Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God Analysis

In his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Jonathan Edwards describes a wrathful God who detests the humans he created. Edwards uses fear, imagery, faulty logic and his own authority to sway listeners to follow his word. The image selected presents a blend of both the setting of the sermon and much of the imagery used within it. The image effectively draws out this imagery and portrays the sermon with both vibrance and tension. The audience, as depicted in the image, is composed of puritan congregation members who attended the sermon. The audience of the image itself is the peers of the artist. The mood and tone of the image appear to be severe, miserable, and tense. This can be seen in the image with the storm clouds, fire, flood,

The crying churchgoers is one of the appeals to emotion used in the image. This conveys the fear they feel from God, which Edwards preys on in his sermon. The fire and flood just below their feet is another appeal to pathos. In the sermon, Edwards makes the point that God is the only thing that can prevent you from suffering. He also makes the point that everyone in the audience is guilty, corrupt, and wicked. For this reason, each of the congregation members is touched by the fire. Edwards, however, has no fire or flood below him. This plays into ethos. In the sermon, Edwards establishes ethos by using second person and, as a result, separating himself from his audience. This gives the impression that he is set apart from the sinners he is addressing. In the image, his ethos is depicted in multiple ways. One of these is thought the flood and fire. As mentioned above, the flooding and fire rest at the feet of everyone in the church—except the preacher. He instead stands slightly above the congregation, and appears to be standing on the hand of God. Additionally, he is made larger than everyone else in the room. All of these seem to represent the idea that Edwards is better and loftier that the people he is addressing, which effectively establishes his ethos. The logos is represented through the quotes on the pews. In his sermon, Edwards establishes a logical appeal by stating the sins that the audience must have committed, and explaining that because they are such wicked, sinful creatures, God must hate them, and as such is required to punish them. The image uses the quotes from the sermon to illustrate