The Puritans were a religious group who believed in total depravity and an unconditional election. This meant that mankind was solely dependent on God for salvation, and believed that there was absolutely no good within the world except through Him. Those who were of “the chosen people” were predestined to go to heaven and only had a glimpse of their faith through God’s signs and wonders. Jonathan Edwards, however, struggled with this idea. Throughout his childhood, he could not perceive how a loving and just God could send only a certain select to Heaven and the rest to Hell. Although he struggled with this for a very long period of time, eventually, he came to terms with God’s reasoning for punishing the unjust, due to their extreme lack of sovereignty. During the time of the Enlightenment, Edwards was a rather transitional figure and strongly felt as though the emotional experience of God was of utmost importance. In the Puritan minister Jonathan Edward’s sermons, “A Divine and Supernatural Light” and “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Edwards …show more content…
He feels as though God is sovereign and reigning over the entire universe; His divinity supersedes all of His creation. It is made clear in “A Divine and Supernatural Light” that Edwards believes God is divine and holy due to references he makes to the light. Edwards says, “The divine light reaches to the bottom of the heart, and changes the nature… showing God as worthy to be obeyed and served” (429). He also asks the question, “Why have ye not that sense of true excellency, whereby ye may distinguish that which is holy and divine?” (425). Edwards feels that the divinity of Christ is so evident that he questions the audience on their sense of God and teaches them in a way that could be considered forceful. He feels as though God is not only someone who mankind has knowledge of, but is someone that can be felt and
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.
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.
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.
Jonathan Edwards is infamous for his contributions to theology probably because he spent long hours devoted whole to God’s word and God cited him with character traits which contributed to his
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.
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.
This comparison, like Edwards’ many others, aids in painting a more accurate picture of God’s wrath for his subjects. To conclude his argument, Edwards ends with a hyperbole stating that even “if [one’s] Strength were ten thousand Times greater than it is,” it would still not be enough to withstand God’s retribution. This strategically completes his speech by reimplanting the fact to the congregation once again that it is and always will be futile to fight against God, who overpowers all mundane forces. By ending his address to the church in such a manner, he ensures that his message will not be
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.
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 saw God’s power as something the world would not be capable of handling. Edwards used God’s power as a threat of destruction. Jonathan Edwards concluded his sermon by revealing his attitude of a merciful God through an allusion. “The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation; let everyone fly out of Sodom. Haste and escape for your lives...escape to the
Jonathan Edwards once said: “Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.” Since birth (October 5th, 1703), Jonathan has always been a devoted Puritan which explains why he began the Great Awakening, along with George Whitefield. Edwards started preaching and wanted people to reconvert to Puritanism. His work, “Sinners at the Angry Hands of God,” was written on July 8, 1741.
This interpretation of God becomes the reference point for the rest of the sermon. All of the commands and accusations in the sermon rely on Edwards' portrait of God as an angry, all-powerful being that has no obligation to have mercy upon his creations. By convincing his congregation of God's wrathful character, Edwards is then able to convince the congregation that they are in danger of damnation and severe punishment at the hand of this wrathful God. Edwards characterizes God as a being that "abhors" mortal men and "looks upon [them] as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire" (200). Edwards then uses scriptural references to support his claims about the nature 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 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.