“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” John Edwards was a radical speaker during the The Great Awakening, who gave one of the most famous sermons, known as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” This sermon was given to provoke people to turn from secular things, and come back to God, lest they burn in hell. John Edwards uses very strong imagery, tone, and details to get his point across while frightening the congregation. John Edwards strong use of imagery ignites fear into the people to help get his point across. He starts off his sermon with, “ Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead. and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards Hell; and if God should let you go you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf…” This immediately causes a sense of fear, making it seem as if the only thing keeping the people out of hell was God’s hand.
Edwards’s language choice affects the audience's emotional response, and emotional appeal, to enhance the argument; “You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.” He uses as many terms and diction’s as possible to frighten the sinners. His selling idea is to have as many sinners as possible to repent and to his observations the most effective and ethical (ethos) way, was through fear and intimidation. He wrote the sermon with a passion and anger that partly reflected what he thought of God’s anger. He ask the audience to repent in an ethical manner, trying to reason with the sinners,
All people are born sinners. Natural men must be reborn to be saved; “…hell is waiting for them…” (Edwards 46). These views are that of Jonathan Edwards in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Edwards belonged to a religion that was lingering and was close to disappearing due to the growing numbers of Christians, so he used figurative language and imagery in order to scare people back into the Puritan way of life. “Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downward with great weight and pressure toward hell.” (Edwards 47).
He’s letting the congregation know that once you’re over hell you can’t find a way to save yourself from going in. Last example is also located in paragraph three, Edwards says to the congregation, “There is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up” (Edwards 3). He’s telling them that God is the one who decides if you go to hell or not. Jonathan Edwards uses anaphora for an affect. He’s trying to let them know that hell is a real place and they can end up there if they keep sinning so they need to be aware of what they’re doing.
Akil Hodge 9-17-10 2nd / U.S. Lit. Analysis: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God The Great Awakening was a religious movement that shocked the world and brought unbelieving people into the life of a Christian. Jonathan Edwards was a powerful, influential figure in this movement and was known for his visual sermons. His method of preaching was using fear to frighten people to convert. One of his most powerful sermons, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, used many rhetorical strategies to persuade his unsaved audience to become saved to avoid the torment of hell.
Jonathon Edwards bone chilling sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry G-d” invectively sheds light on the impending doom that awaits “all men that were never born again” in the image of Christ, thought the use of tone. To remove Edwards unnerving diction would completely transform not only the tone, but his message resulting in a much less effective sermon. Edwards begins his bloodcurdling sermon through the use of parallel structure. “The devil is waiting for them, the flames gather and flash about them…” implies that the time of reckoning is upon them and could strike at any moment. The omen already set forth creates an atmosphere that they, the “natural men” should be trembling in their seats just at the mere mention of G-ds wrath.
Edwards negated the fact that salvation could be attained through good works, emphasizing that the only way to salvation was depending on God’s grace. In his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he vividly describes the tortures of hell. While describing hell, he said, “It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath that you are held over in the hand of that God whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell”(handout). Edwards had a very strict preaching style, but it was his vivid imagery of hell that inspired many people to work their hardest to reach salvation. Several years after Edwards began preaching, George Whitefield started a different style of evangelical preaching.
Garrett Hall Ms. Roberts English 3 Honors February 1, 2013 Imagery in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God Jonathan Edwards uses fear as his motivation in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by using gruesome imagery to elicit his audience to be born again. Edwards gives his audience two choices, God and to be reborn again or death and hell to follow. This feeling of hopelessness makes his audience scared of their choices, if they in fact do choose the wrong thing. In the excerpt, Edwards states “Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downward with great weight and pressure toward hell; and if god should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a fallen rock (Edwards 47)”. This is a metaphor to vividly depict the overall weakness and meagerness of humans.
The metaphor is : "Consider the fearful danger you are in ; it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath". The allusion is : "That you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. Question 3:What specific words (minimum of three) does he choose to make his
Compare and Contrast Essay In the short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” Mr. Hooper states, ‘... this veil is a type and a symbol...’and he also says, ‘and if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?’. In the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” it says that “There is the dreadful Pit of the glowing Flames of the Wrath of God; there is Hell’s wide gaping Mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, not any Thing to take hold of: there is nothing between you and Hell but the Air…”. Both Jonathan Edwards in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Nathaniel Hawthorne in his short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” deal with how sins affect you in life by using imagery, descriptive language, and symbols, but they do so in different ways. In Jonathan Edwards sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, He uses imagery and descriptive and fierce language to explain the effects of sin. Edwards uses a stricter and more straight up approach at speaking to his audience.