Puritan Influence On Jonathan Edwards

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

Puritans are well known for their strict religion and code of ethics. There were many people who lived by them throughout the sixteen and seventeen hundreds. Because of this, the Puritan’s devotion to their religion was often expressed in their works of literature. One of these works is a sermon by Jonathan Edwards known as Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Another is a poem by Anne Bradstreet known as Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10, 1666. Both Jonathan Edwards’s

Jonathan Edwards was born in Connecticut on October 5, 1703 and was the only son of Timothy Edwards and Esther Stoddard in a family of 11 children. All of Timothy's and Esther’s children received an excellent education. Jonathan Edwards’ early education was provided by his father. He entered Yale University in 1716 at the age of 13 and soon became a well known revivalist preacher, a philosopher, and a Protestant theologian. Jonathan Edwards lived during in the late sixteenth century when Puritanism

Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards, have many differences. Even though the allegory and direct address were written in different time frames in American history, there are quite a few similarities. The differences and similarities consisted of religious influences, moral themes, the vengeance of God v. the vengeance of man, and the rolls of the people that either Edwards was preaching to and who Hawthorne was writing his allegory about. In the

there were a group of superior people who sought out to “purify” the church called Puritans.They preached, wrote parables, and poems to influence their congregation to change their ways. Two Puritans during this time were Jonathan Edwards and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Edwards is a powerful man who delivered a sermon called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. Edwards wants to warn his congregation to turn away from their wicked ways or else they would fall into the fiery pits of hell. Hawthorne was an

speakers of the era, he spearheaded the Great Awakening. “This was a time when the intense fervor of the first Puritans had subsided somewhat” (Heyrmen 1) due to a resurgence of religious zeal (Stein 1) in colonists through faith rather than predestination. Jonathan Edwards however sought to arouse the religious intensity of the colonists (Edwards 1) through his preaching. But how and why was Edwards so successful? What influenced him? How did he use diction and symbolism to persuade his listener, and what

Two authors, their Puritan beliefs are shone through poems and sermons although contains vast similarities but are also set apart by major distinctions, their works not only affected their generation but transcends hundreds of years to influence the generation of today. In their most famed works, authors like Anne Bradstreet wrote The Burning of Our House, and To My Dear and Loving Husband or Jonathan Edwards a revivalist preacher who compiled the famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards and “Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, show approaches towards Puritan beliefs. While they both show approaches each contrast one another. The authors use symbolism, diction, and details to compare the effects of a sinning nature and the beliefs of loyalties. While I would characterize Jonathan Edwards as terrifying and enraged, the character of Parson Hooper changes the reader’s understanding of Puritan ideals of religion by setting an

As once written by a famous reverend, Early American Puritans aimed to “…write the wonders of the Christian religion, flying from the deprivation of Europe, to the American Strand” (Manther 75). Although this idea of a Christian utopia in the New World was first imagined several hundred years ago, its impact is still present. Since the time that the Puritans first began their memorable legacy in the early seventeenth century, ideas towards Christianity in the United States have significantly changed

understand how “Sinner’s in the Hands of an Angry God,” by Jonathan Edwards and “A Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King Jr, were effective on their audience, the pieces must be further analyzed. To understand Edwards speech, background must be given first. In the sermon, “Sinner’s in the Hands of an Angry God,” given by Jonathan Edwards in 1741, the leader of the Second Great Awakening, is trying to convince the a group of Puritans, must convert to a more extreme version of Puritanism