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Jonathan Edwards Rhetorical Devices

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Jonathan Edwards was a great American theologian who was an eighteenth century Puritan preacher who delivered a six hour sermon in 1741, Connecticut to a congregation of Puritans. The purpose was to convince the congregation into seeking salvation by accepting God and to convince the unholy if they continued their ways they would end up in hell. To convince his audience Edwards uses rhetorical devices such as metaphor repetition and bandwagon to invoke fear into his audience.
During Edwards Sermon he uses metaphor when describing God. In his sermon he states that God is a higher being who's hand is holding us, the sinners, above the fiery pits of hell. He also states it is only God's pleasure that we are not falling into the fire and brimstone tht is hell, Edwards then goes on to compare God's wrath to swirling waters ready to devour sinners in its fiery floods. So strong that even the strongest devil would be no match against the flood that is God's wrath. The comparison shows that God …show more content…

He describes heaven as a magnificently holy place filled with love, celebration, and all the holy Puritans who worked, endured, and face the challenges that came to fully embracing God. On the other hand Edwards goes on to explain how pitiful it would be for the sinners to miss out on the glorious celebrations up in heaven and spend the rest of eternity in the fiery vortex of pain and suffering that is hell. All because they did not repent their misdeeds while refusing to follow the holy ways of God. This form of persuasion is meant to strike fear into the Puritans hearts because this means that there is a great possibility that each individual is not worthy of God's love and that they will miss out on the glorious reservation in heaven because they are not good enough for God's

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