Jonathan Edward
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
Jonathan Edwards’s sermons were addressed during a time of spiritual restoration, the Great Awakening. During his sermons, Edwards uses a selection of persuasive methods, containing descriptive images and simple metaphors to influence sinners to repent. Edwards used many images to convey the power of God to the people because many of the people he preached to were illiterate and couldn’t understand complex words.
One of the imageries that Edwards uses to make people turn away from their sinful nature is the comparison of God’s wrath to “great waters,” which after being continually contained, rise up and have the potential of destroying the people with a great fury; that is, if God chooses to open the floodgate. Another particularly striking image compares God’s wrath to a “bow” that is bent, with the arrow ready to pierce the heart of the sinner. The people, whose lives were simple, had a respect for the land and the water, including its potentially violent nature, because they lived off the land. Additionally, the listeners knew firsthand the tautness of a ready-to-fire bow. They knew it would take considerable strength to hold an arrow very long once it was aimed at the target. They knew all too well that a well-aimed arrow hitting its target, the heart, meant instant death.
Through the effective use of metaphors, Edwards made comparisons to peoples’ everyday lives. He preached that their state of wickedness was as “heavy as lead” and therefore, pulling them down straight toward Hell. He was quick to say that salvation could not be obtained on their “righteousness alone.” He compared their chances of getting into Heaven on their own “contrivance” to the likelihood that “a spider’s web would have to stop a fallen rock.” This analogy, like many others presented throughout his sermon, was meant to show the depth and magnitude of the peoples’ sin, and their complete dependence on the Almighty God.
Edwards presented
Jonathan Edwards’s sermons were addressed during a time of spiritual restoration, the Great Awakening. During his sermons, Edwards uses a selection of persuasive methods, containing descriptive images and simple metaphors to influence sinners to repent. Edwards used many images to convey the power of God to the people because many of the people he preached to were illiterate and couldn’t understand complex words.
One of the imageries that Edwards uses to make people turn away from their sinful nature is the comparison of God’s wrath to “great waters,” which after being continually contained, rise up and have the potential of destroying the people with a great fury; that is, if God chooses to open the floodgate. Another particularly striking image compares God’s wrath to a “bow” that is bent, with the arrow ready to pierce the heart of the sinner. The people, whose lives were simple, had a respect for the land and the water, including its potentially violent nature, because they lived off the land. Additionally, the listeners knew firsthand the tautness of a ready-to-fire bow. They knew it would take considerable strength to hold an arrow very long once it was aimed at the target. They knew all too well that a well-aimed arrow hitting its target, the heart, meant instant death.
Through the effective use of metaphors, Edwards made comparisons to peoples’ everyday lives. He preached that their state of wickedness was as “heavy as lead” and therefore, pulling them down straight toward Hell. He was quick to say that salvation could not be obtained on their “righteousness alone.” He compared their chances of getting into Heaven on their own “contrivance” to the likelihood that “a spider’s web would have to stop a fallen rock.” This analogy, like many others presented throughout his sermon, was meant to show the depth and magnitude of the peoples’ sin, and their complete dependence on the Almighty God.
Edwards presented