How Did Jonathan Edwards Punish The Unjust?

Hypocrisy was one of the main themes in Puritan culture. God wanted everyone to do right by him , but the Puritans were committing a lot of transgressions. Jonathan Edwards' sermon expresses his opinion on why people should turn to god. He wanted them to beagle to turn to god , so he explained the uproar they’ll face going to hell . Jonathan Edwards alters the reader’s understanding of Puritan ideals of religion by using strong diction.

Jonathan Edwards depicts God as a wrathful, harsh and aggressive deity. His sermon emphasizes on the importance of salvation and remorse. Reflecting Puritan ideals, he expresses Gods vision of humans. How people are instinctive sinners and God is the only one able to determine those worthy of salvation. His stated principles construe the main pillar of their religion, predestination.

Edwards gives his audience a depiction of God that is so terrifying that it scares some of the unconverted members of his congregation into converting over. By emphasizing the wrathful side of God more than the loving side, he uses God’s easily manipulated nature to suit his

During the Colonial Era, religion and worship played an important role in the quotidian lives of Puritans. Jonathan Edwards was an eloquent preacher and theologian who impacted many lives through sermons. Edwards's sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” persuaded individuals to worship Christ and ask forgiveness for their sins. This sermon left a strong lasting impact, one that would later trigger the Great Awakening from 1734 to 1750. In the sermon, Edwards uses many rhetorical strategies to assist in the influence of his sermon including appeals to pathos and ethos, imagery, and figurative language.

Rhetorical Analysis of Jonathan edwards’s Sinners in the hand of an angry god: jeremiad Jonathan edwards, is known as one of the most important religious figures of the great awakening, edwards became known for his zealous sermon “sinners at the hand of an angry god”. During his sermon he implies that if his congregation does not repent to christ they are in “danger of great wrath and infinite misery”. Throughout this sermon edwards uses literary devices such as strong diction, powerful syntax and juxtaposition to save his congregation from eternal damnation. Throughout Edwards’s sermon the use of turgid diction is exceedingly prevalent.

An article by Frank Lambert discusses how Edwards help start the Great Awakening and also explained some of his beliefs. He says“.. Edwards set forth one of his most original explanations: the divine impinges on the human when, through God’s grace, the saint undergoes a transformation of the heart that leads him or her to a new understanding of things divine” (Lambert). Edwards, as well as other Puritans, believed that God could help anyone through any kind of trouble they may have been having and God could also make one believe that they were capable of doing extraordinary things. They also believed that anyone who denied God would be in for some serious troubles.

In “sinners in the hands of an angry God”, Jonathan Edwards uses different types of literary techniques, such as, imagery, metaphor, similes, repetition, and rhetorical questions to emphasize his point. His point is to scare the people and make them want to repent, which is the theme of the sermon. In the sermon “Sinners in the hands of an angry god,” Edwards uses different types of

Edwards quotes quickly from the Bible, showing that he is well-versed in scripture and therefore, qualified to give spiritual advice to his parishioners. An example from his sermon is when he ask “who knows the power of God 's anger?”(43) This is an allusion to Psalms 90:11 “who knoweth the power of thine anger?” In addition to establishing a biblical credibility he also reveals his knowledge about the events at the time. When Edwards says, “a day wherein many are flocking to him, and pressing into the kingdom of God.

"This is the case that everyone one of you is out of Christ..." It is true, as according to the Puritan faith, that unconverted people will go to Hell." To further convince potential Puritans, he uses another logical appeal. Edwards points out something observable, that would seemingly contradict his assertion, and debunks it. “You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of Hell, but do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other things, as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation.

In crafting his highly effective sermon, Edwards utilizes his authority as a man of God and as an interpreter of the scriptures, a logical and direct organization of arguments, and violent imagery to convince his audience of the vengeance of God against man. Jonathan Edwards begins his sermon by quoting

An intense religious movement called, The Great Awakening, occurred in the 1730’s and 1740’s. This movement started in Colonial America, which originally came from a town named Northampton located in Massachusetts. Two preachers whose name’s are, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield both called Northampton home. Between these two men and their belief that the only thing that could save us humans, from the eternal fires of hell, was The Lord’s mercy. This had a massive affect on the colonists of America, due to there spiritual beliefs coming to end for the past century.

On July 8, 1741 Jonathan Edwards delivered the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” During this time many people were moving away from their Puritan beliefs and did not make God a priority. In the message he talked about how everyone was a sinner and how everyone belongs in hell. He also talked about how if God wanted to He would throw everyone in Hell, but since He gave us His Son we should take Him and repent. While delivering this message many people began to repent and ask for forgiveness.

Regrettably, Edward died on June 24th 1729 (Schafer sec. 1). Despite Edward Taylor’s and Jonathan Edwards’ devotion for Puritanism, they differ in their perception of God, figurative language, and their incentive for writing. Taylor portrays God as an understanding and forgiving worship spirit, while Edwards’ God is tyrannical and ruthless.

Puritans are a people with a very strong belief in both God and the power of God. When people see power, they interpret it in different ways. Some know of power through anger and impulse, while others see power through the goodness the powerful one shows. Although Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards are both puritan poets, their writings convey mainly different, though sometimes similar, views on God because they have different perceptions of His will and the use of His power. Anne Bradstreet listens to and accepts anything that God wishes, and that is shown through her poem Upon the Burning of my House.

In his 4th-century autobiography, Confessions, St. Augustine of Hippo describes his path from wickedness to righteousness. Knowledge of the self, he learned, facilitates one 's knowledge of God; comprehending the all-powerful demands self-assessment (Burt). How one may come to know oneself, and thus know God, preoccupied early American writers, who explored human transformation and perfectibility through a range of theologies and philosophies. Jonathan Edwards paved the way with "A Divine and Supernatural Light." With The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine abandoned Edwards 's mysticism in favor of rationalist principles, though Edwards 's belief in direct communication with the divine through subjective experience recrudesced in Ralph Waldo Emerson 's Nature.