ipl-logo

Edwards Use Of Imagery In The Death Of Jonathan Edwards

1152 Words5 Pages

Edwards uses strong imagery to explicate an ominous tone through his preaching. The frightening tone that the speaker has set is portrayed by his use of harsh words. In the beginning Edwards states, “Their foot shall slide in due time...God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go.” In this short warning the speaker is telling the audience that humans are sooner or later going to go to hell. Humans are utterly corrupted and sinful and they are always going to be tempted to commit sin, during that time God will not save them. His use of harsh words is creating fright in the listener's mind. The image of out-of-control sliding motion is inevitable. Edwards preaches in an unfriendly tone to convey his listeners …show more content…

God has shown to be forgiving as he stops himself from harming the humans. In Edwards words, “The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads, and it is nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy, and God’s will, that holds it back”. Sinners are on the edge of destruction but God showers his mercies upon them by holding back. God is giving a ray of opportunity by showing his forgiving nature as he has not let them fall into the fire of hell. God is much greater than the sinners and is ready to forgive. Edwards illustrates that God can be considerate, if human have a true repentance of their sins. According to Edwards the only bridge between sinner and hell is God’s considering nature, “The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string...but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood”. Humans still have time to save themselves by seeking forgiveness by integrating God in their lives. Edwards scares his congregation, but at the same time wants them to repent their sins by attending church and believe in his considerate nature. God’s compassionate nature represents him to be merciful. Towards the closing of the sermon, Edwards states, “And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners”. God is calling for action by leaving the door of heaven open for a short time. True repentance of sins can help achieve

Show More
Related
242 Words | 1 Pages

Edwards begins his speech by emphasizing on how people in the audience have drifted away from God and how angry God is at most of them . He uses the personification ‘’their damnation does not slumber.., the furnace is now hot and ready to receive them” to create a feeling of fear in the audience by warning them that God will condemn them to hell. His main purpose is to instill fear

Read More
303 Words | 2 Pages

Edwards uses diction, a writer’s choice of precise words, throughout his sermon to convey fear to his listeners. Edwards presage the listeners to take hold of the terrible risk they are getting themselves

Read More
1079 Words | 5 Pages

By alluding to Heaven and Hell, Edwards hoped to contrast the two with the idea of fear and hope. However, Edwards goal was not to completely defeat the hope of the people, because at the end of the sermon he brings a lighter approach. He ensures them that as long as they accept the help of God they will be successful. Human limitations can only be surpassed when one comes to reality and begins to listen to God. Once one understands the power of God, they will learn that without him it is impossible to escape Hell

Read More
1000 Words | 4 Pages

The most important feature of a sermon is the application of a scripture text to the personal experience of the listener. Especially this last part is what reduced many of Edwards’s listeners to tears. In Edwards’s sermon the scripture text is “Their foot shall slide in due time”. This meant that eventually, all sinners would be punished by God, which could be at any time. Edwards speaks of a wrathfull God, a God who by Puritan standards is considered forgiving for not letting all of humanity fall into the deepest pits of hell.

Read More
683 Words | 3 Pages

Death is always associated with the occurrences of wars. No matter what, there is no escaping the fact that people will die in battle. Throughout the book The Things They Carried there are scenes of extreme violence, and heart crushing deaths. Witnessing someone you know being killed, or even killing someone you do not know is very traumatizing to a person and their life, but it's war and that is just how it is. Tim O’Brien uses many examples from the war for his story to emphasise the theme of Death, and violence and that no matter what it is no one's fault, and everyone fault.

Read More
643 Words | 3 Pages

In this sermon, Edward addresses that God holds the colonists over the Pit of Hell (Line 1). Specifically, Edwards states that God thinks that the colonists are not worthy of anything better than h = Hell. Despite this, Edwards then addresses the people by saying that God has taken pity on them.

Read More
337 Words | 2 Pages

“...You shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels…,” Jonathan Edwards wrote in his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” This quote shows pathos, a tool he used to stir up emotion to show that if you’re a sinner God will come for. Edward also shows many other tools as he tries to convince others to exit the sinner life into the Puritan Life. Edward uses ethos when he says, “The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present.”

Read More
1763 Words | 8 Pages

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

Read More
565 Words | 3 Pages

Invoking fear is Edwards most successful tactics in this piece. He depicts God as an angry being who will cast everyone into the pits of Hell whenever he pleases. One of the most powerful invocations is, “They are already under a sentence of condemnation to Hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentences of the law of God.. is gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are

Read More
726 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
1253 Words | 6 Pages

It was during the Great Awakening, when powerful preachers like Jonathan Edwards decided to intensify their ways of broadcasting their religious seriousness. The idea of secularism and religious neglect had been the cause for this religious movement. In his sermon, from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Edwards used strategies to guilt, persuade, and redirect the “sinners” into conversion, and to give a wakeup call to those who overemphasize their own worthiness as holy citizens. Throughout his sermon, Edwards used a variety of figurative language like imagery, metaphors, personification, and allusions to reveal his attitude towards “sinners” as unworthy and insignificant in the eyes of God, and his attitude towards God as being enraged

Read More
817 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
864 Words | 4 Pages

This pathos appeal helps Edwards persuade the unconverted because they would not want to be left behind. He also illuminates that “God has so many different unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world and sending them to hell” (Edwards 41). Edwards discusses the interminably amount of diverse means that God could damn the unconverted to try getting the argument across that they will not comprehend death approaching and it could be at any moment. Another use of pathos in “Sinners” is when Edwards describes to the unconverted that “the wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber” (Edwards 41).

Read More
404 Words | 2 Pages

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.

Read More
928 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

More about Edwards Use Of Imagery In The Death Of Jonathan Edwards

Related Topics

Open Document