s life. Edwards believed that God created the world and

Puritan literature captures not only their beliefs as a religion, but their beliefs as individuals. All Puritan literature is utilitarian, meaning it is useful, purposeful, and reflecting a non-ornate style of writing. One of the most prominent of early English poets was Anne Bradstreet. Her poems reflect the utilitarian style, but do so in a way that is entirely unique to herself and her emotions. Anne Bradstreet opens the bridge between her faith and her personal experiences in her poetry. In her poems “Upon the Burning of Our House” and “In Reference to Her Children” she reflects utilitarianism by recounting the conflicts between her love of her worldly things and her devotion to God’s eternity.

One can hear a sermon any day of the week, because there are many preachers out there in the world. Many sermons are retold Bible stories from the Old and New Testaments that tell how our ancestors lived, and teach us life applications of how to glorify God while we are living our lives. Some examples from the Bible are: David and Goliath and the lesson of courage, Deuteronomy 32:4 “... a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he” (KJV), and the Roman’s Road of confession, acceptance of Christ, and salvation. For over a thousand years God’s word has been preached by many faithful men who follow Him. However, there were some of those faithful men who used God’s Word and their own improvisation to convict sinners and to put their trust in God. Those times resulted in an era called the Great Awakening of the 18th century and they also put an end to the segregation era of the 20th century. Two of the faithful men during those eras were Jonathan Edwards and Martin Luther King, Jr. . They both preached great sermons on confession and love. But they also had different points of view. When we read the two sermons our lives and actions may never be the same as they were before, because of feeling ashamed and convicted, then we begin to live our lives as Christians.

The Puritan life, although simple, demanded diligence both mentally and spiritually which put stress on even the most faithful of followers. Although the common practice entailed brushing religious struggles under the rug, few writers bravely wrote of their religious doubts and endeavors to become better Puritans. Author Anne Bradstreet shows in her work “Here Follows Some Verse upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666” that religious struggles are often met by Puritans and it takes brave souls to admit their difficult time with their religion. This poem shows a woman dealing with a religious crisis and how even though she struggles her faith still holds strong in the end. Bradstreet’s poem displays a crisis of faith in her content

Jonathan Edwards’s excerpt from the sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” preaches to sinners saying they need to awaken and understand that they are sinning, leading God to be angry with their sins. Edwards supports this claim by repeating images of God’s “sovereign pleasure”, reminding the audience that God did not create the sun so it would shine on sinners. God’s hand is what is keeping them out of hell and without his hand, they would sink straight to hell. To show the consequentiality of God’s forgiveness, as well as showing how easy it would be to let go of it, Edwards says “The God the holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider,”. The audience Edwards addresses are Puritans who continue to follow God’s path

Jonathan Edwards, a descendant of four generations of Puritan ministers and the most renowned and influential of Puritan leaders, became active when Puritanism was already on the wane. The infamy of the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692, which sent twenty persons to their death and another 150 to prison, festered in the community for a generation as a tragic episode that exposed the excesses of misguided Puritan zeal. In the early part of the century, New Englanders enjoyed a rising level of affluence that induced a sense of both material and spiritual comfort and eventually led to the introduction of the Half-Way Covenant. Whereas full church membership was the privilege only of those and the children of those who could testify to a personal

It is obvious to anyone who has a true understanding of the Puritans, to come to

Edwards' incorporation of imagery is done in order to convince the audience of potential agony they could face in hell. For example, Edwards writes, "There is dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of the wrath of God, there is hell's wide gaping mouth and you have nothing to sand on." Edwards describes hell to them in order to scare them. His uses "flames" so they imagine themselves burning within an endless pit. Edwards knows what it is that scares them, he deliberately does this so they get so scared of never ending pain

During the seventeenth century, Puritan literature dominated American culture. Two major authors of this style of prose are Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards. Both Bradstreet’s, “Upon a Burning of Our Home,” and Edward’s, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” demonstrate characteristics of Puritan literature. These and Bradstreet and Edwards other literary works focused on their relationship with God and attempted to grow the Puritan church by converting their readers. Although their mission was the same, they utilized different emotional tones and rationals to persuade their readers to give their lives to God.

During the height of Puritan times, Anne Bradstreet writes “Upon the Burning of Our House.” Jonathan Edwards, another writer of these times, also writes the sermon ”Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” as well. With strong connecting imagery to their listeners, both these writings portray the religious views to their way of life. As she stood in front of her once burning home, Bradstreet wrote “here stood that trunk and there that chest...under the roof no guest shall sit…”

In the Colonial/Puritan Era of Literature, which lasted from 1650-1750, a major event that helped develope the Puritan’s writing was their migration from Europe to North America. Puritan’s were strong believers in God. Puritan’s had one goal they felt was most important; the desire to glorify God. They let fate control their lives and wanted to be leaders for other Christians to follow. Most of these people had strict customs by which they must follow and rules that were enforced with great power. The writings of this time frame related to the Christian faith and included God in some aspect of the writing. God was higher and more valued than anyone else. Satan was strongly believed in my all Puritans.