Rhetorical Analysis Of God By Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards achieves the tone of his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by using imagery. Edwards explains to his audience that unless they find salvation, God is the only one keeping them out of “the pit.” He succeeds in making his audience want to find salvation by planting images in their heads such as, “the bow of God’s wrath is bent, and injustice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow.” By saying this to the audience, he has strengthened the fear of God that is already prevalent in the Puritan religion. God’s disappointment in humans is expressed when he says, “you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.”

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.

Edwards uses repetition to remind his audience the consequences they will have to deal with because of the sinful nature they live in. He repeats over and over again that they will have to go to hell, he tells his audience that “they have no refuge, nothing

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 '.

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.

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.

One of his well-known sermon is “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached at the meeting house in the village of Enfield, Connecticut, on Sunday, July 8, 1741, at the height of the great awakening. In this sermon, Edwards focused on the consequences of leading a sinful life, the power of God and repenting of ones sins, in order to be saved from hell. The purpose behind this piece of writing was not to terrorize or dismay the hearers, but to make them repent and believe in God again. This piece was aimed at those who lacked belief in God as well as churches.

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.

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.

Analytical Response Paper – “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards Thesis: Jonathan Edwards, the sermon ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” states that God continuously saves us from our sins. Summary: Edwards starts the sermon describing a picture of hell, and how God continuously saves us from hell. Edwards wants to warn people of the reality of hell, and the fact the God constantly gives humankind chances instead of letting them burn in hell.

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

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.

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.

"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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