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Rhetorical Analysis Of God By Jonathan Edwards

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Jonathan Edwards depicts God as a wrathful, harsh and aggressive deity. His sermon emphasizes on the importance of salvation and remorse. Reflecting Puritan ideals, he expresses Gods vision of humans. How people are instinctive sinners and God is the only one able to determine those worthy of salvation. His stated principles construe the main pillar of their religion, predestination. How Puritans were required to follow a certain lifestyle, they were enforced to adopt the divine law and live according to it. Any alteration to this system meant the parting of their chance of salvation. Edwards continually makes allusions about Gods wrath, this is used as tool to instill fear on its audience. Consequently he believed fear was an imperative tool …show more content…

In the opening of the sermon an analogy is stated between the ability of a person to crush a worm with the ability of God to cast his enemies to hell (First Paragraph). This supports the main idea of how God is a superior being, able to freely decide people’s fate. The author’s persistent imagery of Gods abhorrence towards sinners is continually mentioned as a form of repetition, to cause a vivid depiction of Gods wrath in the audience’s perspective of him. This is illustrated when it’s stated how unconverted men walk over the pit of hell and how God has unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world (Paragraph 3). He also introduces a metaphor where he associates Gods wrath as a bent bow with an arrow aiming towards your heart; this again typifies Gods supremacy to take away sinners existence unless they convert (Paragraph 6). Edwards also implements the rhetorical question, “who knows the power of Gods anger?” this presents the question of who will suffer the eternal dreadful misery. The answer of who is able to escape his anger is the ones who repent and are born again. The whole sermon is an entire repetitive restatement exemplifying Gods mighty wrath and our only chance of salvation is to be reborn, to develop a more personal intimate relationship with God. An only this way he pardons our sins and allows us to exult in his

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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 '.

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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.

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The Puritans were a religious group who believed in total depravity and an unconditional election. This meant that mankind was solely dependent on God for salvation, and believed that there was absolutely no good within the world except through Him. Those who were of “the chosen people” were predestined to go to heaven and only had a glimpse of their faith through God’s signs and wonders. Jonathan Edwards, however, struggled with this idea. Throughout his childhood, he could not perceive how a loving and just God could send only a certain select to Heaven and the rest to Hell.

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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.

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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

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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.

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Puritan beliefs and values can be reflected in many different ways, depending on the author. Jonathan Edwards speaks about his beliefs in “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God”, in a very negative way. He says, “thus easy is it for God when he pleases to cast his enemies down to Hell” (Edwards 153). Jonathan Edwards sees it as if whenever God wanted, He could send someone who displeases Him down to Hell at anytime. He thinks that God has no pity for anyone who sins against the beliefs.

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In “Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God,” Jonathan Edwards uses emotional appeal to get to his congregation on his feelings of their sins. His sermon uses a lot of repetition and biblical logic in order to prove his beliefs and opinions of his congregation. This essay will be an analyzation of his sermon and how puritans felt about church. Edwards used his words to embed fear into his congregation 's hearts. His sermon would cause people to break down both mentally and physically.

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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.

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"The God that holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you..." God's hate is compared for how one might hate a spider, and as a spider is disposed of harshly, so is a sinners. In a spider's place in a human household, one is justified in being afraid, Fear is the most prevalent appeal throughout the sermon. "O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in!" Edwards fear to be a motivator in converting to Puritanism.

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Puritans have shown that more often than not, they have the same philosophy regarding their religious views and moral values, but often tend to express them in different ways. Anne Bradstreet wrote a poem, “Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10, 1666.” Her poem was about a personal experience where, although she had lost everything, including her home, she came to the realization that everything she had, came from God, all she had to do was to leave her troubles and worries in his hands. Jonathan Edwards wrote a sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. In this sermon, Jonathan voices his belief in a strongly way stating how people should conform to his idea of a Puritan lifestyle, otherwise the consequences of not being one would be Hell.

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This is another instance that he uses logos to show common sense by saying that we do not deserve God’s forgiveness, but we have received it, and the unconverted could not care less. Ethos, pathos, and logos: from ancient times and still being used now due to their relevancy and accomplishments. Jonathan Edwards uses all three of these appeals in “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” to get his point across and to persuade the unconverted to turn o Jesus Christ. When truly analyzing this sermon

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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.

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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.

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