It is 1741. The Enlightenment is spreading worldwide. The puritan people are leaving God. Johnathan Edwards gives a sermon on July 8th , 1741, trying to convince his fellow Puritan people to come back to God. He is going to try and accomplish this by giving his famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God '. He plys many different rhetorical strategies to convince his listeners to follow his word. He uses strategies including, repetition, appeal to fear, appeal to urgency and problem solution.
Johnathan Edwards uses many rhetorical strategies in "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". He uses repetition throughout the sermon. The main idea that he repeats is that if you do not love and believe in God, then you are going to hell. Edwards
The sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards is best represented by picture 16. Not only does this picture show rhetorical aspects of the sermon accurately, but it also is neat, symbolic, and intriguing. The picture is very easy to interpret and has everything required; therefore, picture 16 is the best. Picture 16 best represents all rhetorical parts of the speech. These parts include ethos, pathos, logos, mood, tone, and more.
Starting in the 1730s, a movement formally known as the Great Awakening was born. This marked the beginning of a religious and spiritual revival that was a direct response to Enlightenment ideals which highlighted logic instead of spirituality. A leader in this movement was Jonathan Edwards; a theologian that delivered one of the most influential sermons of its time; a sermon titled Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God. In this sermon, Edwards employed the use of cherry picking from a credible source and the use of a threatening tone to convey his message - that one would be saved from the wrathful judgment of God if they obediently followed the Bible and its teachings.
If you were to ask someone why is it that they stop at a red light, they’re response would most likely be “I don’t want to break the law and go to jail.” The reality is that we must obey the law not because of the fear of going to jail, but to create order in preventing a harmful outcome. Our government instills fear in our society to follow the law because that is the most effective way to dominate our behavior. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry G-d”, delivered by Jonathan Edwards, a strict Puritan priest, is remembered as the most famous sermon ever preached on American soil. Today it appears in almost every anthology American Literature and stands alone as the only sermon included.
Jonathan Edwards uses several types of writing skills to persuade his audience of God’s intentions. His use of figurative language, analogies, imagery, and repetition all emphasize Edwards’s views. He uses fear, anger, and apathy to appeal to the audience in attempt to warn his audience of God’s intentions. Jonathan Edwards uses fear in this sermon to terrorize his audience into thinking of God as someone to be feared, not someone to be loved. Throughout the sermon, Edwards uses figurative language along with imagery to frighten the audience.
God Gives Us Free Will Jonathan Edwards preaches that if people follow God and obey him they will experience his great mercy. “Sinners in The Hands of an Angry God,” he explains this concept in his sermon. Most people back in 1741 and to this day would be persuaded by his sermon about the Lord because of how passionately and strongly he spoke about his beliefs’. In this sermon Edwards refers to Gods everlasting wrath. He describes Gods anger towards those who do not follow and believe in Him.
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.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, is a Puritan sermon from the eighteenth century during the Great Awakening. During this time, Puritans had strayed from the church due to the church’s strict guidelines and regulations and begun to embrace more secular thought. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, was written to motivate people to join the newly refined church that embraced these secular thoughts. Jonathan Edwards uses rhetorical devices throughout his sermon to show God’s wrath on sinners and to instill the fear of God in Puritans. Jonathan Edward’s was a well respected clergyman of eighteenth century New England.
One of his well-known sermon is “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached at the meeting house in the village of Enfield, Connecticut, on Sunday, July 8, 1741, at the height of the great awakening. In this sermon, Edwards focused on the consequences of leading a sinful life, the power of God and repenting of ones sins, in order to be saved from hell. The purpose behind this piece of writing was not to terrorize or dismay the hearers, but to make them repent and believe in God again. This piece was aimed at those who lacked belief in God as well as churches.
The majority of this sermon is dedicated to the audience whom Edwards views with repulsion. He uses imagery to describe the awful Hell that he believes the people in the congregation will end up in and calls it a “great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath” (Paragraph 8). He illustrates the never ending state of Hell in order to frighten everyone in the audience. He sees each and every person as damned and honestly believes they deserve be sent to Hell to burn for all eternity. He feels no sympathy for them because they are completely free to do what they want and he knows that what they do with their free will is commit sin.
During this time, writers and speakers had a huge impact on the developing and impressionable Colonies. Jonathan Edwards was one such man. In writing the sermon ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’, he gave fuel to the revivalist movement. He played a significant role in shaping the beliefs of the time. Jonathan Edwards believed that one was to be responsible for his or her actions.
Jonathan Edwards’s sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Anne Bradstreet’s “Upon the Burning of Our House” seem at first glance quite similar to one another regarding context, however, after taking a closer look, it becomes apparent that there are some substantial differences. These differences cannot be understood without the knowledge of cultural context concerning the Puritan belief system and their lifestyle. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was written with the sole purpose of scaring and intimidating the people that purtinans believed to be sinners. Edwards’s work contributed to a movement called “The Great Awakening”. It’s objective was to make the so-called ‘sinners’ aware of their wrongdoings and compel them to repent.
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
At this point Edwards has grasped the attention of his listeners by using pathos to pertain to their emotions and feelings. Towards the end of the sermon his tone switches to one of reason in terms of not neglecting his words. He asks a series of rhetorical questions such as those who are unconverted and do not teach their children of Christ that they too will have to witness the wrath of God. As for literary devices such as metaphors, similes, and allegories, Edwards does not disappoint for his use of them most likely whipped a lot of Puritans back into their faith.
Jonathan Edwards, a preacher, wrote the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". In the sermon, Edwards argues that everyone was out of God's favor and they needed to return to a righteous path. The tone of the sermon is indignant and authoritative. Jonathan Edwards uses imagery, logos, and pathos to encourage the unconverted audience to turn to God in order to escape his wrath. Elemental imagery is used in the sermon to inspire fear in the audience.
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.