Another metaphor in the sermon is, “The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given, and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose… the waters are continually rising and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back that are unwilling to be stopped…” (Bedford 352). The whole point of what he is saying in this quote is just to stress the importance that only God’s grace can keep people from a loss from hate. The losses can include things like floods and burning flames. This quote talks about how the waves of water keep getting …show more content…
That one man thing is to scare people so badly, to make them want to turn into Christians and accept God as their one and only Jesus Christ and Savior. Edwards did scare many people with all the things he mentioned about hell and the devil. No one wants to even think about being thrown into a pit of fire and being burned to death with the devil, Satan. Everyone thinks of going to heaven, where there are gates of pearls and angels. Edwards preaching of his sermon was a persuasive tactic. There are many basic and major tenets of Christianity that were emphasized in Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” He used a lot of terms and concept throughout the whole entire sermon. The term “monotheistic”, which means a belief that there is only one God is used throughout the sermon. Monotheistic exists in three beings. Edwards’ also used the concepts of omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent throughout the whole entire sermon. Omnipotent means one can do anything. Omniscient means one knows everything. Omnipresent means one is everywhere. Edwards’ also emphasizes the miracle of the “Virgin” birth, sacrifice/crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and God. He mentions a lot about how there is the existence of an afterlife. He basically says that after you die, you either are going to hell or heaven. The belief in salvation
At the very beginning of the sermon, Edwards explains, “there is nothing between you and Hell but the air; it is only the mere pleasure of G-d that holds you up.” Edwards personifies power to make a point that G-d is above everyone, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. This is the opening to the sermon, where the audience feels their inferiority to G-d right away, realizing that G-d is the only form of salvation they cam possibly receive. Additionally, “if your strength were ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in Hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.” This time, Edwards personifies strength in relation to Hell, working up his audience mid-way through the sermon to get them to fight back against their guilt and petty attempts at ‘spirituality’; and therefore be in G0d’s good graces.
Jonathan Edwards version of God was very aggressive and unforgiving. Insult after continuing insult, this does not seem like the Jesus Christ with the wonderful forgiving spirit. With the words, “God hates you,” repeated multiple times throughout the sermon, it is truly hypocritical that the God described as forgiving and loving of all would say “I hate you,” every five minutes. I personally feel like this is not the way God would like to be described, and that God would much rather liked to be showed as a forging and gentle spirit.
Furthermore, Edwards uses personification in his passage when he mentions how creation groans and nature experiences agony in the way that a human
In Edwards’ eyes, God’s hands are tied by the choices these men have made, but what about redemption? Can man no longer right his wrong? He says that this is “no want of {the} power of God.” Yet, According to Edwards God’s out to “destroy them.” I believe this is Edwards’ opinion on how God handles the wicked.
Edwards says, “God has so many different unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world and sending them to hell, that there is nothing to make it appear, that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or go out of the ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man, at any moment….” (126). He makes it seem like God can take you out at any moment and send you to hell without another thought about it. This shows how intense he is and how he makes people fear God more than want to follow him. Bradstreet and Edwards have different views,
It is explained that God is the only one who is able to save people from going to Hell. Edwards wants people to imagine how evil and distressed life would be without Gods love and mercy. He explains that to not burn in Hell people need to ask for forgiveness from God, experience Gods mercy, and continuously practice the Lords word. Edwards really lets the message of “Gods wrath” sink into our minds to show how mighty, powerful, and capable the Lord is. The Lord gives us many opportunities to rely on Him and when we need his love and mercy the most.
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.
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.
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 1741, Jonathan Edwards delivered a sermon called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” to a congregation in Enfield, Connecticut. This sermon was so influential and poignant that today it has transformed into a piece of literature that many study in classes. This bit of literature is so utterly jam-packed with the use of rhetorical appeals, often referred to as ethos, pathos, and logos. These three appeals are derived from ancient Greece, or more precisely, the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Ethos appeals to the audience’s sense of trust, pathos, to their sense of emotion, and logos, to their sense of logic.
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.
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.
“The wrath of God is like great waters that are damned from the present; they increase; more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is give; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty its course, when once it is let loose." In this quotation, Edwards uses
Edwards wants us to know that when we don’t listen to God and turned away from and when we follow the Satan’s ways, we will go to Hell. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Johnathan Edwards, wants us to imagine Hell and what the consequences are. Edwards wants us to know that men who are sinners are more likely to go to Hell, and to consider the danger that we are