The Search For Happiness By Benjamin Franklin And Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards was a revivalist preacher, philosopher, and protestant theologian. He lived between the years of 1703 through to 1753. In the year 1741, Edwards made a speech to a crowd of puritans. Because Edwards wanted the puritans to stay puritan, he made a sermon called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and that scared them into coming back to their original religion. He scared them into becoming puritan again by using ethos, pathos, and logos.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is widely recognized as one of America’s most profound Theologians. Some might even consider him the master of Puritan revival, since he was the leader of the Great Awakening. During his time he was a devout Calvinist who had the power of single-handedly keeping the Puritan faith strong for over twenty-five years, by using vivid imagery to provoke his audience. Edward's dialect was exquisitely influential and yet wielded with class and ease. This essay argues that Edwards was a prestigious theologian in his time that helped shape modern religious culture.

It is ironic how two men were both born during the same time period, in the same area, and had many similar ideas on one’s behavior, beliefs in God, and impacts on society; and they didn’t even know who they other person was! Both Ben Franklin and Jonathan Edwards were born in the eighteenth century, within three years of each other. They were both contemporaries and took time to write about themselves or their outlooks on life. They felt it was important to contribute to society and to share their ideas with others. Ben Franklin and Jonathan Edwards were similar and different in many ways, including their attitudes or perspectives on moral perfection, their beliefs in God, and their impacts on society throughout their life.

In society there are still differences in classes such as higher class, middle class, and lower class. In sociology, we observed a film called The Pursuit Happyness, where we witnessed the struggles a father went through to succeed. Chris Gardner, who was played by Will Smith, is living in his apartment with his wife and his son. Due to their struggles, the mother walks out on and leaves Chris struggling alone with his son. In the film Chris Gardner applies for an unpaid internship for a competitive stockbroker company where out of twenty men, only one gets the job. While he is on his internship, we see the hardships of getting kicked out of his apartment to staying at a shelter home to then sleeping in a subway bathroom with his son. Viewing the movie through a sociological lens, The Pursuit of Happyness will be analyzed according to the major three sociological paradigms: structural functionalism, social conflict theory, and symbolic interactionalism.

Edwards had a vigorous relationship with God. He prayed 5 times a day, and often had “secret conversations with God (p403)” that lasted for hours. Edwards explored more with practices and personal connection with God, than the Puritans. Who referenced the Old and New Testament to validated statements, than with personal experience, which Edwards explicitly does. Edwards occasionally drifted away from God, especially at the beginning of college, but then reverted back to religious practices on his own terms. Oppositely, the Puritan followed a strict mandatory contract with God.

During revolutionary America, Benjamin Franklin, Olaudah Equiano, and Phillis Wheatley all wrote autobiographical works that framed their identities and explored new ideas taking form through the Great Awakening and Enlightenment. Equiano and Wheatley wrote in support of abolition and used their works to exemplify that, while Franklin focused on the “American dream” and how he was able to achieve it. Despite these differences, all three were quick to mention religion in America and the Christian hypocrisy associated with it.

Jonathan Edwards, a Congregationalist minister in western Massachusetts, who was shocked at the dissipating religious spirit, believing that people were giving up to sinful pleasures. He worked against the secularization of the Enlightenment and focus on pushing the emotional side of religion by expressing the wonderful nature of Heaven and the horror of Hell, helping to renew intensity behind religion. This idea of Heaven and Hell was stated in his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, intended to scare people into looking for salvation, with descriptions of people being held over a fire in Hell. This is expressive of the change of social norms in Puritan New England, where going to the Minister’s house as opposed to the Tavern was acceptable. This also shows the more individualized ideals people had, for they were presented with the option of achieving their own salvation and take responsibility for their lives, having the option of maintaining a personal connection with God. (ch 3 txtbk)

On October 5, 1703, in East Windsor Connecticut, Timothy and Esther Edwards welcomed their new son, Jonathan Edwards, into the world. From a young age, Jonathan was provided with an excellent education from a highly qualified individual - his father was a minister and a college prepatory tutor. Jonathan Edwards was accepted at Yale college just before he turned thirteen. He was interested in a wide variety of studies including natural science, the mind, the scriptures, and theology. He graduated from Yale in four years as valedictorian and obtained his masters three years later. Unable to accept the “horrible doctrine” (Edwards), of predestination, Edwards finally found peace and accepted this controversial teaching in 1721. He went on to assistant pastor a large church in Northampton with his grandfather. The same year, he married Sarah Pierpont whose piety he had long admired (..). Two years later, when his grandfather passed away, Edwards became sole minister of the Northampton congregation. However, after many years of converting the lost and participation in the Great Awakening as a key preacher, his congregation began to weary of his intense sermons and his habit of calling out sinner by name from the pulpit. However, his most famous sermon was first delivered in Enfield, Connecticut on July 8th, 1741 and was entitled, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. Edwards’ use of rhetoric in this message has been admired

Jonathan Edwards was one of the most famed evangelical preachers in the Age of the Great Awakening. He is best known for his most impactful sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Edwards preached with fury and conviction of the All Great our God. He preached for the wanderers; those lost in their spiritual belief. Edwards uses a wide variety of figurative language and rhetorical techniques to urge unregenerate Christians to sanctify their lives and walk devoutly before God, using fear. During this time of recognition, renewal and self-reliance in one’s connection with God, Edwards’ sermon did nothing but illustrate the exact conception of the age of the Great Awakening.

Jonathan Edwards, call by many the greatest theologian of the great awakening, was born on October 5, 1703.(Keesee Sidwell 77) Born to Timothy Edwards and Estar Stoddard, he was their only son. He received a quality education from both his father and elder sisters. At the age of 13 he began studying at Yale college and soon read John Locke's essay concerning human understanding which left an imprint on his life I was very formative for him. He continued through his education and at the age of 19 began preaching and a Presbyterian Church in New York City. After eight months there, he returned home to work as a tutor at Yale. Then, in 1727 he became an ordained minister in North Hampton. The same year, he got married to a woman named Sarah Pierpont with whom he had 11 children.

Jonathan Edwards delivered his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, in Enfield Connecticut on July 8, 1741, the year following George Whitefield's preaching tour which helped inspire the "Great Awakening." Weeping and emotional conviction among Edwards’ audiences came at a time of great spiritual thirst. While very foreign to mainstream American opinion today, this extraordinary message was fashioned for a people who were very conscious of how their lifestyles affected eternal consequences. By today's popular perspective, the doctrine of predestination probably discourages conversion because of the new-age independent attitude. However, in Puritan culture, through

On July 8th, 1741, a well-known preacher, Jonathan Edwards, delivered an inspiring sermon describing the horrible afterlife the unconverted would have. In 1741, the American colonies were undergoing a period of religious revival which played a large role in the presentation of Edwards’ sermon. Throughout the speech, Edwards’ purpose was to motivate the “natural men” in his congregation to wake up and make a change in their lives. He adopts a blunt and urgent tone in order to convey to his audience the life they are living now is going to result in Hell for their afterlife. Edwards’ use of negative diction, figurative language, and understanding of syntax to imbue the minds of his people with fear and tries to persuade them to convert to Puritanism.

Jonathan Edwards was the writer of many great novels during the first wobbly steps of the young United States. Edwards was born in Connecticut in 1703, his father was a minister, he was the leader of the Great Awakening in New England, and he passed away in 1758 at the age of fifty-five. Edwards wrote nine major books and sermons, but they were not published until after his death. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is undoubtedly one of Jonathan Edwards speeches/writings that had the greatest impact on the people that heard this message.

John Winthrop and Jonathan Edwards were both religious leaders that lived centuries before the present time. They shared the same goal in persuading people into Christianity, yet differed greatly in the way they chose to develop their sermons. Winthrop, a Puritan who wrote based on new religious and social ideals, composed the famous sermon “A Model of Christian Charity.”

In spite of the fact that Franklin was hardly a puritan, he was nevertheless very much a child of the Puritans. This is not displayed merely in his promotion of the virtues, but in his abstaining from excessiveness in eating, drinking, conversation, or whatever. Franklin is strongly influenced with self-governance In numerous ways, this is, to someone coming to it for the first time, a very amazing book. Franklin is, of course, one of the most celebrated Americans who ever lived, and his credentials in a wide arrangement of endeavors are a part of American knowledge and popular history. A great deal of this knowledge and numerous of his accomplishments are missing from this account of his life. He never finished the autobiography, earlier in his life on account of the fact that he was too engaged with what he terms public employment’s, and later in life by virtue of the opium he was taking for kidney stones left him incapable to concentrate adequately. Had Franklin been able to write about every period of his life and all of his achievements, his autobiography would have been one of the most exceptional and outstanding documents every produced. It is astonishingly imperious. However, his record as an office-holder is stained by the use he made of his position to advance his relatives. He was one of the most important statesmen in the new America and was a historical figure who shaped our nations history. He was a very