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Metaphors In The Great Awakening

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Jonathan Edwards was a descendant of Puritan priests. He had an impact in the times of The Great Awakening. The Great awakening was a religious reaction to the enlightenment. The awakening was not completely going against the Puritan religion but rather trying to join the ideas of the enlightenment and religion itself into harmony (Lecture, Week 4). This was difficult as the enlightenment caused people to question their religion, which was unusual in the Puritan community. Jonathan Edwards uses his metaphors and descriptive imagery of hell and the devil to warn people about the consequences that occur when going against God. The enlightenment’s prime causes were people beginning to care a lot about wealth and forgetting the importance of God …show more content…

Edwards’ constantly reminds the reader that every person has the ability to save themselves from sinning and going against God. The intention of this sermon is make people want to save themselves and see that second-guessing their religion can result in an undesirable after life. His main intention was to bring back the non-believers and to be the one to save the Puritan religion. As it is mentioned in lecture, the theme of this sermon is going against self-indulgence (Lecture, Week 4). This self-indulgence was brought on by the enlightenment itself as it caused people to focus on different aspects of their lives besides religion. This aspect was most often wealth. Science was becoming overbearing to religion. Politics too became very important to the community in the times of the enlightenment and that too was a distraction from religion. Puritan anxieties, which is shown in Edwards sermon, was that materialism and individualism was a progressing concept (Lecture, Week 4). Edwards is not completely against the idea of enlightenment. The idea of individuality was not a negative one. He uses this to show people that individualism is accepted when it comes to having religious emotions. People’s individual emotions to the Puritan religion were to be intensified and deep, something that could only be achieved and felt differently by every single

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