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Rhetorical Analysis Of Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God

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“Persuasion is often more effectual than force” – Aesop. The word persuasion is defined as the act of convincing the listener to think or act in a particular way, or attempting to inspire or challenge opinions or views. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards is a sermon that was formed using persuasion as its biggest tool. This sermon, or religious speech, describes the tragedies that will happen to sinners, from depicting an angry God to the horrors of an afterlife spent in Hell. After listening to the six hour oratory, many people were said to have been horrified and even released screams at the text being recited to them. Jonathan Edward’s use of vivid imagery, personification, and logical thinking based on his audience …show more content…

Take, for example, Edward’s relation between the wrath and a bow and arrow; again mentioning that it is only held back by God’s pleasure and can be released at any time, conveying to the listener that they can be struck at any time if they continue on the sinful path they are on. Another example is his comparison between great rivers behind a flood gate and God’s wrath; this paints an image in the listener’s mind of the amount of power that can build against someone due to the continuation of sin. “If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth….” These pictures that are painted throughout the sermon allow the powerful forces at hand to have a visual image to better relay how terrifying God’s wrath can be towards sinners. Words don’t always make a difference, but a picture can make the words have a reality to …show more content…

First, he builds the point that all sin builds up against you and the wrath related with that can be released at any time which is a completely logical point based on an audience who both believe in God and Hell. Next, he points out that you will suffer in front of the inhabitants of Heaven, and this particular audience would never want to be humiliated in front of such an esteemed group. Last, he compares sinners to those who have achieved salvation by mentioning how the saved will be feasting while the sinners will be suffering. “To see so many others feasting, while you are pining and perishing!” These people, like any others, would prefer to be among the better people. These logical points continue based upon the audience to further gain their belief in a better

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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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“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is a sermon written by Jonathan Edwards about God. For most people back in the 1700’s, their whole life revolved around God. Edwards thought that the people just needed a wake up call to remind them of the consequences of acting against God. He pretty much said in his sermon that if we don't turn back to God, we’re going to hell, which definitely got many people’s attention. In "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Edwards uses several rhetorical devices and appeals that contribute to the effectiveness of his sermon and help achieve his purpose.

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In order to emphasize God’s contempt for the audience, Jonathan Edwards utilizes inflammatory diction and comparisons of God’s anger to a bow and arrow and “black clouds” to instill fear in the audience so that they will accept God as their savior, provoking a religious revival. Throughout the sermon, Edwards utilizes “fiery” phrases such as “furnace of wrath”, “wrath…burns like fire”, and “glowing flames of the wrath of God” in order to establish a connection between God’s fury and a burning fire, reaffirming the reality of going to hell, as hell is commonly associated with fire. Because fires are also very devastating and unpredictable, Edwards emphasizes the power and degree of God’s disdain and his ability to cause drastic change at unexpected times, making God’s patience seem fragile.

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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.

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Impression means the first and immediate effect of an experience or perception upon the mind; sensation. There are impressionistic paintings and impressionistic music. As for orators their ideas are their canvases, their language is their paint brush and their wordings are their colors that orators combine them together to paint elaborate paintings, the painting of speaking. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741) is a topical sermon which was wrote by Jonathan Edwards in the Great Awakening. Edwards wants to use the sermon to awaken his audience that they should dedicate their lives to God.

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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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Jonathan Edwards argues to the sinning members of the congregation who have not yet accepted Christ that God’s penalties for their iniquities and lack of faith are ineludible to any mortal, and that no attempt to overthrow Him exists that is capable enough. To deliver his point to his audience, Edwards employs multiple rhetorical devices such as simile, polysyndeton, imagery, metaphor, and hyperbole. A simile is present at the beginning of his speech, when he tells the sinners that their “wickedness make[s] [them] as it were heavy as lead.” This connection magnifies how sin poisons one’s soul and causes them to sink into the depths of Hell.

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Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was a sermon given by Johnathan Edwards; a Puritan preacher famous for his emotional sermons. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was a fiery sermon given on July 8, 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut. Edwards wrote this sermon to tell his following to repent their sins, turn towards God, and ask for forgiveness. His method of conveying his message; Fear. Edwards refers multiple times in his sermon of a fiery hell and the wrath of God.

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Oh, my cursed foolishness!”, and “The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present…” In fact, the word “wrath” is repeated an astonishing 51 times in the sermon. Another word repeated throughout the sermon is “restraint”. For example, “By the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty…” and “God restrains their wickedness by his mighty power, as he does the raging waves of the troubled sea…” By repeating the word, Edwards convinces the audience how perilous their situation is that they convert while God is still showing “restraint” so they do not experience the wrath of

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Rhetorical Analysis "Fear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald of all resolutions. "- Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” was a sermon written and delivered by American reverend Jonathan Edwards in 1741, and was an outstanding example of the potentially dominant convincing powers of the use of Rhetoric. The sermon, even when read silently, is effective in projecting a specific interpretation of the wrathful nature of God and the sinful nature of man.

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Langston Hughes used rhetoric words in his story “Salvation,” to provide foreshadows, and emotional appeals to his struggles in becoming religiously saved. Hughes began his story by stating “I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen (179).” The irony in this opening is that Hughes initially believed in the presence of Jesus, but unexpected pressures pushed him to betray and deceive his faith. The setting of Hughes struggles took place in a religious ceremony in his Auntie Reed’s church. In this service, many young children like Hughes were gathered to be spiritually cleansed by the light of Jesus.

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Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The sermon starts off with a threat, and ends in a line of thought for those who are not converted so, I believe that the purpose of this sermon was to convert people. The persuade people to be a puritan, to scare them into being a follower of “God”. “Men’s hands cannot be strong when God rises up: the strongest have no power to resist Him, nor can any deliver out of His hands.”

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He also describes the plights of those who didn't listen to their fear of God, but lived otherwise unobjectionable lives. The audience is meant to feel sympathy for them. "What would not these poor damned hopeless souls give for one day's opportunity such as you know enjoy!" The audience is meant to want to convert for themselves, but also their lost loved ones who did not get the same chance. Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" argues that everyone was out of God's favor and they needed to return to a righteous path.

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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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